YOUR Social Media Strategy

Thus far, we have discussed some fairly technical aspects for you to draw on in order to optimize and enhance your YouTube channel.  It is incredibly important for you to target and maintain a specific audience and employ optimization tools. If you haven’t seen my last two posts detailing these subjects, be sure to check them out! Today, I am going to discuss how to use social media strategies outside of YouTube to further grow a YouTube channel.

How can you best integrate your YouTube channel with social media platforms?  You need to ask yourself what platforms are relevant and authentic to your brand. 

Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google+ and blog sites can all be used to help promote your YouTube channel.  When used correctly, you can further connect your audience to your brand by seamlessly integrating various aspects of your channel on these platforms.  Furthermore, a potential audience member may not currently be on YouTube but if he or she finds you on a platform such as Twitter, it is likely they will check out your channel. 

Do you have a cooking channel? A blog site where you post pictures of your creations and embed your YouTube videos might be most effective.  Do you have a funny Vlog channel? A Twitter account with your quirky one-liners might be the most relevant choice. Sometimes, it may even be applicable to utilize all different types of platforms. 

Case Study: SarahFit

Sarah Dussault of SarahFit has a fitness related YouTube channel.  Sarah uses a blog, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to spread her brand message.  To begin, Sarah has a blog with 133,000+ subscribers that she operates as a supplement to her channel to write about fitness and lifestyle. 

Sarah also has a Facebook with 17,000+ "fans" that she uses to actively post updates about new YouTube videos and blog posts. 

She also employs a Twitter account with 23,000+ followers to promote videos, discuss fitness and interact with her audience. 

Sarah even uses Instagram with 12,000+ followers to give her fans a more personal look at her life. She often posts photographs of what she is doing and what she is eating.

Sarah impeccably incorporates all major social media platforms as a way to promote her YouTube channel and expand her audience.  What social media platform will best fit your brand?

Interview with Partnerships Coordinator, Madeline Motamednia:

I sat down and had a candid conversation with Madeline Motamednia about integrating social media with YouTube. Madeline is the partnerships coordinator for Kin Community, a YouTube multi-channel network. 

Q. What is the most important thing a YouTube channel can do off of YouTube to grow the channel? 

A. YouTube channels should make sure that they have given their followers an opportunity to interact with them on multiple social media outlets (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Websites etc). These outlets should be referenced on the homepage of their YouTube channel in clickable icons.  Also, the links to these outlets should be included in the description of every video that is released. YouTube channels should make it as simple as possible for their viewers to interact with them both on and off of the YouTube platform. 

Q. What do you think is the most important social media outlet for a YouTube channel to engage with? 

A. The platform that currently seems to work the best for YouTube is Twitter. Twitter allows users to decide just how much they want to share with their audience. It also allows the account owner to easily re-tweet and comment back to questions that have been asked of them. This is a very powerful tool as YouTube channels can also reach out to other brands by tweeting at them.  Many people will tweet to brands that they like and those brands will send the YouTube channel product that they can feature in giveaways for their viewers. 

Q. Should a YouTube channel post their videos on outlets other than just YouTube? If so, where? 

A. If a YouTube channel has a blog, they should embed their videos in a blog post. Often times, and especially with lifestyle channels, talent will find that their YouTube audience differs from their blog audience. Embedding a video in a blog will garner traffic from viewers who are a fan of the talent but do not understand the YouTube space. Audiences, ages 13-17, tend to make YouTube a part of their daily activities, while older audiences are more likely to search for content on websites and blogs. 

Q.  What advice do you have to make a channel's brand cohesive on all different outlets including YouTube? 

A. The most important thing to do when you develop your brand is to be consistent. Brands must think about their viewers every time they post something. If a post seems fake or inconsistent viewers will fire back.  This often happens when brands take advertising deals that may offer pleasing profit but are not a perfect brand fit. If a talent claims to be vegan, they should never accept an advertising deal that goes against those values. Making a decision that is inconsistent with one’s brand can result in a huge loss in video views and subscribers. 

Q. What is a channel you like that does all of these things well? 

A. A channel that has a cohesive brand is GossMakeupArtist. Wayne Goss is a talented makeup artist who uses his skills and expertise to deliver honest reviews and.simple tutorials. Based on viewer comments, it is clear that Goss' viewers not only respect him and his craft, but also know that they can trust his claims. Unlike many other "makeup guru's" on the platform, Goss has made it exceedingly clear that he will never support a beauty brand for financial gain. Goss also has a Twitter following of over 80 thousand people and a Vlog channel that gives viewers a look into his personal life.  

Q. Is there anything else important you would like to add about growing a YouTube channel through social media strategy? 

A. It is important to remember that growing a YouTube channel takes time! It is incredibly rare to have overnight success. Growth will happen if the commitment and talent is in place. Also, YouTube is an entirely different space than television! Brands that have experienced success on TV will have to change their strategy to reflect the YouTube audience's wants and needs. 

Tracking YOUR Effectiveness

There is no doubt that using all of these different platforms can add an additional two to six hours of extra work a week.  It may be frustrating to constantly update different social media platforms without knowing if they are actually driving traffic to your channel.  One way to cut down on uncertainty is to use Bitly links to track where your audience is coming from.  Creating and tracking Bitly links to track channel traffic is fairly simple.   

1^st Choose a video that you want to promote on a social media site such as Twitter, Facebook or a blog

2^nd Go to bit.ly and paste your video URL in the upper right dialog box that shortens the link

3^rd Promote the link on your Twitter, Facebook, blog and/or any other social media site

4^th Once your link has been active for a week, copy the same Bitly link into the address bar, adding “+” at the end

5^th You will now be able to see where the majority of your YouTube clicks are coming from

Using popular social media outlets to further promote your channel is an invaluable strategy that can grow your audience. By authentically tapping into your target audience on more than one platform, you can connect and engage with your viewers.  Ideally, your reward for this cross promotion will be greater revenue.

How are you going to engage with your audience on social media today?

Thanks for reading!

Christen  

Optimizing YOURtube

Once you’ve gained a loyal audience, your next goal is to make your YouTube channel as profitable as possible. By implementing easy-to-use optimization tools, you can increase traffic to your channel. These tools include using annotations, metadata and feed posts.  Make sure your videos are one of the 4 billion being streamed each day; let’s optimize your channel!

Annotations

Annotations are a great way to link related videos to each other.  They help your videos drive channel subscriptions and they also help your channel increase video views. Note and spotlight annotations are two different ways to annotate videos in relation to other videos you have created.

Note Annotations

Annotations are a YouTube feature that allows you to layer text, hotspots and links over your video. If you use an annotation, you will increase user engagement and lengthen the watch time of your video.

You should include note annotations on each of your videos.  In my experience, using a minimum of two note annotations is most effective.  First, use the annotation tool to create a call-to-subscribe note annotation in the first five seconds of your video.  Second, include a clickable call-to-subscribe note annotation in the final eight to ten seconds of the video.

Spotlight End-Card Annotations

Interactive end-cards with spotlight annotations have the highest click-through rate of any annotation. These drive more views to other videos on your channel. When designing end-cards, be sure to have in-picture video footage of archived content annotated.  These will allow the viewer to click directly on the end card to start watching your selected video!

MetaData Optimization

Titles

Two-thirds of all video views are generated through viewers clicking on “suggestions” of “recommended” listings.  Because of this, it is incredibly important to make sure all of your titles represent your videos accurately.  Make sure to title your videos with clear and succinct words in the first 80 characters.  The suggested recommended listings display in two lines of 40 characters each.

Tagging

Similar to how videos are suggested to viewers based upon titles, tagging your videos can also bring your channel new audiences.  First, make sure your tags are as relevant to the video as possible.  If you tag your video with unrelated subjects in order to bring traffic to your video, viewers will not watch the video when they find out it is unrelated.  YouTube advises tagging your video with up to 27 relevant YouTube tags within 24 hours of releasing your video.  Tags are the most powerful within the first 24 hours of your video release.  Furthermore, after 27 tags YouTube decreases the strength of your tags in order to make sure users are not trying to take advantage of the system by over tagging. 

Feed Posts

Reintroduce archived video content

Feed posts are the perfect way to reintroduce archived video content to subscribers in an effort to motivate both views and subscriber activity for the channel. Feed posts appear on the homepage and on the subscription feeds of every channel subscriber. Using a feed post is similar to writing a status on your Facebook newsfeed but also allows for a subscription URL to be implemented and can link to the video. 

There are several ways to use videos as a way to promote your channel and your videos.  First, you can promote new videos with posts containing videos that are related.  Second, reintroduce archived videos to coincide with holidays, seasons and events! For example, on national cookie day, you could reintroduce a chocolate chip recipe you made a video on several months ago.  This could help drive new traffic to a video that may no longer be getting many views.

While it is not necessary to optimize your videos, doing so will undoubtedly drive traffic and new subscribers to your channel. Even implementing just one or two of these tactics can help grow your channel and audience! Try out one of these simple optimization strategies on your next video and see the improvement.

Thanks for reading!

Christen

Building YOUR Audience from the Inside Out!

“Condense some daily experience into a glowing symbol, and an audience is electrified.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Even though Emerson uttered these words long before the time of YouTube, this sentiment rings true for the YouTube community.  Whether you are thinking about starting a YouTube channel, own a channel, or work at a YouTube multi-channel network, audience is key.  

Setting up a YouTube channel to make money is fairly straightforward. YouTube pays channel owners once the associated AdSense account is activated.  As soon as your channel is monetized, advertisements can be placed on your videos and your videos can make money. 

Once you're set up with an AdSense account, you'll want to focus on gaining a large and reliable audience. The more people watching your channel, the more money you will make. YouTube pays based upon the total watch time of a channel’s video. This means in order to bring in as much revenue as possible, you need loyal viewers.  If you are able to tap the right audience, these viewers will return week after week to see what you have posted and to watch the full length of your video.  

So, how do you find and keep a loyal and engaged audience? The keys are to find the audience suited for your channel, post often and regularly, and provide engaging content to keep your viewers coming back. I'm going to share how one channel, Entertaining with Beth, applies these strategies with resounding success. 

To begin, you need to figure out what kind of audience is best suited for your YouTube channel.  Is your channel informative? Beauty related? It’s okay if you have a channel that is niche and it is also okay if you have a channel that relates to the masses.  Regardless, you need to know whom it is you are targeting so you can properly appeal to them. 

Let’s examine the entertaining and food channel, Entertaining with Beth.  Beth’s entire channel focuses on food and entertaining and this is made incredibly clear.  The name of her channel, “Entertaining with Beth” speaks to the channel subject.  Her videos have to do with either entertaining or cooking; often, a combination of the two. Furthermore, both her “about” section and trailer video explicitly describe her channel’s purpose in a concise and creative way. 

Beth knows that her audience encompasses individuals looking for entertaining ideas and food recipes.  As a result, a viewer who stumbles upon her channel will not be confused or annoyed at false advertising in the channel name or video titles. What you see is what you get.  This transparency helps Beth’s appropriate and targeted audience find her.

Second, once you decide who your audience is and take the necessary steps to make sure they can find you, it’s important that you keep your audience.  There are two essential steps you can take to ensure that your audience remains loyal.  Primarily, it is crucial to post videos on a regular and consistent basis. 

The YouTube community respects and responds to channels that are “there for them” on a consistent basis.  You should determine when you are able to consistently release videos and set a schedule, making sure to release a video every time you say you will. This reliability factor is similar to how viewers count on scheduled television programming.  Audiences return to shows when they know the show is going to be there week after week.  If you are not sure if you are going to be able to post a video, don’t say anything!

Last, it is incredibly important for you to interact with your audience in order to build a devoted following.  Part of the beauty of the YouTube community is that users are able to engage with both each other and with channel talent.  For this reason, it is important for you to reply to comments and engage with them on a regular basis.  By no means do you need to reply to every comment left on your video.  However, the more you are able to interact the better. If an audience member feels that you are hearing them, they will likely feel a connection to you and return to your channel.

To illustrate, Entertaining with Beth’s channel interaction with her audience is frequent and has created a very loyal following of 53,832 subscribers. Her audience loves her videos and her engagement with the channel has aided her in gaining subscribers on a steady state basis.  Beth used to post a new video on Saturday's but realized Sunday's were more effective.  This is because she realized her viewers were planning meals for the week on Sunday's.

In order to make your channel as profitable as possible it is important to tap into and retain a strong following. Targeting a specific audience, setting a consistent release schedule and interacting with your viewers are all incredibly beneficial steps to take in order to grow your channel.

How are you going to electrify your audience today?

Thanks for reading!

Christen