Hey, guys.
My name's Tim Schmoyer.
And it's Wednesday, which means it's time
to do some YouTube tips, ideas, suggestions, advice,
things like that like we do here every week on Video Creators.
When I was at VidCon this past summer and at Playlist Live,
I asked a lot of different creators the same questions.
And one of the questions I asked them was beyond things
just like optimizing your videos for search
and doing collaborations.
A lot of that stuff we've already heard before.
How else can a creator go about getting discovered on YouTube?
How can they get other people to find their videos?
And what creative ways can they really reach out
to make contact with people in their target audience
who'd be interested in their videos?
Well, here are their answers.
I printed out this big vinyl banner that says
youtube.com/whatever.
It's orange and white, like my t-shirt.
It's 10 feet long.
And what I found the best thing to do
is just go to an overpass on the highway.
And you just hold up the sign, like in Los Angeles
during rush hour.
I find it's a very effective marketing technique, guerrilla
marketing, and you might be civilly liable for damages
if you cause a car crash.
But that's a risk you've got to take
if you want to make it big on YouTube.
I actually did do this.
I have a vinyl banner.
You have to think about YouTube as a community.
Everybody grows when you help out each other.
And personally, for me, I've gained a lot more subscribers
in the past few months just through supporting
other channels.
You tweet them, and you say, hey, Smosh,
so I love that new video you put out.
I loved that part at 2 minutes and 10 seconds.
It really made me laugh.
I've gotten a lot of subscribers in retweets just
through supportive feedback like that.
What we've found works is reaching out to people.
And it's a pretty simple process.
A little formula that's worked for us to get
collaborations with larger YouTubers,
to be able to stand on their shoulders
and meet their audiences.
And what we've been doing is it's
a little bit of cyber stalking.
But not in a creepy way.
What we do is we look at everything
the person's putting out.
So Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, you name it.
we identify a person we want to work with.
Then we look at all of their social media links.
We find the one that is the least busy,
and then we contact them through that.
So one of my latest videos I was really proud of,
and I put a lot of work into it.
But it did get a lot of views.
So one thing I did was I went out
and found a lot of blogs that were posting
content similar to what I posted.
I created an a cappella music video.
And it was comedic, so I found a lot of comedy blogs,
as well as music blogs.
And I would just find the contact information
on the website, send them a quick email that'd say,
hey-- I love your website.
I love what you're posting.
I think you'll find this video funny.
Or I think you'll find this a capella video inspiring,
or it might be something you want to share.
Because these blogs, they're all looking for content too.
So if you can send them good content,
it saves them a lot of work going out
to finding the content theirself.
So I sent it out to probably 20 or 30 different blogs.
And one did pick it up, and it generated
about 15,000 or 20,000 additional views.
I was like yeah, awesome.
And then also, a lot of people saw that
and started tweeting it.
So I got a lot of tweets and retreats from it.
Since we're just starting out, one
of the best ways that I have found
to be discovered on YouTube is to go
through the social networking, especially Twitter.
That's where I found has been the best opportunity to find
other people to connect with.
Just looking through different tweets of the people
that I follow, and find other channels to connect with.
Something new like to do is I will search
on Twitter or Facebook, people talking
about daily vlogs, or family vlogs, or YouTube, in general.
And just reach out to them and start a conversation with them,
not pushing my content or pushing my videos,
but just replying to one of their tweets
about something random, like the new smoothie at Jamba Juice
that they loved.
I'll reply to them and say, yeah, I know.
I really liked that too.
The engagement there, basically, I'm
banking on that they talked about vlogs at some point.
They watch daily vlogs, family vloggers at some point.
They're going to come check out my channel,
or check out my Twitter profile, see that I'm a daily vlogger
and potentially check out my content.
So it took me a latter of 5 seconds.
I had one interaction with this person.
It may result in them coming and following me on Twitter, come
and checking out my videos, subscribing.
Or it may just be a simple hey, thanks.
And that's the end of it.
But to me, that's a non-pushy, organic way
of reaching new potential audience members.
I would love for you guys to comment below and answer
that question.
Also, what are some creative ideas that are outside the box
that you guys have seen work really
well for getting your videos and your channel
discovered here on YouTube?
And if this is something that you're
trying to figure out right now, I highly
recommend that you go down there and read the comments
that other creators are leaving.
I know you'll find some really awesome, valuable ideas.
And I'm looking forward personally,
to reading all of them on myself.
So thank you guys for contributing in that way.
If this is your first time here, I'd
would love to have you subscribe.
Everyone Wednesday, we do a video
just like this to give you guys some YouTube tips, ideas,
suggestions, and advice.
Tomorrow, on Thursday, we do some YouTube Q&A
where I take a question that one of you guys
has and do my best to answer it here.
And then on Tuesday, like we do every week,
we take a look at all the updates and changes
that are happening on this platform called
YouTube and talk about the implications it has for us
as we're growing our audiences and our channels here.
So subscribe, and I will see you guys again tomorrow.
Bye.