- This is the type of YouTube self-promotion
that never works, and it really annoys me.
Rando Channel 784 asks,
"Can you please shout me out also in your next video?"
No!
(bell chimes)
Ah, damn it.
(upbeat music)
Now then, hey folks, I'm Rob.
Welcome back to vidIQ,
educating you on your YouTube journey.
Today's lesson is how to promote your YouTube channel
if you're under 1,000 subscribers.
Now, of course, the intro was a joke.
There isn't anybody on YouTube
currently called Rando Channel 784,
but if anybody wants to set it up
so they get a free channel shout out from vidIQ,
all the power to ya.
But yeah, for one thing, YouTube has got pretty good
at automatically putting these types of comments
in the held for review section
so that they never actually get published.
And most creators quickly cotton on
to trigger words in their comments
and place them in the blocked list
so that nobody ever actually gets to see these comments.
And let's cut to the chase here.
When either a creator or a viewer
sees one of these comments, nobody cares.
So with all of that being said,
let's look at some of the ways
that you should be promoting your channel.
But do stick around end
because I have a somewhat alternative viewpoint
on all of this.
The problem is this type of comment puts them first,
rather than the audience or community they are speaking in.
In short, this adds no value.
Whereas the comments such as this,
about the latest equipment they are bought
for their YouTube setup,
is all about sharing knowledge, experience and opinion.
And a fun little fact here,
this comment talks about this camera, the Sony ZV-1,
that I've just purchased.
So we already know that we've got something in common
to share within the community.
But in short, what I'm trying to tell you here
is before you start to promote your content to a community,
become a valued member of that community.
Interact with the content
with your own thoughts and opinions.
When this has happened in the past on the vidIQ channel,
I've made entire videos based on somebody's experience
with say, monetization on YouTube shorts.
And one of the best things you can do
is add more tips, tricks, and strategies
to the topic of conversation that haven't yet been mentioned
or covered in the content itself.
For example, if after watching this video,
you know have more fantastic ways
to promote your channel and videos,
do let us know in the comments below
because that's going to help everybody in this community.
You can also offer an alternative constructive point of view
on whatever the topic is.
Just be prepared to defend yourself.
Whenever you join a community for the first time,
be it on YouTube or anywhere else,
the worst way to start a conversation
is by sharing links to your content.
Because as we've already said, nobody cares.
Over time, as you get to know that community
and that community gets to know you,
and more importantly respects you,
that may lead to opportunities to promote your content
when it really helps that community with some form of value.
And of course, one of the ways to do that
is to find communities of like-minded people.
In the same way that there is an audience
for everything on YouTube,
there is a group or a Subreddit for everything
on Facebook and Reddit.
A quick search on Facebook, filtered by groups,
will give you plenty of options,
but they do require a little bit of extra research.
Obviously you want to find groups that are more active,
but sometimes that's not always a good thing
because there may be tons of spam and promotion
within that group, especially if it's public.
Private groups are more likely your best bet
for the most valuable and most engaged communities.
Once you're in a group,
spend time getting to know what makes the community tick.
Who are the most vocal members and what do they talk about?
Which conversations get the most comments?
Find out what type of questions have been asked
and how you can help answer them.
When it comes to Facebook groups,
this is a long-term play of weeks, probably months.
You're only going to get out of this what you put into it.
So if your sole objective from the outset
is to push people from that group to your videos on YouTube,
well, guess what?
For those people in that group, nobody cares!
It's the same thing on Subreddits too.
Really do your research
before you start barreling in with self-promotion
and video links.
Because if you don't,
well, it's not simply a case of nobody caring.
Some communities will make your internet life a misery
if you rub them up the wrong way.
All right, so what we've talked about here
is reaching out to other communities on the internet,
becoming a respected member of that community,
and then possibly sharing your YouTube work.
But what about YouTube itself?
Because to be honest,
that's a pretty good promotional tool as well.
You may have heard me talk about this before.
If your content sends positive data signals to YouTube,
in terms of click-through rate and watch time,
then YouTube will suggest your content to more people.
By any measure,
this is the best free video promotion you can get.
The basic goal of the YouTube recommendation system,
your promotional tool,
is to serve up the right videos to the right audiences.
And then one of the ways it does this
is by connecting content together.
For example, if a viewer enjoys video A,
YouTube knows that they are also likely to enjoy video B.
And so they connect the two together
through suggested videos or browse videos
or wherever you may encounter similar videos on YouTube.
A way you can help YouTube to do this
is to just be aware of what I like to call,
your keyword universe.
These are common words and popular phrases
used throughout your topic.
And you should include them in your video title,
description, thumbnails,
even the words you say in the videos themselves.
Give YouTube every opportunity to learn something
about what your video is about.
You can do this type of thing through a vidIQ,
which will show you what keywords other videos are using,
as well as extensive keyword research tools.
Start to build up this vocabulary into your content
because you want to be the next video
YouTube serves up to a viewer.
As well as working with the YouTube recommendation system,
you can also work with other human beings
in the form of a collaboration.
When you work with another creator,
you're likely working with somebody with shared beliefs,
shared interests, shared opinions,
which very likely means you're working with somebody
who has a very similar audience.
And because of that,
it's a great opportunity for both channels to grow.
Generally speaking,
and with the exception of when massive channels
are doing small channels a huge favor,
the benefit for both collaborators should be roughly equal.
But each collaborator should also be fully aware
of their expectations
and what they need to put into the projects for it to work.
So rather than contacting huge channels,
asking for shoutouts,
which by now we know don't work because nobody cares.
Find channels of a similar-ish size and video topic
and start to work your way into their community,
like we explained that the beginning of this video.
Build a relationship, and then hopefully,
you can move on to some form of collaboration.
And as a bit of a teaser,
keep an eye out for a collaboration that we're working on.
We're really excited to show you this,
but it's probably going to take a couple of weeks.
On the other hand,
if you are absolutely determined
to get noticed by a big creator and their community,
well, what you need to do
is make something incredible for them for free.
And if you're wondering how to do that,
well, you've been staring at an example of this
for the last seven minutes.
Say hello to JONC.
Over the last six months,
he has become our unofficial official stickman editor.
Transforming our channel audit live streams
into many stick man episodes.
We've never asked him to do any of this.
We've never paid him to do any of this.
But he has won a place in our hearts
and now every single one of you watching this video
knows just how awesome he is
and how amazing this t-shirt is.
All of which brings me to my own personal big collab story.
Five years ago, I made this video for my community,
showing people how to copy tags.
Today, it's got a modest 4,000 views.
But what I did make sure to do
was tweet vidIQ this thing I had done about their software.
And from that single tweet, the rest is history.
I do still have to pinch myself a little bit
when I talk about this.
This single video I made for free
for the creator community and vidIQ
transformed my passionate hobby into a full time career.
Not a bad collab that one, is it?
Now let's return to this left-field idea
that I teased earlier on in the video.
This is a theory.
What if promoting your content actually damages your videos
and your channel?
Now hear me out on this one.
I've been hearing from a few experienced creators
that when they've been starting brand new channels,
they're keeping them a secret.
The creators don't want to push
any of their existing audience onto this new channel
because it's for a completely different target audience.
If the wrong audience discovers this new channel on mass
then it's going to dilute the YouTube recommendation system.
Now granted, this does rely on the creator
knowing exactly who their specific target audience is
for their channel.
But let's put it into a broader perspective.
If you're just going here, there and everywhere,
picking random clumps of people
and recommending they watch your videos,
is that really as good as YouTube finding the perfect people
for your content?
So don't promote your content at all,
let YouTube do the work.
I understand the theory and I get the logic.
Are you brave enough to try that?
So these are your YouTube promotional strategies,
that's a video you should watch next.
And if you can,
can you please help us get to 1 million subscribers?
Nobody cares!
Oh, that's a bit harsh.
I guess that was the code word for the day.