Becoming a successful YouTuber is far from easy – especially now, the market is oversaturated and, it isn’t easy to compete with the proliferation of high-production multi-million YouTube channels churning out videos. Managing to be successful in such an environment is far from easy, and you need a detailed battle plan to deal with various aspects of managing and promoting your YouTube channel. This article will help you master some basic strategies you can use to great effect.
Learn How to Play the YouTube Algorithm
What largely determines whether you succeed or not on YouTube is how favorably the YouTube algorithm views your videos. That basically determines everything:
- How often you get featured on the sidebar of other videos
The primary way most content creators gain viewership is through the recommended section both at the side of each video and on the main page. Although it is extremely difficult to get featured on the main page, especially early on, it is much more likely to get recommended to users on high-profile videos. This is completely determined by the algorithm – it is well-known in the community that frequent long uploads a la gameplay videos have a huge advantage over other kinds of videos on the platform. Short animation videos, no matter how high-production and positively-received they are, have a disadvantage. You need to research all the intricacies regarding the YouTube recommend mechanisms and how you can effectively use it for your own benefit.
- How ad-friendly are your videos:
Ads, especially early on, will be your main and only source of revenue from your channel. How valuable, if at all, is your video to advertizers is also determined by the algorithm. Recently, YouTube has updated its algorithm, and now, they are much harsher and demonetize a lot of videos that they don’t find acceptable. This has resulted in tens of thousands of creators losing their livelihood on the platform. As you grow bigger, you become less reliant on ad money and have the ability to diversify. In fact, it is becoming rather easy – for example, you can use a startup like fourthwall to easily integrate an online store with your YouTube channel and get extra income from selling merch. That’s why it is paramount to pay attention to your ad performance when starting out.
- If and how often your videos get recommended to your subscribers:
contrary to one what might believe, when someone subscribes to your channel, it doesn’t mean they’ll be notified of every new video you upload. As your channel gains more subscribers, making sure those subscribers are aware of new uploads will become more important than gaining new subscribers. This largely depends on the algorithm – it counts how often your subscribers interact with your channel and how long they watch your videos for among other indicators. You need to optimize your videos with this in mind. You can also partially circumvent the bad effects by encouraging your viewers to push the notification button or follow you on social media, you’ll have an easier time notifying them when a video comes out this way. You should optimize your videos to get better search rankings.
- Engage Your Audience
Engaging your audience is an important part of being a YouTuber, and one of the main things that distinguish YouTube from TV. Your viewers will expect you to respond to them in the comment section and tailor your content to their taste in various ways.
- Make sure to remind them to subscribe and turn on notification on each video. This might get old, but most data shows it increases subscription rates. If you are afraid it’ll become annoying after a while, try to be creative with the message.
- Listen to your audience: regularly conduct polls, read what they say in the comments, see how people perceive you on social media, etc. All of these are important indicators you can use to see what you’re doing well and where are your weaknesses.
- Engagement is one of the most important indicators the algorithms will use. Likes, shares, and comments will really help you stand out, and the algorithm will pick up on those videos. There are even some reports that show that even getting dislikes can be beneficial. This is how much YouTube values interactions. You can drive it up by engaging with your viewers and coming up with ways to incentivize them to share and comment on your content.
