Getting the Most Out of YouTube

In Blogging, Video by Brian Town

It’s easy to upload your videos to YouTube, but it’s what needs to happen after the initial uploading that can be difficult. Viewbix blog says that there are “more than 100 hours of video uploaded per minute” so, naturally, “it can be hard to make an impact on the world’s second biggest search engine.” Luckily, with a little time and effort, you can make some changes here and there to your videos and YouTube channel to increase your views. Viewbix gives some good tips, and I completely agree with them: (these are just a few included in the blog post)

1. Optimize the Video
Why this is so true: Things like your audio and video are, obviously, two of the most important aspects. I mean, the video itself can’t be high quality if the actual video sucks… And audio is half the finished product!
Once you’ve got the video uploaded, it’s also important to know that that isn’t enough! You have to fill in things like the title – don’t just leave it as is! If you upload video_2_promotionalvideo_final and leave that as the title, no one will click on it! Make the title stand out, but also describe the video well. Next, update the description and the tags to help more people find the video. Finally, the thumbnail – if the default shot after uploading is a horrible still of someone mid-blink, it needs to be changed. “Change this to the most compelling still image you have to make your video look attractive and get more people to click on them.”

2. Be a Good Host
Why this is so true: “Having guests on videos sent views through the roof.” If you record just yourself, or just one other person, and call it good, you’ll have just about the world’s most boring video on your hands. Videos are much more interesting when (if there isn’t a whole lot else going on) you have more than one subject – more than one person talking. The change of pace when you go between different speakers can help keep viewers much more engaged.

3. Share Everywhere
Why this is so true: Almost all of us have Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc., nowadays… So why not use them to our advantage to share and promote our videos? Here at Michigan Creative, we always post our videos to our social pages, and always tell our clients that they should be doing the same. After all, doesn’t it just make sense that “the more you share your videos, the more people will watch them”?

To finish all of this up, I’m just going to leave this awesome infographic here.

 

~ Alli

Brought to you by Michigan Creative Video