How To Grow Your Channel on YouTube ?
Posted on December 11, 2007
Found Inside the Life Box-> Computer and Internet |
Youtube - Article should help you get subscribers and views of your videos on youtube channel.
Youtube is probably the best video sharing sites around. Reasons ? It’s user-friendly, high volume of videos and users, features to broaden-your network, easier to make friends, and best of all there is more FREEDOM here than any other video sharing site.
Let me not write too much about youtube, but if you do wish to decide on other sites try this useful resource (link will open in a new window)
If you are on youtube, read on…
Ok. Many of us end up creating account when youtube says we must login to rate or comment. So we create an account, now, we can comment and rate and even create a channel collecting Favorites. So we do all that. We love it.
Then slowly, may be after a month or even next day, out of the blue comes a comment on your channel..”Hey, hope to watch some of your works” It Makes you think and so we do it either with a phone or a camcorder.
We make one video, then two, three and so on and start having fun.
Slowly we become addicted to making videos; work harder to improve the quality of our videos, getting ideas to make more videos, spend more time thinking about youtube all day long and people often ask us, are you okay? As for me, I often reply (I am thinking about my next project for youtube); LOL! and some people call me YouCRAZYtuber! but they don’t know what they are missing or they don’t know that Day by day, Youtube takes over our lives.
After uploading our videos, may be after a month or so or even after a year, we see that our videos don’t even have a single view or comment! Something surely is not going right! We scratch our head for answers. We start wondering, why? Why Me? Millions of Videos but no views on ours ? We firmly believe that we know we did make a great video. But still no views ? That would be pretty much the experience we have and it’s a good experience. Believe me. Because we are learning and even the TOP guys, often referred to as YOUTUBE celebrities must have had similar experience when they were new. So we keep on posting more videos and the smile on our face remain the same 
Happy! Because the fun of making videos and uploading never stops. It’s highly addictive. Also because it’s just easier than managing a website with links, images and not to mention the writings. With youtube, we just shoot, edit then upload. That’s all.
Our question is “how can we make our channel grow ?”
If we take YOUTUBE like a giant universe, we feel like we haven’t even reached any where near the universe. So how can we get there ?
Some where down the road, we begin to feel sad and all our positive energy of making videos slowly fades and perhaps many of us quit. And we do. May be we go somewhere else like Yahoo Videos.
With some tips and hard work, we might not need to quit.
Let’s find-out how we get somewhere near that youtube universe.
Here are some tips based on my personal experiences which are useless to those Many youtubers who just enjoy what they do and don’t care about views and cpars (did you get that word right; i mixed it up keeping the last two letters exact and here is one; hpapy! LOL!)
Ways to Grow on youtube:
- No Flashy Background : Setup your channel with a nice background, no animated background please! It distracts your viewers. There is certainly no way to tell how your visitors come to your channel. You want to make sure you grab their attention not on the background but on your content. First impression is the best impression. If they saw your channel for the first time, they are trying to figure out who you are, what kind of videos you make, and what kind of person you are.
- Be Open : Many of the new visitors to your site will want to know how open you are. Are you hiding anything. Don’t assume visitors are dull. They have come to your channel after browsing many others channels. You might be able to fool one person but you can’t fool many. You can easily lose your openness by hiding some elements like subscribers, subscriptions, friends list, favorites, and so on. Do all you can to make sure that you are OPEN. People are more likely to watch work if they find you as a OPEN person.
- Do Two way subscription. This is good. You watch their work and they will watch yours. If your aim is to raise the number of views of your work, watch-out for channels that hide their “Subscription“, they will probably never come to your channel and perhaps never watch your work, so it’s useless to subscribe to them. So Two way subscription is good if you want to enjoy watching each others work; but check if it’s working. If you are the only one watching his/her works and he/she is not, its time to kick him/her out from your channel. Also get rid off subscribers who don’t watch your work. What’s the point of having them. If three answers were given to you to name such subscribers which one would you pick; (a) Cheater (b) Hungry Channel for Numbers (d) A SPAMMER. My head is spinning and I can’t find the correct answer! (LOL!)
- Make friends. Make Friends. Be careful here. Learn about your would-be-friend, goto his channel and watch some videos. If you carry videos so called “Good For All Ages”, try making friends who have the similar videos. Having friends help you get some views. They might even help you if you are participating in contests. When you are making friends, remind yourself that you are making friendship with the channel not the user. So don’t get personal and ask questions such as, who are you? what’s your age? are you married ? etc. In simple term, you are a friend of a channel, and he/she is a friend of your channel. That’s all and try to keep it that way.
- Don’t send a video to a stranger : You can send video to just about anyone even ask them to rate/comment. With a proper approach you can do this and actually might get a view. Be very very polite when you are sending the video and explain to the user where you have found him/her because they will probably ask you these questions; “Who are you?”. And if you sent a message saying, “Hi blabla (being the name of the channel) he/she might reply to you as How did you find my username ?) LOL! If you can, avoid this technique. Yes, if you can, send money nobody would rejected, right? But when you send the video to unknown person, he/she feels invaded. Not everyone is open and loves to watch videos they receive from strangers. If you do use this technique be prepare to get these replies perhaps … “Do I know you?” “Why did you send me this” “How did you find my user id and name”, “You SPAM, I blocked you”, “and even very nasty words that I can’t be written here.
- Don’t Remind Someone - OK. You found a friend you could make, sent him/her an invitation. Leave it there. Don’t send a message and attach a video saying, hey i sent you an invite, please come. Let the person decide. People are busy and not all are like us youtube junkies spending half of our life on youtube.com than outdoors or with family! Even if you don’t get a response, just be cool. People take vacations. If you didn’t hear from someone, go find another. The worst can happen when you remind are, the replies are bad.. “Who are you? You think I am Dumb. I know what an invite is. You must be the SPAM. I blocked you” or “What? Why you added me as a friend.” “Do I know you.” “Why did you attached the video for me ?” “Where is the video ?” “You SPAM I flagged you”, “I am gonna report to youtube… bla bla bla” Save your as*, don’t remind anyone that you have added as him or her as a friend. Respect the person’s time and intelligence.
- Don’t assume YouTuber Knows Everything About youtube.com A lot of youtubers don’t even know how to add someone as a friend, they don’t even look at the link “My account”, they don’t even know how to approve friend invite. In many instances when a person is being approved the screen still shows up until you refresh the page; because of the bug in youtube. Help someone if they have asked you a question like this “How can I add you, please help.” Here is one I got this week, I added you as a friend, just wrote that in the comment part of your channel, is that it ? [(LOL!)] Try using your “My Account” Remember any video responses sent doesn’t show up in your inbox and hence you might never know who has responded to any of your videos if you don’t use the “My Account”
- Positive Atttitude : This week I had the pleasure of watching every single video of a youtuber, because I enjoyed them and it was such fun. I left nice comments on all of them because videos were awesome. I went back to his channel and he had replied to every message of mine as “Why did you comment on my video, Why ?” and below that message another youtuber replied to him as this “That was the worst comment I have ever read. Are you okay.” If you don’t want comments on your video. Disable them. So the lesson is, never assume that no matter how nice could be, don’t expect people will know about it. BE COOL and if needed take COOL action.
- Use Music Wisely - You don’t want your video to be deleted because of copyright issues. Consider having a video with 200,000 views and all of a sudden video is gone. All those energy you put in to creating your video is gone for ever! To Be safe here on using music, try using music with Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 (For More Info Go here also try open source music. When you find the audio see License Type (You must use the one that say’s “Free For Commercial Use”). You can always find youtuber-”Musicians” whom you can ask for their permission to use their work. Many won’t mind if you credit them on your video and description. Here is one more source to search; [http://search.creativecommons.org , there tick both commercial and adapt to work options and find the audio/images you can find] Good luck.
- Video Response - Find a video that was good number of views and is very active with comments. Post your video as a video response. This can help you get some views. However, if your video doesn’t fit the response, youtubers may think you are a SPAMMER. Something you should avoid doing. Also don’t change your video response from one video to another video; That’s like spamming, isn’t it ? If needed create another video to respond to another video.
- Accept Negative Comments. Don’t delete them. Don’t block a user just because he/she gave you a bad comment. We know the world is full of sh**; LOL! Youtubers aren’t dumb. They know that comments are for the video not for the user. If someone calls you say a** w****, just ignore the person. Take this action instead, it will work wonder, trust me: Goto his channel and write a sweet comment; something like this, “Hey, thank you so much for watching my work and taking your precious time to leave a comment for me. My best wishes to you and your channel.” When someone gets such a reply back, he/she might come back to your channel and say sorry or even subscribe to your channel. Also watch some of his/her works and leave some nice comments. BAD Comments from users might be the result of not getting any views or being neglected; that’s what happens when a user’s video don’t get any views and perhaps some people just go crazy with bad comments all over the videos; it could be their nature. It’s also found that people write bad comments to get channel views. Someone will click on his/her channel name and you will be coming to him. In many cases you will find comments that is not related to your video; you can probably tell by now what a SPAMMER is. If a spammer has left you a comment, flag it.
- Watch other’s work. Watch more. Don’t just expect you are the Director and not a viewer. Most directors learn by watching other’s work. One simple tip. Turn the volume down so you can’t hear anything. Now try to watch the video and see what the directory is trying to present. Watch camera movements etc. Re-watch the video with music. You will learn a lot by watching other videos. After watching a video, do leave a comment. To get views, watch other’s work. Some of them will come back and watch your work.
- Before you comment; Watch a video. Read the Description. Then rate and comment. Not all of us are perfect or directors from HOLLYWOOD and not all of us have two computers in the house or fancy animation software. We are all trying and learning here with what we have, many perhaps with budget computer. Say you watched a video and thought the video was bad and you wrote this comment “What a sh** video; please give up, you aren’t good at all”. Later you went over to the description and read this : “Hello my subscribers and friends, my computer broke-down, sorry something went wrong with my movie maker. But for the love of you all, I Posted a video as it was shoot. Hope you like it and Thanks for watching and have a Happy Holidays!” Remember : Once you leave a comment, you can’t edit or delete but you can just feel sorry for it or good for it.
- Encourage newcomers. Youtube and its editors’ don’t do a thing about this. They really don’t watch more videos than youtubers themselves. They would prefer promoting PARTNERS, and TOP guys to keep working harder, because its them that helps YOUTUBE make more money. So, you can take this role yourself. Go watch videos of new youtubers and encourage them. Appreciate their work. So they keep making more and improve. Don’t just lead alone, but lead others. For new videos, I watch and leave a comment that encourages the user to do better. You could write something like, “Hey, that was a nice practice with your animation. My first video wasn’t even this good; hope to watch your next work.” Encourage new ones to do better which is something YOUTUBE Editors Don’t!
- Comment. Comment. Comment on videos. Those are your footprints on youtube. Don’t just say Nice…. LOL… WTF… OMG; Watch the video and write a comment specific to the video. Youtubers love comments specific to the video more than anything else. Comment is the only way to get a feedback of our works and it can help us improve in our next project; may be in content, video quality or even the story if the video is an episode. Youtube calls comments as a discussion platform but it still lacks features; it should be like a forum. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there were true forums with threads for each video ? By showing that you are interested in someone’s work, the person might come back and watch, rate and comment yours and even subscribe to your channel. Don’t comment like a spammer. Comment as a real human being. If you create a comment and just copy/paste that ever-where you are very likely to flagged as a spammer and that’s what spamming is. Type and write unique comments which you really meant for the video you watched.
- Don’t upload too many videos per week. Most People don’t just have one subscriber, they have bunches of them. When your subscriber logs in on youtube, the first bar on top of the screen will show new videos from his/her subscribed channels. It can turn them off, if there are too many videos from the same channel. I don’t know if that is called SPAMMING, but uploading too many videos is bad for your subscribers. 1 or 2 video per week should be good enough. I don’t know the best time to upload, I upload 1 or 2 in the weekend or in the middle of the week.
- Don’t send videos all the time or to too many friends. Who has time these days ? If you do want to send, make sure you have already watched his/her work first. Don’t just expect they are going to watch yours and goto bed! If you have say 600 friends, and even 10% of them send you videos every-time they upload, you are getting about 60 videos every week. If some of them uploaded twice a week, and sent you both of them, you are getting 120 videos being sent to you; are you going to watch`um all? It would look like a SPAM and your friends will delete all the videos! Read the second part that should help you to get some views. Send a video to a person who has less subscribers and friends. He/she is more likely to watch your video than others.
- Use Bulletin board but don’t post too many messages. Why? Because not everyone has bunches of friends. If one of your friend has just one friend which is you, and you posted say 4 messages a day, his channel will show up all 4 messages from you. He might think you have become a Giant YOUTUBE SPAMMER and he might actually “Unsubscribe” you! Use bulletin board wisely; write a nice message and attach a video. This works great to get views.
- Be Unique Try making videos that haven’t been done on youtube. Do a lot of search. Say you want to create a video about something; perhaps you already know the title for it. Go search using all possible combinations in that title. If you create a video that nobody has done, your friends and those who find the video will appreciate it and they might actually subscribe to you. They sure will rate/comment also. More views and comments are possible on this #1 technique. Create unique video.
- Be Creative Add a little bit of creativity in your video. Try improving the quality of your video. Even if you are making a serious video to make people cry, add some humor somewhere there, it changes the viewers mood and can be effective. It’s hard to make people laugh and cry from one single video, but if you can do it; you will rock! Think about all sorts of people who will be watching your video. Videos that are made for “Good for All Ages” tend to get more views because everybody can watch it.
- Be Safe As I told you before, while making friends, Please Remind yourself that friends are friends of the two channels. When you communicate regularly, you might forget completely and think that he/she is your true friend!! LOL! It can happen. I once almost gave my complete mailing address to a friend whom I had been writing everyday. We exchanged messages and the more we did, we felt we were close as if we were living next door to each other. Don’t lose your identity. Youtube has one great page about Safety Tips, I highly recommend you read that Read that page, this link opens in a new window
Well, that’s all for now, Those were some tips from a nature freak who loves to have FUN watching and creating videos related to Nature.
I posted this as one of my subscriber asked this question via message box of my channel.
I have posted here so you all can perhaps benefit from it! His question was “Ruben, how can I grow my channel ?”
Take care, Be Safe
and happy youtubing!
Ruben
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=k6yardotcom
(See Also First Part : Experiencing Youtube Part 1 )
Comments
4 Responses to “How To Grow Your Channel on YouTube ?”
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[…] See Part 2 : http://bhupen.k6yar.com/how-to-grow-your-channel-on-youtube […]
Very good article Ruben!!!! If this gets around you will get a whole bunch of thanks!!!!
How about visiting channel of people who comment on your work and leaving some message like hey thanks for watching?
that might also be useful. I haven’t made any videos and don’t need my channel to grow.
What did you mean by growing? did you mean to say how to get. Subscribers in youtube?
Chaos!!
Comment by Sue is also important. Thank the people who comment on your videos; watch their works, add them as your friend. Yeah. That’s important and it can help.
A lot of my youtube friends keep asking me, how do I get more views of my work? The answer is :
**To have more views** of your work,
go out and watch **other’s work**