7 Secrets You Need To Know When Starting A YouTube Channel

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The advancement of the digital landscape has seen a rise in the vlogging culture with up to 86% of video content on YouTube coming from YouTube content creators! More and more people have started their YouTube content creation journey with the hope and intent of generating a decent income from it! After all, it does seem like a fun and enjoyable experience for some to be able to earn money and become popular in the process!

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Joining the platform is the easy part. It is gaining traction and becoming a success story on this video sharing giant that is the challenge. It needs you to do more than just becoming a contributing member. It requires you to work hard and publish quality content consistently so that you can attract significant viewership for your videos and gain a loyal following for your channel.

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It is normal if you have some uncertainty when you are just starting out on the platform. You may also feel overwhelmed when the thought of having to compete with so many other popular channels hit you. Fret not, we are here to lend our helping hand and accompany you through the process. In this article we will share with you 7 secrets you need to know when starting your own YouTube channel to ensure that you make the most out of your YouTube content creation journey.

1. Leverage Short Videos

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A recent analysis shows that YouTube videos that are 2 minutes long and under get almost 50% of the total YouTube views.This shouldn't be surprising as people have much shorter attention spans nowadays, and are constantly seeking to be engaged and entertained quickly. Some viewers may also not appreciate it when YouTubers beat around the bush and not get straight to the points that they have promised to address as they have mentioned so in the title or description of the video.

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Additionally, YouTube’s algorithm favors videos that engage viewers. This means that videos that are watched till the very end tend to get greater visibility as opposed to those that are abandoned a few seconds or minutes into the video. Hence, if your videos are shorter, they will stand a better chance of being watched till the end.

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However, this also doesn't mean you should rush through your video presentation for the sake of keeping your videos short, because it may compromise on the quality of your video. Otherwise, your audience may end up grabbing nothing out of what you are trying to say in your video. And that will be akin to shooting yourself in the foot because now, there is a higher chance of people dropping off your videos when your intention is to get them to watch till the end of the video.

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On the other hand, some opponents may argue that keeping your videos too short will reduce the “Expected Watch Time” of your videos. (“Expected Watch Time” refers to the average time an audience is expected to spend watching your videos.) A shorter “Expected Watch Time” reduces the chances of your videos appearing under suggested videos because YouTube tends to favor and promote videos that keep an audience on the platform for a longer duration of time.

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With this consideration in mind, it may be wise to consider varying your video styles and durations as part of your video content creation strategy. This way, you can test and use the watch data statistics and other data to determine which types of videos your audience prefer. If you are really a complete newbie and just starting out, you might want to start off with the shorter videos first, simply because they should be easier and faster to produce, and you can launch quickly, test fast, fail fast, and figure out what works best for your channel quicker.

2. Brand Your Channel

Branding is very important especially when you need to attract, engage, and retain a large following. Your brand is how the audience perceives your channel and it speaks volumes concerning who you are and your level of professionalism. It gives your channel and content an identity, elicits emotions and creates an impression in your audience’s minds. Truth be told, YouTube branding can get a little complex. But getting it right means that you get discovered and remembered more easily. Getting it right will also optimize your video's visibility, which will lead to higher viewership and higher “Expected Watch Time”.

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A brand identity encompasses elements such as color, logo, voice, images, personality etc. These elements apply in several areas. Let's take your profile image for example, it will appear on your channel and in your comments sections whenever you respond to comments. As such, you would want your profile image to be appealing or interesting enough to capture an audience's attention at first glance.

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You should also ensure that you create a brand message that speaks volumes about what your channel is about and who you are. Utilize your channel description box to let your brand personality and voice shine. It is also a great place for you to use relevant keywords so that when an audience uses such keywords to search for content, your channel is among the search results that YouTube's algorithm pulls up.

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For the best results, segment your videos by organizing them into different playlists and series, so that the audience can better find what they’re looking for when they visit your channel. Organizing your videos into playlists and series is also advantageous to you because when an audience plays one of the videos in that series or playlist, the remaining videos will appear under suggested videos for the viewer, and this will help to improve your channel “Expected Watch Time” as well! It also portrays a sense of professionalism for your brand as well.

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Perhaps the most important thing to remember is to stop trying to copy or be like other YouTubers! Just be yourself! Showcase your personality and create content that represents who you truly are!

3. Produce & Publish Consistently

A well branded or designed YouTube channel is of no use if there’s little or no content on it. Your success on YouTube highly depends on not just on the amount of content posted, but the consistency as well. If you choose YouTube as your main platform to showcase your content, you need to be committed to it by posting content regularly regardless of whether they are being watched or if you are getting subscribers at your desired rate or not.

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Always remember that YouTube is a social platform, and prolonged periods of silence will give your audience an impression that you aren't interested and committed in engaging with them and as a result, you may lose their support and lose them to your competitors. It also gives YouTube's algorithm the impression that you are not interested in growing your channel and engaging your audience, hence causing it to stop giving your videos as much visibility as it would if you were consistent in your posting. There is no fixed number of times you should post on the platform.

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Ultimately, it depends on your niche and your audience as well. For example, if your channel is talking about the latest crypto developments and news in the market, your audience will expect a high frequency of posting, perhaps even once or several times per day. On the other hand, a make-up tutorial channel posting several times per day may annoy the audience and make your videos look like spam. So you need to test and observe to determine your ideal posting frequency. If you are truly clueless, you can just start with posting once a week, and then begin your testing from there.

4. Use Annotations To Engage With Your Audience

Using YouTube annotations can boost your channels views and subscriptions. Simply put, YouTube annotations is a feature that lets you put links and text over your videos. There are two kinds of annotations; speech bubbles that appear as commentary on a video and active links. Active links are further broken down into the following categories.

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● Those you can link to your channel, another video, a fundraising cause or a playlist.

● Those you can use to direct people to subscribe to your channel, so that they can get notifications every time you post a new video.

●Those you can link to external sites, only if the sites are owned by you. These require that you associate your account with Google Webmasters to verify ownership.

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Be cautious about how much text and the links you use. Agreed, links and text are effective in driving your viewers to your desired landing page or to take certain desired actions, such as subscribing to your channel, but don’t include too many lest they lose their effectiveness due to cluttering.Always remember your audience is watching your video because they are interested in the video content, not just the associated links or text. 

5. Promote Your Videos To Gain New Audiences

One of the most useful tips for YouTube beginners is that you can promote your YouTube videos outside of YouTube to attract viewership and subscribers! Once you create your video, you can Tweet, Tik-Tok, Reddit, Facebook, or Blog about it!

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Promote your videos through your other social media channels. Whatever platforms you choose are entirely up to you as long as you don't keep silent about your published videos. You can do this simply by sharing snippets and previews of the video on other platforms. This way you can attract audiences from those platforms over your YouTube channel.

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Alternatively, you can use paid ads such as Google Ads to advertise your videos. You can set a budget and start advertising your videos. However, if you plan on monetizing your channel by partnering with brands as a content creator, you may want to focus more on organic growth, rather than paid advertising. Organic growth symbolizes a more stable and sustainable growth strategy.

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Another great way to promote your YouTube videos and channel is via collaborations with other YouTubers. Of course, this might be difficult for a new YouTuber who has not gained significant mileage. The reason being, other YouTubers will usually want to gain some benefits from the collaboration, and if you are new, it may mean that they won't be able to gain much value from you. But hey, don’t be disheartened, this is not to say it is impossible!

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If you are still a small channel, you can look for other smaller content creators or nano influencers whom you share a niche with and reach out to them for collaboration opportunities! There will be a higher chance that they will be willing to collaborate since they haven't gotten many options and opportunities to collaborate with the bigger influencers either. In the worst case that you cannot even get any collaborations, then at the very least, strive to get a mention of your brand.

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Lastly, you can promote your videos by sharing them with your social circle, who will in turn share with their social circle. Don’t look down on the power of word-of-mouth marketing because it is one of the most powerful forms of marketing out there! Who knows, one of your videos might go incredibly viral via this method alone! 

6. Create Conversations Around Your Videos

YouTube is one of the biggest search engines after Google. Just like you optimize your blog post, you can do the same with your videos so that they are more likely to appear higher in rank on YouTube's search results. A thorough description, a compelling title, the right keywords are the main contributory constituents.

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But remember, SEO on its own is not enough, it needs to go along with great content. Your video could gain the desired visibility on search results initially because of good SEO practices but still get little views and engagements because people aren't interested in the content.

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When this happens, eventually, your visibility on search results will be affected as well once the algorithm recognizes that your content does not match well with the users’ search intent. So when you create content, it might be worth the risk to be a little winged in your point of view and arguments. You don’t have to be politically correct all the time (unless, of course, that is your legitimate point of view).

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Gain a little more courage and share your views on topics even if they are a little polarized. It’s not so important about whether you are right or wrong about your views (there is no such thing as right or wrong in this world anyway), but it’s more about what you think about the issue and when it can trigger others to start conversations around it. This will drastically help to improve your video engagement level and trigger the YouTube algorithm to share your content with more people!

7. Leverage On YouTube Analytics

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YouTube makes available a wealth of data on how your videos are performing. It gives you information on the demographics of your audience, such as age, gender, location etc. The data analytics provided is comprehensive and will allow you to better understand what exactly works and what doesn't.

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Knowing information like this will give you a clearer sense of direction of what kind of content to focus on and create more of. So, make sure to leverage on the data to tweak your YouTube strategies so that you can achieve a higher viewership. For example, you may have realized that Men between ages of 20-25 tend to engage with your content the most.

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From this information, you can then decide if you want to adjust your brand voice and tone, and the nature of your content so that it resonates better with Men from this age group, and as a result, achieve higher viewership and growth.

Conclusion

Like what we mentioned at the start, starting a new YouTube channel isn’t exactly a walk in the park. It can even be somewhat scary especially if you don’t know the In-s and Out-s of this platform. With these few tips that we've shared with you, you should be on the right track to start off your YouTube content creation journey. Remember YouTube channel growth is a process that takes time and requires a lot of patience, so don’t expect instant results. Press on!

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