Effective Ways to Promote Your Video Online

You recently made a great video and posted it online (YouTube or some other popular video website). You took great care to ensure that the video is the most effective length, the topic was incredibly compelling, and the quality of your video in general was top-notch. The only issue is that nobody is looking at it. What do you do?

Setting your video up for success

When you first set out to shoot your video, you have no way of knowing if it will be viewed by a large number of people. All you can do is to make your video the best that it can possibly be according to what you understand makes an effective video. Well, if you have done everything that you were supposed to do, the only thing that is left for you is to promote your video effectively. Of course, that may be easier said than done.

• Make sure that the title of your video is an attention-grabber: Just as it is with the written word (blogs, longer articles, etc.), people pay attention to the title before anything else. If your viewers are not attracted by the title, they probably will not make the effort to view the video. Your title should give a clear understanding to the potential viewer about the content of the video beyond the title. Nowadays, people don’t have time (or patience) so they want to understand what your video is about right away. Your title should be clear and concise and it should include strong keywords or key phrases.

• Create telling thumbnails of your video: Your thumbnail is also extremely important when it comes to promotion. The thumbnail must connect strongly with your title. After all, you want the thumbnail to elicit the same reaction as the title: you want your viewer to have a desire to watch the video in its entirety. There are some simple guidelines that you should consider following, such as making sure that the thumbnail is large (you want it to be easily viewed in the preview), have a high resolution, be uploaded as an image (jpg, gif, bmp, or png). It is important for you to remember that the thumbnail is extremely important and if you do it the right way, it will go a long way to promoting your video.

• Make sure that  your profile on the social media channel where you post the video is complete: Your profiles on all of your social media channels of choice  are extremely important and it is absolutely necessary for you to complete each one. The same holds true for the profiles on sites in which you can post videos. If you are using YouTube, for example, you will want to make sure that the following closely match your brand when it comes to color, background, logo(s), social media buttons, and banner(s) and layout. Considering that you are dealing with content that is visual in nature, the aesthetics are obviously extremely important. In essence, you are branding that particular social media channel.

• Search engine optimization (SEO): SEO is extremely important to the success of your brand and no matter which type of content you are posting, the need for effective SEO is the same. There are several things that you should keep in mind when it comes to SEO, including audience retention (memorability), title tag information, effective keywords and key phrases, the length of your video, tags, number of viewers, likes, and comments and questions. After all, you want people to be able to find your video easily. That is why you want to do everything possible to ensure that your SEO is up to par. Some of the information that you may wish to consider including is detailed descriptions of your video, strong keywords and key phrases, strong choice of where to post your video, links, etc.

• Create a buzz about your video: Even though you have created an amazing video and you have done your best to promote it properly and effectively, you still need to engage people. The engagement is critical to your success. That means that you are not only going to encourage people to leave comments, questions, etc., about your video but it also means that you are going to engage people by offering your opinion(s) about other people’s videos as well. That is a very good idea because you want to solidify your position as an active, interested member of your online social circle(s). When you talk, other people will listen and they will value your contribution. Also, as you are sharing other content, don’t forget to mention your video. Just make sure that you don’t come across as too overtly promotional. 

• Promote valuable interactions with your target audience members:  The fact is that no matter what type of content you are promoting, you must interact with your target audience. Furthermore, your content must resonate with them as well. If you are not able to establish the emotional connection, you will not have a chance to continue the relationship that you have established with the other person. There are several different ways in which you  can interact and a video automatically lends itself to interactions with other people online.

• Never forget to include a call-to-action CTA): As effective as your content undoubtedly is, without a CTA, the relationship will be dead before it has any opportunity to live. The CTA is the only way that the viewer has to be able to connect with you one-on-one. Remember that your CTA can be customized and each CTA can be different for each new piece of content. You may wish to include a question, run a contest, ask your viewer to vote for something, offer a free trial, complete a form, or view a second video. All of these possibilities can be included in your CTA.

Conclusion

Creating an amazing video is extremely important but it is only half the battle. The other half is promoting that video effectively so that many people view it and want to share it with other people they know and respect.

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