It feels so amazing to know that I have inspired many of you guys to start a YouTube Channel. I'm really pleased to see you stepping outside of your comfort zone and getting in front of the camera or recording video screencasts and uploading them to YouTube.
As a new YouTuber, you'll need some creative ideas and strategies to get more views on YouTube and grow your audience. The competition is tough so it's important to make your videos stand out above the others. There are hundreds of hours of video being uploaded to YouTube every minute of the day and we're all clamoring for attention from the massive influx of viewers visiting the site searching for entertainment and looking for quick fixes to resolve the issues they face in their daily routine of life.
In this post, I'll cover one of the awesome features you can take advantage of to help you get more YouTube video views and get more YouTube subscribers on your channel.
Keep Up With YouTube's Changes
The YouTube platform has evolved tremendously in the past few months and they continue to introduce new features to help you with promoting your videos and your channel. One of the key aspects of growing your audience on YouTube is to keep up with the new features they introduce and use them to your advantage. I use Scoop.it to curate content dedicated to all the latest tips, tutorials and announcements from the YouTube Creator's hub.
For example, the chart below gives you a snapshot of the increase in views on my channel over past 3 years. Each time they made major changes to the channel layout or added new features there is a big spike and increase in YouTube views on my videos. The biggest traffic jumps occurred around the end of 2012 when they updated the channel design and again when the current new Channel One design was introduced at the beginning of 2013.
Get More Views On YouTube with InVideo Programming
YouTube doesn't get all the credit. I had a few tricks up my sleeve too, like making videos in response to your questions and going out of my way to be sure I post topical videos that serve as a resource library for you on topics like WordPress Blogging Tips, Google AdSense, Google Chrome Extensions and of course let's not forget the obvious one – YouTube.
One of the coolest features that you can implement on your YouTube videos is called Video Annotations. Using annotations make your videos stand out by adding more interest and making your videos look more polished. There are millions of potential viewers who have never encountered annotations before and they'll be impressed and curious enough to click them to see where they lead. For those who are already aware of of annotations, they might be surprised to see that you know how to implement them correctly. It might take a few weeks, but I found that using InVideo Programming, helps answer the question that I hear asked time and time again because everyone wants to know how to get YouTube subscribers.
The first kind of annotation I want to introduce you to is InVideo Programming. Watch YouTube Annotations Part 1 How To Use InVideo Programming
- Explain the 2 types of InVideo Programming
- Three places to access the interface for YouTube In-Video Programming
- Set up the Annotation for your Featured Channel
- Select from four options for the position of the Featured Channel Annotation
- Set the time you want the Annotation to appear during the video
- Choose the length of time the Annotation will be displayed
- Set up the Annotation for your Featured Video
- Change to a different Featured Video for the Annotation
Brand your channel with InVideo Programming and you'll end up getting more views on YouTube and more YouTube subscribers. You can also target one video that you want to give more attention to or that best represents the quality of the videos on your YouTube channel. After a few weeks have gone by, check your YouTube subscriber stats in analytics to see how effective these annotations are. You might find that you need to move them up to an earlier spot in the video or adjust their placement.
I hope you have been inspired to upload a video and experiment with these annotations to see if you can do a better job of getting YouTube views. It makes sense to integrate YouTube in your content marketing strategy as part of a holistic approach to building your authority online.
Earlier I mentioned that some of my friends were inspired to start YouTube channels after hearing me talk about it all the time here and on my podcast. Here are a few that I would like to mention and I hope that you take the time to check out the videos I linked to and subscribe to their channels.
- Sharon Hurley Hall Get Paid To Write Online
- Lisa Buben Using Tint for Your Social Feeds
- Sanjeev Mohindra Things To Do After Channel Creation
Stay tuned for Part Two in this video series about using Annotations and how to get YouTube Subscribers and views.
Recommended: How To Schedule YouTube Video Uploads and Add a Custom Thumbnail
Leave a comment here to let me know what you think or if I need to add your name to the list of bloggers who I inspired to start a YouTube channel.
Video Transcript:
One way to get more subscribers on YouTube is by using a feature that is available to all YouTubers called Video Annotations.
This is the first in a two-part series where I'll show you how to access the interface to set up the annotations. I'll describe how they're different and how you can use each one to your advantage.
The first type of annotation we'll discuss is called InVideo programming.
Now what's really cool about integrating InVideo programming and using it to promote your channel is that you have two different types of InVideo Programming. One as you'll see at the top here is a link for someone to subscribe to your channel. The other one I've placed at the bottom right and that's a link to a popular video that I wanna bring attention to. So now let's see how to setup InVideo Programming.
Up at the top right hand side click on the down arrow go to YouTube Settings and then view additional features from there go to the nav bar on the left and you'll see InVideo Programming.
The other way you can access InVideo Programming is if you're in your Video Manager. Once again, over on the left hand side
you'll see Channel Settings and then InVideo Programming. And there's one last option for accessing this also you can access it from your dashboard and here again there's the Channel Settings and the InVideo Programming.
Now you'll see here you can set the featured channel which is the subscription one that I showed you earlier or featured video you get the choice of putting at the top right left, bottom left, for the bottom right this is something that you need to test based on what's going on in most of your videos because remember with InVideo programming these features are going to appear in all of the videos now across your channel.
So think about the videos that you have and think about what might be the best placement. The next option you can choose is whether you want the featured channel to appear at the end of the video, at a custom start time or throughout the entire video. In this case I've decided that I want it at the end of the video.
Then you can say how long you want it to last and this would just be in seconds. Now you also have these same choices with the featured video. I decided to use this one particular video that I have that's called What to Wear Your YouTube Videos and by the way if you haven't seen that video yet – check it out cuz it's kinda funny.
But if I decided that I wanted to use a different video, I would just come here and remove it then this would give me that option to pic another video. Either the most recent upload or choose the video. Now I'm just gonna put that one back in there.
I want this featured video to appear a little bit sooner then that feature channel. Play around with these times and test them and see which works best for you.
In the next video we'll talk about the other annotations that you can apply to individual videos.
So make sure you subscribe to this channel which is called Ms Ileane Speaks and I'll see you in the next video!