How to Increase Views & Engagement for Your YouTube Videos

YouTube is a growing platform that has mainstream credibility. Its strong branding and popularity have made it one of the top search engines even above the very well-known Facebook platform. And with 2.38 billion monthly logged-in users on average - worldwide, you can see why this influential website is one of the most important platforms to use to grow your business.

Now if you’re a savvy business owner who has decided to jump on the YouTube bandwagon and you’ve begun creating videos for your business, great stuff!

You’ve definitely made the right decision.

Now if you’ve created your videos on YouTube, but you’re struggling to increase views and engagement for your videos…

Here are 5 essential things you need to do:

1.       Be the first to comment on your video. By doing this, you are encouraging your viewers to also do the same. Something you could do is to mention in your comment what you’re discussing in the video and then actually tell your viewers to please comment below. You could also simply make a funny statement about the video and follow it up with a question for your viewers based on the topic of your video. Your viewers will always be excited to see that you are actively commenting, and they’ll most likely want to comment right after you do. It makes them feels more connected to you and a part of your online community!

2.       Encourage viewers to leave a comment on your video. As stated in the above point, when you first upload your video to YouTube and create the first comment on your video, this automatically shows that you are active in the comments section. However, if you actually ask your audience to leave a comment below the video, this adds that extra push, to make your viewers eager to follow-up your comment with a response. It’s a great way to add more engagement to your videos as this is something YouTube loves. And more comments and engagement shows YouTube that your video is resonating well with your audience whereby helping to shoot your video to the top of the YouTube search results for your topic area. Of course your title keywords and descriptions play a role too, but viewer engagement is a key role in how YouTube ranks your video.

3.       Reply to viewer comments. If you want your viewers to comment more on your videos, you should comment by adding a response to their comments. By responding to your viewers comments, they will see you as a real person who truly cares about and appreciates them. This helps to build your community and one of the best ways to grow a loyal following.

4.       Tell your viewers to subscribe to your channel. Sometimes it’s easy for people to forget to subscribe to a channel. They may watch your video and then see related videos on the side of your video, which can easily distract them. So, if you give your audience the clear instruction to subscribe to your channel by clicking the link below your video, it can help to improve your subscriber base as well as help to boost your channel further up in popularity within your niche. (Be sure to tell your viewers where the subscribe link is located to make it as easy as possible for them to subscribe, especially if they are not accustomed to doing so). As you know, YouTube is growing and evolving daily and there are always new viewers joining the pipeline. Clarity is key!

5.       Tell your viewers to click the bell icon for notification of new videos & share your new uploads on your social networks. YouTube continuously makes changes to their platform. It’s important to keep up-to-date with all of their new additions. Now viewers must click the bell icon to receive notifications of new videos. This feature did not exist in the past, but once YouTube implemented it, YouTube creators had to share this information with their audience to ensure that their videos continued to gain traction with viewership.

Although most people who watch YouTube videos know this, it’s important to be extremely clear and proactive in your communications by telling your viewers exactly what you want them to do. Oh, and also share you new uploads to your social networks as well. Consider this your must-do YouTube call-to-action. Not only will you gain more subscribers by doing so, but you’ll also improve the amount of views you’ll get on your videos. After all, this is what everyone wants because it leads to more opportunities in terms of ads, but it also encourages more collaborations and ultimately exposure for your channel. And we all know, many lives have changed just because a video was seen by more people.

Don’t forget your keywords!

Of course you need to also be sure that the main keywords your audience is searching for is placed first in your video title along with your tags and video description. You can use keyword tools like Google Planner, Moz.com or Ubersuggest to help you in your keyword research. As long as you are using terms that are highly searched for and there are not enough sites overusing that keyword, you have a good chance of making it on the first page of Google. But thorough research is key.

So, now it’s your turn. Go out there and get your video created. And if you already have some videos created, be sure you’ve followed the points above for greater reach within your market. By doing so, you’d be surprised by what opportunities may come your way. This may be just what your business needed to gain greater recognition in your industry.

Build Your Business Using the Power of LinkedIn

The Power of LinkedIn to Improve Networks | A Huge Opportunity for Business Owners!

With over 500+ million users, LinkedIn.com is one of the fastest growing social networks for business professionals and it’s one of the best ways to connect with associates and prospective business partners. For B2B businesses, opportunities are plenty!

As a business owner, if you’re not yet networking on LinkedIn, you may be decreasing your chances of having rewarding business opportunities come your way.

By accessing the massive network potential that LinkedIn offers, this massive professional community can lead to an unexpected windfall when it comes to connecting with business owners and companies who may want to enlist in your services or invest in your products. As we all know, business people are consumers too. So, by joining the LinkedIn network, it can really catapult your business to a whole new level.

Here are some LinkedIn strategies that you can use to create greater opportunities for your business:

Join LinkedIn Groups – If you join groups related to your line of business while also contributing your insightful experience with valuable quality content on a consistent basic, this can lead to having a more targeted audience who can easily find your profile and website.

There are so many groups to choose from. This includes your university or school alum group, to industry associations, former and current employees as well as trade organizations related to your area of expertise. The range of groups is extensive.

By connecting with these groups and by ensuring that you include your website address throughout all of your online communications, this increases the chances that people will find you. And the best way to take this even further is if you can lead these business prospects to a website that is full of valuable content that they can use to help them in their business or can use for their clients. This will encourage them to want to connect with you on a business level. However, be sure you have a way of collecting their information once they arrive on your website.

By placing a lead generation form or opt-in form on your site, this will give these visitors an opportunity to sign up for your list after reading your highly informative content.

Now if you can go one step further and provide a valuable content upgrade – or bonus content that coincides with the article that your visitor has just read on your website, that’s even better!

By providing this extra piece of content which is extra informative - that they can readily use, it provides them with even more value by guiding them even further along their journey. And that’s the best way to build your list! By doing this, you’re able to increase your network of extremely targeted contacts who would otherwise not know who you are. But with this extra bit of effort, they will most likely have an interest in working with you at some point in the future!

Write Articles – If you can create content targeted towards your audience that shows your expertise while also helping them solve an issue they’re currently experiencing, that’s one of the best ways to draw people in – especially those people who are considering doing business with you. Not only will this expand your connection of prospective business partners, but it can open the door to more opportunities and ultimately greater ROI come year-end!

A bit of time spent writing an informative and valuable content piece is one of the best ways to draw people to you without you having to physically go after them.

On top of writing your compelling and informative article, if you can ensure that you are using the keywords that your audience also uses to find information on the topic that you’re writing about, you can increase your chances even further of having targeted prospects easily find you. It’s one of the best strategies which are highly underutilized on the LinkedIn platform.

Host Webinars & Events on LinkedIn! By hosting events, you have total control of your event. It also allows you to easily leverage the power of automated technology on a local and global scale so that you can reach more people! It’s one of the best platforms for this kind of networking. After all, the audience on the LinkedIn network mean business!

Start your own LinkedIn group! This will give you a captive audience of raving fans off the gate simply because they chose your particular group because they have a keen interest in what you do!

Recommend Others - Remember, it’s not about you. People don’t actually want to hear about what your specific duties were with your previous employer or what tasks you are good at – whether you’re a business owner or not. People want to know that you can be of value to them and can offer them some kind of benefit. Did you increase profits for the company? Did you lead the team to being the top in your industry? Think in those terms as people respond to results. So, instead, share how your expertise can be useful for them.

A great way to get recommendations without having to ask for them is to give recommendations to others you already know and have worked with in your network. They’ll be honored that you offered such a kind gesture and it’s likely that they’ll reciprocate the favour without you having to request it! Of course, requesting a recommendation is fine too, but by offering a recommendation for someone else, this simply makes the process easier. Recommendation work well to prove your professional expertise!

Do note that all recommendations do show up on your profile. So, this not only naturally allows others to see these recommendations, but it very organically opens up the door to showcasing who you are and that you’re a trustworthy individual to work with.

By seeing your recommendation on someone else’s profile, this makes others in the network more curious to then visit your profile and/or website to learn more about you. This is a great way to broaden your visibility and open the door to potential opportunities!

Colleague Introductions - By introducing colleagues in your network, this can be beneficial for your business. Just be sure that when you're contacted for an introduction that you are in full agreement with what it is that individual wants before you decide to introduce them.

Also be very clear on your intentions when also requesting an introduction to ensure that both parties are in agreement. This will allow these connections to more rewarding while eliminating any unnecessary confusion in the future.

Now, last but not least, complete your profile. This is the first greeting your prospective audience has of you. So, be sure that you have filled out your entire profile as thoroughly as possible. Then be sure to keep your profile updated.

As you can see, LinkedIn offers a ton of ways that you can use this platform to build your list and ultimately, build your business. With almost 500 million users, LinkedIn offers a unique way to quickly build your brand and your business.

Sign up below and grab your LinkedIn Checklist!

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