How to Promote a New YouTube Channel

Let’s talk about how you can promote a new video on a new channel and how to start getting your first YouTube views.

Here are 4 key points to make in order to start the process when promoting a new channel and the first videos:

NICHE ANALYSIS

Even if you researched a niche for your channel once, you need to do it again. It is very important to understand where your competitors are getting their traffic from.

Whether it is recommendations, keywords, own projects, or maybe they just have 1-2 videos with million YouTube views and expertly distribute traffic from them, while all other videos without this traffic would have no more than a hundred views.

It often happens that the owner of a channel has his/her own popular site and drives traffic to videos from that site. We see views on YouTube and think that the niche is cool, but in fact, it is not so.

Advice:

• Write the main competitors (both videos and channels in general).
• Enter the channels into some service for analyzing YouTube channels (for example, SocialBlade). You need to understand whether all the videos are gaining views evenly, how much time the author managed to achieve these views, how many videos he/she made for this purpose, etc.
• Watch the channel and try to analyze it. As we said before, there can be a situation when the channel has a couple of videos that generate all the YouTube views and these views are simply distributed (or the author distributes them) throughout the channel.

In general, after the analysis, you should have in your head what traffic source they have, how they promote, what strategies they use, which weaknesses and strengths they have, etc.

CONTENT

You need to be aware of how to work with audience retention, tags, descriptions, titles, thumbnails, and other details. After analyzing your competitors, you should have a better understanding of how to do everything correctly.

If the algorithm “does not see” a channel, then the best way to open its eyes is to optimize metadata correctly. This is the language of communication with the algorithm.

The quality of content is very important. Just because you have a small channel and your videos get a few views doesn’t give you a reason for bad content. It still needs to be produced, shot, edited, and optimized in a quality way.

It does not make much sense for YouTube to move a new video from a new channel, even if it is comparable in quality to a channel with a million subscribers.  YouTube needs a strong argument to promote a young channel. And your best helpers in this endeavour are high CTR, retention, viewing sessions, etc.

VIDEO STRATEGY

If you have to look globally, there are two basic video strategies:

• The rarer one is when you want specific views. For example, you are selling luxury real estate. Then you only need views from those who can buy a country house and who are interested in living in the countryside. In this case, selling houses is your income.
• A more common strategy is when you monetize YouTube views directly by advertising on YouTube, selling integrations, etc.

However, even if you sell something, YouTube’s strategy of maximizing views suits you. In short, about 90% of YouTube channels want to get as many views as possible. So that is what we will talk about.

The only way to increase YouTube views is to get to the recommendation section. We have access to a large number of YouTube channels and can confidently state that over 70% of YouTube views come from recommended videos and the home page (recommendations).

So if you want quick results before you publish a video, you should already have an understanding of how to gain YouTube views:

1. Buying targeted traffic until the video gets into recommendations.

There are two main options:

• Google Adwords. If you know how to work with it, you can get good retention and engagement quickly and cheaply.
• The second option to buy YouTube viewsis through direct advertising. It could be a post in the community, adding it to the end screen, or even integrated into a competitor’s video. This tool has a better conversion rate into an active audience, so it is also more efficient in terms of the algorithm.

2. Optimize videos for a specific keyword query that has a good search volume and little competition. Unlike recommendations, the search traffic source does not care as much about huge views on videos, activity in the first hours, and dozens of other actions.
3. If it is quite budget-friendly, you can choose 10-20 groups/chats on social networks in which your content will look appropriate and do a mailing thereafter for each publication of the video.
4. You can even write cool comments under popular YouTube videos: jokes, interesting remarks, additions, etc. The main thing is no direct advertising for the channel. If you get to the top of comments on a million views video, more than a hundred thousand people will see you, and a couple of thousand will go to your channel.

CHANNEL STRATEGY

If you plan to work on YouTube for months/years, you need to elaborate a channel strategy. For example, there should be a clear plan of publications.

If you can meet the deadline for releasing videos, it will be a very good idea. If you manage to build a system, you have to talk about it everywhere. For example, write on the channel that every Monday at 7 p.m. you have a new release. The regularity of publications is incredibly important.

TO SUM UP

1. If you have few views and you do not know what to do about them, first of all, conduct a niche analysis. Maybe you have run out of options for growth on this topic. If the niche is good, it means you have lost sight of the ways of your development.
2. Videos must be of high quality in all aspects, starting with the structure of the narrative and ending with optimization. If the content is bad then the rest of the points in principle are not worth reading.
3. Next, you need to understand your goal. With a high probability, it is to maximize views. In that case, you need to look for sources of traffic.
4. One of the most important elements of video promotion is the condition of the channel. The publication schedule should be set up and every video on the channel should be great.

If you follow all the points in good faith then the success of the channel is sure to be!