What mistakes should not be made when working with YouTube, so that subscribers and activity grew and the channel developed.
Mistakes that do not develop the channel on YouTube
Did you want to make your own YouTube channel? Well, I think it’s great! And in this article, I want to warn you about what can go wrong.
YouTube promotion is as serious a project as website optimization or offline marketing. Today we’re going to talk about the mistakes that business owners, experienced marketers, and newbies make when working with this platform.
This article was inspired by a large number of guides and recommendations, which… still don’t fully help you figure out how to effectively promote your YouTube channel for business. So instead of showing how to do it right, let’s talk about the main mistakes and give recommendations on how to avoid them.
To overcome the limitations of subscriber growth on your YouTube channel, you can get subscribers here https://captainsmm.com/. It is also possible to get more views and likes for Instagram photos, Tik Tok videos and Telegram posts.
Mistakes when working with a YouTube channel at the start
Creating content without analysis
Experienced marketers understand the importance of audience and competitor analysis. But even they can make mistakes when determining user needs. And that’s because they use data from other marketing tools and don’t take into account the specifics of video hosting.
YouTube is a unique communication channel. Communication with viewers on the service is built not only on images and ideas, but also on trends and memes. Dry content, outdated topics and boring jokes will spoil the relationship with the audience.
Solution: analyze the audience, competitors and competition on thematic requests.
Recommendations:
- Evaluate the competitiveness of the topic and identify opportunities to promote the channel.
- Analyze the topics and formats of the competitors, identify disadvantages and advantages.
- Determine what viewers like more: educational videos, reviews, entertaining or, on the contrary, shocking videos. Analyze which topics got a wide coverage and which dissolved into the general list.
- Analyze YouTube and Google search results, and pay attention to video clips in the latter.
- Determine what “language” your audience speaks, what trends and memes they are interested in. Think about how you can use this on your channel.
The data will give you an idea of which methods you should use for promotion and will also help you to make an effective media plan.
How else can you increase the number of subscribers on YouTube to 1000 and 10000 pieces? At https://lowcostsmm.com/. It’s the same with likes and views, which you can get for your Telegram, Instagram and Tik Tok accounts.
Creating a YouTube channel without understanding your goals and strategy
I often encounter this situation. A business already has a YouTube channel, to which they uploaded what was available, such as ads and corporate videos. In the end, the channel just exists as an archive of company videos, but it doesn’t work as a marketing tool. And the owner has no idea what to do with it. This happens because the channel was either created without a strategy, or the goals of promoting the brand on YouTube were not taken into account when creating the strategy.
Solution: think through a strategy before launching, based on audience, competitor and competition analysis.
Recommendations: draft a strategy so that it answers the question, “What result should be achieved with the YouTube channel, and how should it be implemented?”
YouTube, as a full-fledged marketing tool, should serve four main purposes:
- traffic generation;
- lead generation;
- forming a positive opinion about the brand;
- increasing audience loyalty and engagement.
Flexibly change the importance of the goals from stage to stage. If you want to get traffic, but you only have ads, focus on lead generation by running ad campaigns. If you have corporate ads, emphasize brand opinion building. Then start posting themed content, and so, gradually, you will realize all the main goals.
Copy the style of videos from other channels
When you watch videos on other people’s channels you want to copy successful ideas. But what works for your competitors may be useless for you. In addition, if your viewer discovers your cunning plan, his opinion of you might be damaged, because unique content, new ideas, and formats are highly valued on video hosting.
The solution: get more creative, create unique content, which no one else has. Yes, it is difficult, but you can’t do without it today.
Recommendations: You probably cannot reinvent the wheel, but if you decide to use someone else’s idea, try to improve it and make it unique.
Gain subscribers
Snagged subscribers are useless. Strive to get real ones. Honest channel management will be more loyal to users.
Theoretically, getting addicts helps create a “crowd effect.” But there are strong arguments against it:
- The number of subscribers has little effect on video and channel ranking, the main thing is audience engagement.
- At the first “dead souls” purge, YouTube will write most of them off.
- Scam is easy to detect by comparing the number of subscribers, views, and likes. You’ll have to fudge all the parameters. And at the same time say goodbye to adequate statistics.
The solution: do not do so.
Recommendations: I do not recommend it.
Upload a large number of videos
A large number of videos is appropriate for news channels, channels with broad themes or those which, due to their specifics, broadcast changes in industry niches on a daily basis. Channels related to gaming, technology or sports can be referred to broad topics. In most topics, however, adding frequent videos can, on the contrary, alienate the viewer.
Imagine that your channel is a person. If he’s an incorrigible chatterbox, you’re bound to get bored quickly when talking to him. That’s why it’s definitely not a good idea to post 10 clips a day.
Solution: don’t bore the viewer.
Recommendations:
- Don’t chase quantity, work better on quality – share important and interesting information with your viewer.
- Monitor the audience’s reaction, ask users if they want your videos to come out more often or less often.
- Structure your content – don’t divide it into too small subtopics that you can watch in one video at a time.
- Create a content plan.
Ignore your users
You shouldn’t ignore your subscribers, because it’s the communication with them and the fact that you hear them and know their problems that builds loyalty to your brand.
If you ignore viewers’ comments, opinions and requests, they will either leave or troll and spread negativity about you online.
The solution: give your subscribers feedback. Act with them as if they are your friends and like-minded people. Be as welcoming as possible without being flattering.
Recommendations: leave comments below the videos, write comments in the community, ask about how users feel about the videos, the topics you cover in your videos, and unobtrusively ask questions about the brand.
Mistakes when working with content
Creating content in test mode
When starting work with a channel many people don’t want to spend a lot of time and resources on it, because in their mind there is a thought: “What if it doesn’t work! Let’s work on minimal content”. And with this mindset, begins experiments that lead to not very good consequences in the video:
- bad sound;
- “shaking camera” effect;
- presence of extraneous graphic elements (for example, watermarks from free versions of editors).
All these mistakes seem insignificant, but remember that your viewers live in the 21st century, too, and they understand that you can make a good video even with a small budget. And such disrespectful attitude will be never forgiven by the audience.
The solution: the picture and sound quality should always be high.
Recommendations: If you position yourself in the market as a major brand, the sound and picture should be perfect.
If you’re a small, not yet a very developed brand, you can shoot video on your phone, thanks to modern technology. But please, use a stabilizer or a tripod, and record the sound on a good microphone.
There is no idea that unites your content. Fickleness and experimentation with formats
In this case, it’s not about the brand mission that unites all of the company’s activities, but about the idea of the channel itself.
Your videos shouldn’t jump from topic to topic and you shouldn’t try to keep up with trends. Also, you shouldn’t constantly change formats. Otherwise, users will have difficulty keeping track of your thoughts, and they will stop understanding what this channel is about, and what content awaits them.
Solution: create thematic and near-thematic content that will answer users’ questions and solve their problems.
Recommendation: Make all videos in the formats chosen according to the strategy and don’t confuse users with a variety of pitches. Of course, you can update the headings and add something new, but the general concept should be maintained. Make a content plan to comply with the frequency of videos, topics and formats at different stages of channel promotion.
No optimization
And here we come to the technical part. The first and biggest misconception of beginner youtubers is that, in their opinion, it is not worth much trouble to promote their channel. That it’s enough to “upload” a video clip on YouTube, and the viewer will find it by himself. It doesn’t work that way!
YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google. And like any search engine, you also need to optimize the content for a video hosting. Lack of optimization means loss of organic traffic, loss of those clients who couldn’t find you in search.
The solution: perform video optimization.
Recommendations:
- Write relevant title, description, tags based on strategy. Create clear and at the same time intriguing titles, do not forget about the keywords.
- Remember that the first phrases of the description are very important, they will show up in the search results and help attract the viewer’s attention.
- Add graphic and interactive elements: previews, tooltips, end screensaver.
- Combine videos into playlists.
Optimization can also include the frequency and timing of videos. If users know when a new video will appear on your channel, it will be easier for them to follow your updates. Ideally, users also know in advance what your next video will be about.
Lack of video support at the beginning
The second big misconception is that if you write your metadata correctly, your video will make it to the top and viewers will be able to find it.
That’s partly true, but it’s not always enough. On YouTube, behavioral factors play a big role in ranking. And that means if your video hasn’t been watched by enough people, or if the views were with a low retention rate, search engine algorithms will remove it from the top.
A video will be promoted if it is watched by viewers with a high retention rate. If the video is optimized, but doesn’t rank at the top, attracting additional traffic to the video will help change the situation.
Solution: To get your video to the top and keep it there for a long time, you need to consider the competitiveness of the topic and use simple proven methods: Google Ads, blogger ads and seeding on social networks.
Recommendation: content should be of high quality, otherwise after each promotion attempt the video will still go down in prominence.
Intrusive advertising of goods or services
Commercials are always negatively perceived by the audience. Their presence on the channel is not conducive to organic promotion.
Do not be equal to the corporate channels of huge international companies, where they place ads, corporate videos and interviews. Such companies invest a lot of money in advertising and brand promotion, so promotion on YouTube is achieved at the expense of omnikanality. Other companies simply don’t have as many resources to develop their YouTube advertising channels.
Do things on your channel that are relevant to you and your clients. For example, if your company produces children’s toys, then strict corporate videos are not an option for you. And if you have a chain of fitness gyms, you can upload videos with exercises and diets from the best trainers to your channel.
Solution: Do not impose your products, show them natively (so they look as natural as possible).
Recommendation: The channel should be recognizable and associated with your products and services, so use your own logo and company colors in the design of the videos.
Inaccurate information
I’ve already mentioned about subscriber recruitment, but there are still a number of problems you may encounter when you really want to make your brand channel more attractive to the user:
- Ineptitude in recruiting likes and comments.
- Deception or understatement about the characteristics of your products and services.
- Bad advice and attempts to take unfair advantage of your own popularity and influence.
Unnatural comments under a video reduce the user’s motivation to leave an adequate comment. And cheating and unfair treatment of the viewer can damage the positive opinion of the brand altogether.
Solution: be honest, take care of your reputation.
Recommendations:
- Update the information, and let your videos always be relevant to the user.
- Don’t hide the flaws, but emphasize the strengths.
Improper handling of ads
Working with YouTube ads without a strategy
It’s not about advertising your products, it’s about advertising the channel or video itself.
In the pursuit of quick results, many people mistakenly believe that paid advertising contributes to the success of promotion. That’s partly true, but it’s also true that reach doesn’t guarantee a subscription.
The solution: when launching an advertising campaign, work out its strategy. And it doesn’t matter if you run ads with bloggers, run contextual-media ads, make visits to social networks or place with a link to other media resources.
Recommendations: in order to get signups from ads, you need to answer the questions:
- Who will the campaign be targeting?
- Why should the user want to follow this ad to the channel?
- What will interest him/her on the channel so that a subscription takes place?
The prize mechanics for attracting and activating users – contests, draws, and promotions – are effective for increasing the number of subscribers.
Don’t take advantage of influencer marketing opportunities
The opinion of bloggers and opinion leaders is trusted more than ordinary advertising and even advertising with the stars. Therefore, when promoting a channel, working with Influencers shows good results.
Meanwhile, a study by the marketing company HelloSociety says that three tips from different bloggers on the same product motivate users to seek information about it, and five of them inspire a purchase.
Bloggers work with the following types of ads:
1) Ad insert (pre-roll, mid-roll, post-roll)
This is your commercial embedded in the blogger’s video. Ineffective type of advertising, because it does not involve the viewer to interact with the channel. With rare exceptions and in the presence of a strong creative component, the advertising insert can be used, especially if it perfectly suits the script of the video, is interesting in itself and will not irritate the viewer while watching the video.
2) Native advertising
A “natural” link to your channel, video or product. This type of advertising shows good results.
3) Custom video
An entire video dedicated to your topic generates even more loyalty. But it is important to remember that in this format you can not put the blogger in a rigid framework, because he has his own style of narration. It is necessary to choose a channel on which a video about you will look as natural as possible.
4) Other Collaborations
Bloggers can offer to promote your videos or playlists, adding them to your favorite, constantly promote your product, not just in one video, arrange joint contests and live broadcasts.
Solution: work with bloggers, choosing the type of advertising that’s right for you.
Recommendations: do not forget that the blogger’s audience should be targeted to you, and his manner of communication with the public should not harm your reputation.
Now you know what to emphasize when you promote a YouTube project and what mistakes to avoid. In addition to all of the above, I want to add two mistakes that happen when businesses work with marketing agencies.
Lack of communication with business marketers
Communication between marketers, who are responsible for the strategy of the company as a whole, and contractors, who deal with individual projects, should certainly be there. If all projects are united by common ideas and goals, they will reinforce each other. So from YouTube you can get traffic to the site, and from the site you can get traffic to YouTube. All tools should be connected and complement each other as much as possible. If there is no connection, then the effectiveness decreases.
Misunderstood/inconsistent points
Video marketing can have a negative impact on your company’s image and form a bad opinion of the brand if not handled correctly. Therefore, there should be a complete understanding and harmony between the business owner and the marketers.
Marketers should clearly understand the goals and desires of the business owner, and he, in turn, the methods by which the results will be achieved. Otherwise all the uncoordinated and unclear points can affect the course of the project development and lead to different results than what the business expects.
Conclusions
Channel promotion is a complex job that requires constant improvement and attention to detail. You should not wait for the channel to become popular in one moment, it happens seldom. Act, and then it will become a powerful source of targeted traffic.
