YouTube marketing is all about presentation.
Titles are crucial when it comes to the performance of your videos. Ask yourself: are you presenting your content as "must have" or not?
For example, you can take a page from the playbook of YouTube giants like BuzzFeed and WhatCulture. Such videos often rely on lists, question-based titles, or hyperbole ("crazy", "...of all time") to drive views.
Athlyn X's fitness-based videos are another good example. Channel content manages to sneak relevant keywords into your titles while still appearing interactive.
"Best of" lists and "how to" titles are always a safe bet, too. Here are some titles worth clicking on on the Disney Food Blog:
The bottom line is that you should definitely spend time brainstorming catchy titles rather than sticking with the first idea that comes to mind.

Heck, see for yourself. Any product or "directions" query on Google will return something from YouTube
In fact, results from YouTube sometimes even appear before blog posts or traditional websites.
Listen: YouTube itself is the second largest search engine in the world. Just as people search through Google to search for products and solve problems, the same is true on YouTube.

Think of your YouTube videos like any other content that needs to be optimized in terms of keywords, tags, etc.

To increase your chances of being featured, you'll want to follow some YouTube SEO best practices:

Title and Description: Include targeted keywords in your title and description. You can use a tool like to help you come up with keyword guesses.
Mention keywords in your videos – According to Brian Dean of Backlinko, mentioning targeted keywords in your videos can help YouTube understand what your video is about.
Engagement: YouTube uses engagement (likes, comments, views) to help determine where videos rank in its search results.
Categories: Use categories to help YouTube understand who to show your videos to.
Tags: In addition to categories, you can also add tags to your videos to give YouTube more context about your content. You can use quite a few tags, so add as many as you can think of.
Just like your website's , don't use keywords. Use the keyword when it makes sense, not just for it.

With any type of content you produce, you'll want to make sure it's in line with what your audience wants. Whether you're writing a blog post or making a video, start by knowing your audience and the type of content they want to see from you.

If you're just starting out promoting your YouTube channel, take a look at your competitors or other video creators in your industry. See which of your videos gets the most views and engagement. This will give you an idea of what topics your audience wants to learn about and what style of video they prefer.

Another solution is to check your YouTube analytics if you have already uploaded videos. YouTube gives you detailed information on audience demographics, location, engagement, and other useful statistics. You can take your strategy a step further with YouTube reporting on Sprout Social and see how your content compares to other social videos you've produced.

reporting outbreak
Want to better understand your YouTube metrics? Download our Video Metrics Cheat Sheet to learn the most important metrics for tracking video content that aligns with your marketing goals and garnering views.

Although you might not think of YouTube as a social network per se, the platform represents a thriving community where users interact through content through profiles, likes, and comments.

Sounds pretty "social" if you ask us.

As mentioned above, any sort of interaction with viewers is considered a positive sign for YouTube. If nothing else, connecting with your customers can help you build a stronger relationship with your audience. Liking comments only takes a few seconds, as does pinning a top comment as a personal note to your customers.

For example, the music channel Artzie Music regularly likes and replies to comments on its recent uploads. The channel producer regularly goes back and forth with subscribers to show appreciation and answer questions.

Engaging through comments and likes should be the cornerstone of marketing your YouTube channel.
Just as you respond to comments and interact with your followers on any other social network, YouTube is no different.

Creating custom thumbnails is one of the simplest yet effective strategies for promoting your YouTube channel.

Think of your title and thumbnail as a double whammy of sorts to capture the viewer's attention.

By default, YouTube takes a screenshot of any video and uses that for the thumbnail. Unfortunately, sometimes the image you capture will be a blurry shot adjusting the camera or transition.

Doesn't sound good, does it?

Creating your own thumbnails not only makes your videos more visually appealing to the naked eye, but also indicates a certain sense of professionalism.

Miniatures don't have to be rocket science either. You can even create a template with a particular font and style to make it more consistent and on-brand. This is made especially easy with the help of image creation tools like Canva. Here's a good example of binging with babish:

Eye-catching thumbnails and titles provide better engagement to your videos
If you're looking for simple social media templates to get started with Creator Studio, check out our free YouTube banners that you can download today.

Chances are you are covering similar topics on YouTube that overlap with each other.

To get the most out of your old content, cross-promote your videos when it makes sense.

For example, you can put links in the description of videos and encourage viewers to watch them as a kind of call to action. While some may be disappointed with the recent removal of YouTube's annotation system, linking in your description encourages viewers to watch your entire video without clicking through.

That said, YouTube is absolutely killing it when it comes to SEO.

And while you shouldn't create content for search engines instead of people, you should promote your YouTube channel with SEO in mind.

In particular, product reviews, how-tos, and long-form videos (10+ minutes) that cover keyword-specific topics tend to rank well in search engine results pages (SERPs). If you don't have many content ideas or want to leverage the buzz in your industry, consider how you can do this through your YouTube marketing channel.

If there's one thing YouTubers love, it's a freebie. Run a YouTube contest or giveaway to encourage people to subscribe to your channel and participate.

To keep your contests simple, let people like your video, leave a comment, and subscribe to your channel to participate.

Follow some of our best practices for running any social media contest:

Be sure to follow YouTube's policies.
Give a gift that relates to your brand: You want to attract more than just gift seekers.
Get creative by including user-generated content and other non-traditional admission requirements.
However, be careful when running YouTube contests frequently. You want to be sure that you are getting results from your efforts, otherwise you will be wasting time, money and resources. After running a contest, wait a while and look at your customer churn rate and engagement numbers. If you're not attracting engaged customers, you may be attracting people who want free rewards.

A smart way to promote your YouTube channel is to create a specific video series that covers a recurring theme or topic.

Popular foodie channel Bon Appetit actually has various series that make up its YouTube presence, including its ongoing "From the Test Kitchen" videos.

Video series can help you fill your calendar with content and encourage you to upload more consistently.
The series is beneficial for both creators and viewers. For creators, you are responsible for creating new YouTube content and don't have to rack your brains for ideas. For your viewers, they have something to look forward to and a reason to keep coming back to your channel.

Some of the best places to promote your YouTube channel go beyond YouTube.

For example, video content has been shown to improve on-site conversion rates and reduce bounce rates. If you want visitors to stay on a product page or blog post longer, embed a video (as we did below).

Remember: Any opportunity to funnel your site (or social!) traffic to YouTube is a bonus.