Zachy
What a waste!
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So as you guys are all aware, we have a Social Media section on the forum. A big part of Social Media for people here is youTube. Now, I'm not personally looking for tips on youTube, but I think that we should have a youTube tips thread that is stickied there to try and help people get their youTube channels off the ground. So, what tips do you guys have for growing your channel. You don't need to have a ton of subscribers. If you gain just 3 legitimate subscribers, you have grown your youTube channel and there's obviously something that you're doing right. If you're going to give some tips, don't be generic (i.e: "have fun" or "be creative". Be specific about your tips). Here's a couple that I've come up with myself:
- Music. A lot of people on youTube (especially people who make Mario Kart montages and such) want to put music over their videos. It's pretty common. However, there are some people who don't understand copyright, or some people who frankly don't care about copyright. This isn't the right way to go. If you're into upbeat techno/dance/house, etc... music (and most Mario Kart people are), then check out a channel called: NoCopyrightSounds. All music there is up for grabs and you can 100% use it in your videos with no problems at all. If you are unsure about the copyright music or want to use copyrighted music, then definitely ask for permission from the composer/author.
- Audience engagement. It's really important to keep your viewers engaged. Ways of doing this include having polls at the end of videos asking what people think, or asking people to comment below about what they think; kind of like a 'question of the day' or 'question of the week' (depending on how often you upload). Also, replying to comments is really crucial. People really do care that you've taken the time to read and reply to comments, so definitely respond to all comments when you can. If you continue to grow, that will become harder and harder and unfortunately connecting with your viewers will get harder. So take advantage of this while you still can.
- Collaborations. People don't think about this, but collaborating with a youTuber (especially a bigger one) really can get your name out there. You can both play a game together and have commentary over the gameplay, or you can do a video where one of you does one half of said video and the other does the other half. Then you obviously link to each other's channels and state that it was a collaboration (and link other videos if applicable), and that can help you get your name out there pretty easily.
- Giveaways. Not everyone is so rich! This is understandable. But let's be honest, people *love* free stuff. So if you have an extra Wii and want to give it away (buying and giving away prizes is much easier when your channel gets bigger obviously), having a giveaway really sparks people's interest (obviously having one of the requirements be that the winner has to be subscribed to your channel).
- Commentary mixture. Not everyone likes a channel with music overlaying the video all the time. By the same token, not everyone likes a channel with commentary all the time. Having both in one video is ideal (obviously have the music be faint while talking, and then a bit louder when there's no talking or audio). If you're going to commentate, have a personality, speak clearly and loudly, and don't be monotone. I know that if I hear someone being monotone or someone typing through notepad on a video, I just automatically close out of it (how ironic considering that one of my videos is like that, but hey - learn from your mistakes ).
- "Branding". I don't think that too many people think about this one. In terms of advertising yourself, it's important to be uniform. So for example, maybe you have an avatar with a blue background with the first letter of your name on it imprinted in white. Maybe you have an intro with a blue background and white text. This is really crucial. People can easily recognize you then. If you have that picture that people recognize, you can be recognized more easily from a glance rather than looking directly at your username or channel name.
- Good equipment. Obviously, someone is going to want to watch a nice HD video that is edited nicely rather than seeing you record on your phone. I think this goes without saying.
- Unique content. This is especially important these days. Everyone's aspiring to be something, and it's getting harder and harder to be unique with minimal effort. You need to have something that makes people want to come to your channel. Ask yourself this... If you were to advertise your channel, what is your tag line? What would bring people into your channel that only you have? It's hard to give specific examples for this one because everyone has different ideas and different ways of doing things (and most of the things above were global examples, regardless of your niche). But you do need to have something on your channel that no one else has.
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