How to Promote Your YouTube Videos
Once you’ve fully optimized your videos and channels, there are multiple ways for you to promote your videos on YouTube in order buy YouTube likes to reach and attract new audiences and fans. In this section we will cover a) best practices for creating promotional videos that will help you attract new fans, b) how to use Fan Finder to promote your channel for free, and c) how to supplement Fan Finder promotion by paying to promote your own channel using Ad Words for video.
For both Fan Finder and Ad Words for video, it is important that you create custom promotional materials, instead of simply using your existing YouTube videos. Create a compelling ad by staying creative and following these strategies:
Keep it short – shoot for 30–60 secs. Show viewers what you’re all about – include clips of your content and make sure the ad is in the same style as the content on your channel.
Make the first 5 seconds count – after this the user can skip your ad. Convince them to stay! Use Calls to Action (CTA) – tell users exactly what you want them to do after watching your ad. Give users time to take that action – the last 10 seconds or more of your video should give users time to click. Create a static call to action, like an end-card for your ad.
Give it a real title – ad titles are visible to the user so don’t call it an “ad”. Use this space to double-down on your CTA and name it something like “subscribe to my channel”. Upload to the channel you’re promoting – upload the ad as unlisted or public to the channel you’re trying to promote.
Fan Finder is a tool that allows you to provide a video ad that tells viewers about your channel. YouTube will then run this as an ad before other videos across YouTube.com at no cost to the creator. We want to help you build an engaged, sustainable audience!
Fan Finder promotions target viewers most likely to love your videos and watch over and over again. YouTube finds your potential fans by using signals from viewers’ activities on YouTube: other channels they watch and engage with, their existing channel subscriptions and their engagement levels with different types of content.
To get started, visit www.youtube.com/fan_finder (also found in channel settings). There you will be able to select up to five videos from your uploads to use as a channel ad. Be sure that your ads follow the promotional video best practices above. Also, in order to be eligible for Fan Finder promotion, your video must:
Comply with YouTube’s community guidelines and other terms and conditions applicable to your use of YouTube.
Be uploaded as unlisted if this is a new video (but is fine to leave as public if you’re re purposing an existing video).
Have no associated third-party claims.