Promoting Your Channel

Once you’ve found your niche and set up your channel, social media expert Heidi Dean suggests some ways you can promote your channel and videos.

Create a trailer that will auto-play for viewers not already subscribing to your channel. According to Dean, that are “short, exciting, and [that] end with a call to action to subscribe” are the ones that work out best.

Add a subscribe link – an automated pop-up that lets viewers simply click to subscribe. Dean calls this “the secret sauce for increasing subscribers.”

Create branded watermarks for all your videos and link them so your viewers can subscribe by clicking them.                                                                                                                                          Create “bright, high-resolution, compelling thumbnails overlaid with the title of your video” to make your videos stand out from the crowd.

Your title should be short enough so the viewer will type it into the search bar. “Pro tip,” says Dean, “only the first 45 characters of your title are viewable in search.”

        Using Your Influence 

The good news is that you don’t necessarily need to have millions of followers to monetize your YouTube channel. 

There are many brands out there who are looking for “micro-influencers” —YouTubers who have a smaller, but very loyal, audience base. 

Start by becoming familiar with things like your engagement rate, conversion rate, demographic information, and any other analytics you think might be relevant. 

Keep records of these statistics so you have some evidence to show prospective brand partners.

Then, you’ll need to identify those brands you want to work with. 

Which companies have values and goals that are aligned with your own? 

Who reflects your work ethic or mission statement? 

Run a Google search for brands that relate to your niche—and don’t just target the large companies, either. Start a list of possibilities and run with it.

You can make money either through advertising or sponsorship. Advertising is still one of the main ways of monetizing your channel. 

Once you’ve reached 1,000 subscribers and have 4,000 watch hours in the past 12 months, you’ll qualify for YouTube’s partner program, which allows you to monetize your channel with advertisements that play during the video. 

But one of the most effective strategies is sponsorship, where you are paid by a brand to advertise their products on your videos. 

You can either create entire videos devoted to the products or feature those products during your regular effect, you’ll become a spokesperson for their brand. And when you’re partnered with a brand, you can also make money through affiliate links, where you get a commission when your

viewers click on a link to the brand and make a purchase there.

You can convince these brands to partner with you by using two different methods: direct or indirect contact. 

Direct contact should be self-explanatory. You reach out to the company yourself, giving your evidence to prove they should be working with you. 

This is your best move if you want to be proactive. Be sure that your reasons make sense to the brand. 

For example, if you’re reviewing tech products, it doesn’t make much sense to try to ally yourself with a dressmaker. 

However, if you’re planning on advertising their products by modeling the outfits in your videos, they might go along with it. 

You’ll want to have some statistics about the number of followers you have, both on your channel and your social media platform, and on things like average video views, so you have hard facts to convince the brand to work with you.

Indirect methods include linking to their products in your videos or social media posts or giving a shout-out to their brand. 

You’ll still need to convince the brand to work with you, but your method of contact will be a little different. Instead of emailing the brand, you want to build rapport by tagging them in your content or giving the brand a shout-out, then contacting the company via direct messaging. 

If you’re not having much luck reaching out on your own, you might try reaching out to local companies that might be more likely to partner up. 

You can also consider contacting an influencer agency that can handle marketing for you. YouTube Influencer agencies are advertising and marketing companies that match YouTubers with companies looking for social media influencers. 

The agency will get a cut of the payments from the brand, but you wouldn’t need to worry about logistics like administrative tasks or client contracts.

YouTube can be quite lucrative for people who understand how their platform works and how to utilize their own skills to their best advantage. If you pay attention to some of the top YouTube influencers, you’ll see that they make influencing their job, working nearly round-the-clock to network and gain more exposure for themselves and their channels. 

You’ll see them attending exclusive events and hobnobbing with celebrities. Many of them have six-figure yearly earnings. 

The question is: how can you join them?

Once you’ve figured out your niche and started creating quality videos, you’re on the way. 

Now, you just have to put in the work hours and advertise yourself as an expert, so you’ll attract that loyal audience. That audience is the key to growing your business and making money on YouTube. 

Think of it this way: the more followers you have, the more potential customers. 

And if you’re partnered with a larger brand, you might be able to attract some of their customers as well. The key is to keep them satisfied with your channel and continue to engage with as many as possible. 

Continue to produce those quality videos as often as you can—at least two to three times a week. 

Attract your followers to your brand by solving their problems and offering them entertainment along with your educational material. 

The more you can build your audience, the more chances you have to convert those followers into loyal customers. 

If you convince them that your products or services offer the solutions to their problems, you’ll have those customers, and they’ll stay with you so long as you continue to offer what they need.

Once you reach around 10,000 views on your channel, you’ve got a good potential to get paid—and that potential will rise with every 10,000 views you garner. 

So, you’re not only gaining potential customers, but earning money through advertisements and sponsorships. It’s truly a “win-win” situation.

To your success!