Starting a Youtube channel is no cup of cake, especially in 2023, which is the era of video content consumption. Undoubtedly, Youtube has been the top video streaming platform for over 15 years. So, you will find the content market saturated with videos catering to all types of audiences. Tackling engagement can prove to be quite intimidating for beginner-level creators.
As a marketer or just someone trying to make it big in the video content community, you might find it challenging to break it through the crowd. However, standing out among the Youtube tycoons isn’t that impossible either.
All you need to do is get your hands on some engagement hacks. And before you even know it, you will be trending with high-ranking YouTubers. In this article, we have compiled some of the top ways to raise engagement on your Youtube videos!
Summary
How to increase Youtube video engagement
Believe it or not, aside from the kickass content, these tips and tricks are solely responsible for giving famous YouTubers high engagement.
So without further ado, let us dive in and unveil the secret to Youtube’s success!
1. Use a Catchy Title
Selecting the right title for your video is the first step in attracting viewers to your channel. So, the title has to be catchy and precise to increase the click-through rate of your video. This is also known as the CTR, which represents the percentage of people who clicked on your video through the search bar or the suggested without column.
Your video title should deliver the gist of your video in a way that piques the audience’s interest immediately.
If the title doesn’t precisely indicate what your video is about, then you might end up losing viewers instead of gaining them.
Another trick is to use listicle-type titles. Listicles are a common technique used by bloggers and content creators in blogs or articles. As research has shown that people prefer to view this type of material first since they can tell better the amount of information they’ll be retaining.
To sum up:
🎥 Use emojis.
🎥 Use odd numbers and create both Top 3 and Top 101 lists.
🎥 Use STRONGLY emotive words and capitalize where necessary.
🎥 Never over-promise or allure the audience with a lie.
2. Optimize the Description
Youtube video descriptions help you in receiving more views as they are responsible for helping your videos pop up in the search results. Here are some ways you can optimize your video descriptions to achieve better results.
- Keywords: Adding keywords to the description as well as the title, is highly recommended. Place your keyword at the beginning of your description, as the first 100 words of the text only appear in the search results along with the title and thumbnail.
- First line (a.k.a Hook): The first sentence should be enticing enough to improve your CRT rate and sell your product smartly and honestly!
- Rest of the description: The rest of your video description should be describing what it is about. People definitely read it through. Say if you are a food channel, make sure to add the recipes in the description box! Use a nice conversational tone and do not overdo the keywords or place them in a way, which is confusing for the audience.
- Check competitors: It is always smart to study what your competitors are doing to improve your ways. See what keywords others are using and study their placements. Copying formats isn’t a crime, so you can always take inspiration and personalize it according to your channel to gain instant success.
- Add CTA: Always add your social media handles, promo links, or weblinks in the description box. This increases audience engagement with your videos, and you may gain potential new viewers for your channel. Also, add hashtags in your description since they help with appearing in search results better than using keywords alone. Plus, you can add them randomly, as no one really reads this part of the description.
3. Use Trends to Your Advantage
This is the era of viral trends and hashtags. These trends work as a chain link, where someone successfully launches highly catchy content. And once it goes viral, everyone would try to hop on to the “trends.”
Once there’s a viral video in the store, people tend to search for similar content. Given that, you don’t have to invest a lot of time and effort in coming up with new and innovative content ideas. Instead, all you can do is pick the template of the trending video and curate them while selling your brand and personality.
More nonsubscribers would likely view your video. So, make sure to showcase the unique selling point (USP) of your channel. This will guarantee you a long-term audience.
Some video makers use keywords for the running trend in their video titles in order to have higher chances of appearing first in the search bar. An example of such a trend is React Videos in which the creator has to react or pass out commentary on other’s material.
4. Use Attractive Thumbnails
After titles, thumbnails are pretty much the top key element that drives traffic toward your videos. An attractive thumbnail is most likely to be clicked on compared to a normal plain one.
The cover of your YouTube video should communicate the message of your video clearly. Here are some basic elements the thumbnail should definitely have:
- Text to deliver the main point of the video
- Use of popping graphics, colors, and imagery
- Use of aesthetic layout
- An expressive headshot of either you or a relatable personality; Human expressions build curiosity among the viewers. A potential watcher would want to know what reason provoked the person in the video to have such an expression.
Do not shy from experimenting with the designs on your YouTube thumbnails. Your major goal here is to evoke curiosity among the audience. So, the correct usage of words is highly important. Moreover, develop one style and stick to it for the rest of your video covers to develop consistency. This technique helps in gaining recognition quickly among the masses.
5. Use Youtube Shorts
Short-form videos have become a highly consumed video form because of the lack of attention span among Gen Z and working adults. So to keep with the trending video format Youtube Shorts were introduced – inspired by TikTok Videos and Instagram Reels.
YouTube Shorts are short 15-second videos that can go up to a minute. So you have a limited window to deliver your message and make the most of this feature.
Another fact about YouTube Shorts is that you cannot monetize them. So, they are only good for promotions. However, it has its own like, subscribe, and comment section and the likes add up to your main channel.
Beginner creators can use this to their advantage and create short, catchy content within their branding to generate traffic toward their main long-form content. This will do the trick of raising engagement just right without having to put a lot of effort into your videos.
Plus, you can even plan out a bunch of YouTube Shorts beforehand and schedule them for the month. This way you don’t have to worry about not having enough viewership while you work on bigger projects.
6. Catch Attention with Editing
To counter the popular discourse – Nope, attention spans aren’t getting shorter people are just getting wittier and more creative with expressing their personalities on the internet.
The use of fluff and general bragging is a thing of the past in the video-making community. Now people are more interested in to-the-point content that is also catchy and nice to look at. The use of quick cuts, big jumps, and effective transitions to cover the jumps is all a quick way to an engaging YouTube video. Make sure to deliver your message clearly, all while letting your personality shine through it.
Here are some key points to keep in mind while editing:
- If the footage does not benefit your purpose, edit it out.
- Use graphics, additional footage, overlay cards, and pointers to make the video more fun to look at.
- Add catchy music or sound effects where necessary.
Gaming YouTubers are pioneering on youtube with just their editing habits. They make use of voiceovers and transitions to keep the audience hooked, as the voiceover keeps your viewers connected to you, and the transitions make the video more appealing to watch.
Jacksepticeye is a famous gaming YouTuber with about 24 million subscribers. He streams hour-long games, and usually sitting through an hour-long video of someone playing a game can seem pretty boring. However, Jack has been simply using his charms and a little bit of humorous editing to maintain his top rank.
7. Work Smarter, not Harder!
We are aware the video-making process is not that easy. You have to mind map the ideas, create the content, plan the content, record it, and edit it. By the time you reach the recording step, there will be barely any room left to tinker around with your video editing software. This is why making a video can take too much of your time, and one can never predict how long the editing process can take.
Here are some tips to work, your way smartly:
- Script your videos ahead of time to avoid unnecessary rambling
- Make a content plan and execute it accordingly
- If you lack editing skills or don’t have the time to edit, then outsource it!
Often people have to quit their daytime jobs to focus on their YouTube careers. A decision like this can definitely be a hard one and may affect your personal life to an extent, especially if you have just begun your YouTuber career.
What you can do instead is, during the initial stage of your career, start outsourcing or hire an assistant to manage the editing department. Several services offer virtual video editing assistance that can get the job done quickly and for cheap!
Editvideo.io is one service where you can hire an editor for a very cheap subscription and get video editing exactly according to your preference within 24 hours.
This way you will not have to invest so much time and energy and instead focus on building engagement and generating traffic toward your channel.
8. Interact with the Audience
Interacting with your audience is one of the easiest techniques to increase engagement on your videos. The more interactive or informative your videos are, the more room your audience will have to comment down their opinions. This way you can gain valuable insights and feedback from your viewers and improve by implementing them in the next video.
Moreover, Interacting with your audience helps with community building as well. The community provides backing support to your channel so that you have a consistent following. It can be difficult to get back to all comments. So, focus on catering to the newest comments first and head on to another video.
Here are some ways you can increase interaction with your audience.
- Q & A’s: You can start a question and answer session in your comment section, or perhaps you can entertain this as a segment in your video.
- Giveaways: Hosting giveaways is also a nice technique to increase engagement. You can keep the condition to comment and share at the end of your video. So that you can receive an influx of audience while giving back to your community.
End Note
To sum it up, you can not have a successful engagement on your channel with just content alone. While good video content is important for audience building, strategic content planning, and outreach tricks can help you in the long run.
So, in order to gain top rank on YouTube quickly, make sure to curate it in a way that will gain more attention. Hopefully, our tips on increasing engagement on YouTube videos proved helpful for the channel!
If you have some other hacks up your sleeve, then do share them with the community in the comment section below!
