50 Ways To Win at YouTube

By: Garin Kilpatrick

My friends over at The Biz Media recently recorded a panel called “How to Win at YouTube” that took place at NXNE 2011. The panel includes the YouTube stars; Harley Morenstein of Epic Meal Time, Peter Chao of pyrobooby, Alex Ikonn of Luxy Hair, Matt Gibson of MattG124 & Corey Vidal of ApprenticeA.

Everyone on this panel has channels with millions of views.  Harley and the Epic Meal Time crew are the #1 most subscribed channel in Canada with more than half a million more subscribers than Justin Bieber.  If I had to distill all of Harley’s advice down into a sentence that sentence would be “get drunk and be epic.”

I watched the four video series and pulled out the most epic and powerful tips.

In addition to the videos below there are 25 additional winning secrets for YouTube success.

Video 1 – Tips 1-4

• The first 11 minutes of this video shows clips from each of the different producers, watch this to get a feel for what flies on YouTube.
• If you build it they will come does not work on YouTube, you have to leverage other social media networks like Facebook and Twitter to get the ball rolling with your views.
• Get your first 1,000 subscribers as soon as possible by going out to
• Getting people to favorite & like your videos is important

Video 2 – Tips 5-11

• Meta data is important
• Be consistent (One video a week)
• Ray William Johnson posts every Tuesday and Friday
• Tap into the popularity of others (ie. Kim Kardashian, Justin Bieber)
• Make videos about what you care about
• Burst and Evergreen content can achieve views (Burst rides the wave of a fad, evergreen remains relevant over time)
• Be rateable and friendly, educate without trying to sell

Video 3 – Tips 12-15

• Be a friend not a corporation
• Consistent catch phrases and branding works
• Consistency is key (One or two episodes a week)
• Videos are like seeds that can grow views over time if your content is evergreen

Video 4 – Tips 16-25

• Cross-platform promotion is important
• Do what you do, haters are gonna hate, but don’t let it phase you.
• Make a first channel a success, then if you can do that create a second more personal channel to connect with your true fans.
• Collaboration with other partners can be very beneficial, especially if they have a loyal fan base
• YouTube partners are manually reviewed and must have at least 3 videos produced on a regular basis
• 60,000 subscribers with one video a week at 50-60,000 views per video = $600 in monthly ad revenue from YouTube
• There are more ways to monetize than just YouTube ads
• You have to produce plenty of epic content if you want to make serious money
• Videos that you enjoy making will probably resonate with viewers the most
• Consistency is more important than virality

There you have 25 tips for YouTube Success.  Here are another 25 that will help ensure your YouTube presence is as powerful as possible!

Many of your friends probably already have YouTube, which is why I recommend connecting your Facebook and Twitter accounts with YouTube.  Although I have only produced a few videos I have over 300 subscribers already!

My main strategy for getting more subscribers is an aggressive video creation plan, combined with social media promotion, and building as many links to my YouTube channel as possible!

26. Use Facebook and Twitter To Build Your YouTube Presence

The chances are you already have friends on Facebook and you may even have followers on Twitter as well and sharing your videos with these audiences will really help your content get off of the ground when you first get started on YouTube.  You can even set your YouTube channel up so that your content shares to your social networks automatically when you upload it.

27. Be Professional

You don’t need to be wearing a suit and tie but at least remember to shave. If you can afford it hire a professional video production studio like TheBizMedia to help you with your video.

 28. Get as Comfortable as Possible

Video Blogging is a little nerve racking, so it helps to be comfortable. Find the place where you feel most comfortable, your favorite couch or chair perhaps, and get set up. Plenty of light is also a necessity, but not so much that it feels unnatural. Personally, I prefer to record when no one is around so I can focus on the video at hand and get in “the zone.”

29. Make sure your Batteries are Charged

I have learned this lesson the hard way. Trust me when I say it sucks if you get into a good dialogue and are cut off mid-sentence due to a failing battery. A dead battery disrupts the entire flow so make sure you are charged up.

30. Use a Script

Sometimes I just wing it, but having a script makes the production process significantly less painful. Knowing exactly what you want to say before you say it allows you to focus on delivery when the camera is rolling. It is best to look at the camera as much as possible so bullets are a great way to ensure you achieve the best results possible.

31. Remember YouTube has a 15 minute video limit

Even though they support HD Video YouTube still implements a 15 minute video length cap. 10 minutes is a good target to aim for, and even just 5 minutes is enough time for many videos.

If your plan is to create a video longer than 15 minutes you will be forced to chop it up. I recently had this length cap increased since I have produced several videos at this point but if you are just starting out 15 minutes will be the max length

32. Practice makes Perfect

I bought a compact tripod from a local electronics store for under $20 and I use it almost every time I shoot. I also had a Heavy Duty tripod stand given to me and I use this as well for some scenes. A steady camera makes a video much better so if you do not have a tripod handy ensure the person handling the camera is careful to hold it still.

33. Give yourself time to edit

The Photographer Thomas Hawk says that for about every ten pictures he takes he usually only keeps about one. When shooting video a similar rule applies: record a lot, use a little.

34. Start a Video Podcast

If you are unfamiliar about how Podcasting works you should look into it because getting your content into iTunes opens it up to millions of iTunes users!

35. Optimize Your Video Title

Your title is a very important factor for determining the success of your videos.

Think about that the keywords are that people will be using to search for your video. How to titles work well, How To Do Something, How To Learn Something. Try to be descriptive and search keywords related to your video to get ideas from what is already out there.

36. Make Sure That Your Description Area is Optimized as Well

You need to make sure that you have your website address on the first line of your description area. Make sure this starts off with http:// and then your website address. This way people can go to your site. The most effective way to do this is to link directly to a “squeeze page” where the only action people can take on your page is to subscribe to your newsletter or leave.

37. Let There be Light

A camera is just a device that captures light so it helps to have plenty of light if you want a high quality video.

38. Natural Light is Best

Natural light simply looks the most natural, and is difficult to reproduce. If you cannot film during the day I recommend buying daylight effect bulbs, unless you are willing to spring the extra cash for professional lighting.

39. Optimize Your Video Tags

Video tags are the keywords that you need to enter into the tag area when you upload your video.

You need to make sure that your video tags optimized. In other words, they are keywords that people are searching on YouTube or Google.

To find out the keywords that relate to your video go to the search function inside YouTube and to type in one keyword that relates to your niche.  And then you’ll see, it will come up a whole bunch of different suggestions that YouTube gives you.

That’s really an easy way to find out other keywords that relate to your niche on YouTube and the people are already looking for–and that’s already getting traffic. So that’s a really, really cool tip.

40. Do a Screencast

Screencasts are a great way to produce quality content without having a camera in your face.

TechSmith is a software company that produces two cool pieces of software for screen casting. For the record a screen cast is a video of what is happening on your screen. The more affordable option is Jing, which I have purchased and am quite happy with. For advanced features such as cursor zoom and others check out Jing’s big brother, Camtasia.

If you are looking for a free screencasting solution check out screenr. Screenr is powerful, simple, and works on either Mac or PC. You can download screenr videos, upload to youtube, and easily share them with your Twitter network.

41. Start a Video Challenge

Are you have a skill that you think goes unmatched? Put it to the test and create a video challenging others to step up to the plate. If you can get a ton of video responses there is a good chance that the people who make them will tell their friends about the challenge and this will help you build hype and get views!

42. Keep your Video Short and Sweet

Brevity is the art of wit. Twitter is proof that it works.  If you produce 5 minute videos instead of 10 minute videos you can produce twice as many and you will be planting twice as many seed to grow YouTube video success.

43. End on a Positive Note

Go out with a bang. Save the best for last. End with a smile and keep your viewers eager for more.

44. Get Great Editing Software

One of the many reasons I am happy I bought a Mac is because it comes stock with the easiest video editing program I have ever used, iMovie.

I have also edited on a PC, and when I did I used Adobe Premiere.

45. Use Annotations With a Call to Action

Annotations are those little text boxes that you have probably seen on top of YouTube videos before.

Annotations take only a few moments to publish but if you include them they can send a steady amount of traffic to your site over time, especially if your video starts to gain serious traction!

46. Do Joint Ventures

do joint ventures. Look at YouTube as a huge joint venture machine for you to find other people in your niche who already have access to a big list of people or a big subscriber list either on YouTube or an email list and collaborate with them so that you can help their audience and rapidly grow your own.

47. Include a Call to Action Within Your Video

Ray William Johnson, who produces the most subscribed channel on YouTube, ends every video with a call to action for users to comment below and share the video on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus!

48. Interlink Your Videos

Using the annotations feature of YouTube you can interlink your videos.

Using this feature is a great way to increase your view counts by getting viewers to watch multiple videos instead of just one.

49. Create a Corresponding Blog Post for Your Video

According to forrester research blog posts containing videos are the easiest way to get a page one ranking on Google:

“On the keywords for which Google offers video results, any given video in the index stands about a 50 times better chance of appearing on the first page of results than any given text page in the index.”

50. Do Video Responses to Popular Videos in Your Niche

Doing this will create a link next to the original video showing your video response.

This strategy is an effective way to siphon traffic from already successful videos.

Subscribe to My YouTube Channel

Subscribe to my YouTube channel, I have several online success videos scheduled for the near future!

More Video Promotion Strategies

Now that you know how to make powerful videos on YouTube check out my free Twitter eCourse, Powerful Facebook Tips, and Google Plus Report for powerful tips for using these networks to drive traffic to your videos and build your online brand.

Feedback

What do you think of these tips? What strategies do you use to get more views? Let us know in the comments below!