18 Ways to Promote Your Videos

Encourage your viewers to subscribe
Promote with YouTube premieres
Use end screen thumbnails
Use cards
Add links to other videos in your descriptions
Add hashtags to your descriptions
Optimize your videos to show up in search results
Allow embedding
Blog and embed your videos
Add a link to your blog menu, widget, or notification bar
Link to your YouTube channel in your email signature
Email your subscribers
Push new video notifications to your subscribers
Promote on Facebook
Promote in Facebook groups
Promote on social media and crypto-based networks
Cross promote on Patreon
Pay to advertise on YouTube

Encourage your viewers to subscribe.

It may seem like a no-brainer to tell viewers to subscribe to your channel, but many YouTubers don’t. YouTubers that do typically mention subscribing at the beginning or end of their videos. The final frame in my videos features a subscribe image, and I have a call-to-action in my descriptions such as “Please SUBSCRIBE to my channel and let’s succeed together.” The more subscribers you have, the more returning visitors you can expect, and new visitors will be tempted to subscribe as your subscriber count increases (social proof).

Promote with YouTube premieres.

YouTube premieres is a feature that lets you and your viewers watch and experience a new video together, much like a movie or TV show premiere. Premiering your video allows you to schedule an upload and create buzz around the video before it’s available.

Add end screens to videos.

An ending screen is an excellent way to keep viewers focused on you. End screens are a part of a video and show during the last 5-20 seconds. Your video must be at least 25 seconds long to have an end screen. You can add up to four elements to promote your content, channel, and website. You can:

Promote other videos, playlists, or channels on YouTube
Call for subscriptions to your channel
Promote your website, merchandise, and crowdfunding campaign

Add cards to videos.

A card directs a viewer to a specific URL (from a list of eligible sites) and shows a customized image, title, and call to action, depending on the card type. You can add up to five cards to one video. For promotional purposes, you’ll want to use video, channel, and playlist cards. Monitor the performance of your cards in YouTube analytics.

Add links to other videos in your descriptions.

Many creators take the “link tsunami” approach and put ten to fifteen links in their descriptions, for example, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Instagram, and so on. Placing too many links are likely to produce inaction rather than action. Alternatively, I use a goal-oriented, less is more approach and place no more than five links in my descriptions. Secondly, if promoting your channel is your primary goal, it doesn’t necessarily make sense to direct viewers off of YouTube. Instead, list three to five videos in your descriptions to keep people on your channel. The longer you keep people focused on you and YouTube, the better the chance you have of getting them to view, watch, and subscribe.

Add hashtags to your descriptions

Hashtags have gone somewhat unnoticed on YouTube, but they can help viewers find your videos. There are two ways to find videos using hashtags:

Search YouTube for a hashtag.
Click on a hashtag in a video title, above a video title, or in the video description.

Suppose you add the hashtag “#SEOtips” to your video’s description. A viewer who clicks on the hashtag from some other video or searches for it may stumble on your video. Learn more about hashtags.

Optimize your videos to show up in search results.

Being on the first page of search results (without paying) is free marketing at its best. High search rankings are how I attract steady traffic without being very active on YouTube. To optimize your videos, you should develop keyword strategies for:

Video titles
The first 160 characters of your descriptions
Keyword tags
Channel keywords
Channel about section

TubeBuddy is an excellent, YouTube certified tool that will help you identify the best keywords. Learn more about YouTube SEO in these two articles:

Allow embedding.

One of the easiest ways to promote your videos is to enable others to distribute them. To allow others to embed, follow these steps:

Go to your Video Manager.
Go to the video you want to turn on embedding for and click Edit.
Under the video, click Advanced settings.
Under “Distribution Options,” check the Allow embedding checkbox.
Click Save changes.

Promotional Activities Off YouTube

Blog and embed your videos.

Many Tubers post their videos on their blogs (learn how to set up a blog). They either write full-length posts, summaries, or embed their videos to mimic social media feeds. For example, in this post, I’ve inserted my self-publishing video tutorials.

Add a link to your blog’s menu.

I choose what appears in my menu, for example, “home,” “tools,” and “about.” You can add a menu tab for YouTube and link to your channel. Also, you can promote your videos/channel in widgets, popups, and notification bars.

Link to your YouTube channel in your email signature.

Add a call-to-action and link in your email signature, for example, “Watch my latest video on YouTube.” or “You won’t believe what I just uploaded to YouTube.”

Email your subscribers.

I hope you’re not one of those Tubers who relies entirely on YouTube for subscribers. You should be building an email list for other things you might do or promote later. Moreover, you’ll have direct access to your email subs (you can’t access your subscribers directly on YouTube).

I use MailerLite for my email marketing. Instead of sending an email for each new post, which could get annoying, I send a monthly recap of my latest posts. You can experiment with a free email marketing service and do the same with your videos.

Push new video notifications to your subscribers.

Another way to build subscribers is with a web push notification service. A push notification is a brief message that pops up on a device such as a desktop, mobile phone, or tablet. It’s an interactive, clickable message that leads to a website. A message can consist of a title, text, URL, image, and call-to-action (CTA) button.

I use OneSignal to notify my subs about new posts. If you have a website, you can add a push notification service and alert your subs about new videos.

Promote on Facebook.

Facebook is undoubtedly the king of social media despite organic page reach losing steam, continuous privacy issues, and executives jumping ship. Creators frequently promote videos on their profiles and pages, but pages allow you to monitor and analyze performance. If you don’t have a page, it might not be worthwhile to start one (evaluate the pros and cons). If you do have a page, there are a couple of apps to help you promote. The YouTube Tab app and Woobox are fantastic options.

Promote in Facebook groups.

Promoting in YouTube-themed Facebook groups isn’t efficient because right after you post, ten posts will follow, and you’ll fall out of sight. Although frequent posting may feel productive, it’s usually an ineffective way to grow your channel. Alternatively, you can start a YouTube promotional group, manage it, and pin your video/channel to the top for maximum visibility. You must control a group and content flow to achieve desired outcomes.

Promote on social media and crypto-based networks.

Google+ is officially dead, but Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram are viable networks to promote your videos. Also, consider joining crypto-based social networks to benefit from early mover advantages, for example, Minds, Steemit, and DTube. I recommend using a social media marketing service, like Hootsuite or Agorapulse, to post to multiple networks simultaneously. These tools will save you time and boost your productivity.

Cross promote on Patreon.

Patreon is a way to get paid for creating the things you already create (videos, songs, whatevs, etc.). Fans pledge a few bucks per month or item released, and the money goes to the creator. It doesn’t matter where you create content, for example, on YouTube, Vimeo, and SoundCloud. Thousands of YouTubers use Patreon to attract fans, cross-promote, and earn money.

Pay to advertise on YouTube.

Free marketing methods can be advantageous. However, spending a few dollars monthly to advertise your videos/channel could give you the boost you need. YouTube offers various advertising models and tools. For instance, use TrueView ads to reach your desired audience and only pay if they show interest in your ad. Learn more about advertising on YouTube.