Community Building and Advertising Using YouTube

YouTube is a great platform for getting your voice out on the internet. Millions of users can access your content for free without the hassle of creating an account and it isn’t difficult to get started uploading videos of your own. If you use Gmail, then you already have an account. Otherwise creating an account is very simple.

The difficulty with YouTube, or any other form of social media for that matter, is gathering a following and making videos that people want to watch. Every successful YouTuber started from step zero. Consistently creating good content is difficult, so don’t be discouraged if your first videos don’t get the attention you expected.

PewDiePie started out as just a guy recording himself playing video games, and now he’s the most subscribed YouTuber of all time. Ever heard of “Flappy Bird”? It’s a pretty unremarkable game, but since PewDiePie played it on his channel, the app gained an incredible amount of popularity almost overnight.

Although you probably won’t be able to become the next PewDiePie or Flappy Bird overnight, interacting with your audience is something you can do to help grow your channel. Channels such as PBS Idea Channel have comment response videos, where they respond directly to comments on last week’s video. They also have a subreddit where members of the community can post ideas directly or not directly related to a video and discuss them there.

This Instructable will help you build community and advertise like the channels and products I mentioned above. By no means is this the only way to get your community started, but it’s a great starting point.

Step 1: Using YouTube to Build Community

The most crucial piece of building a community on YouTube is of course the videos! We've included a short collection of tips in a video format on how you might go about creating content of your own!

YouTube has advanced vastly since the days of being just a video-hosting website. Nowadays, there are so many new and interesting features that can help out with establishing your viewer community. Thanks to backing by Google, YouTube has become more of an all-in-one social media site, with easy-to-use sharing and hyperlinking capabilities.

But how would one be able to integrate Youtube into building up a community? Here are some tips to consider regarding that: invite your viewers to leave a message; link your videos to other social media outlets; and host live streams.

Inviting Viewers to Leave a Comment and Chat Amongst One Another

Internet forums have been around since the dawn of time (or at least the beginning of the WWW). Likewise, YouTube includes areas of discussion across most of their webpages - the comments section on each video (as well as YouTube channels!), where all sorts of users can gather and discuss anything. Thus, what better way to establish a community with your viewer base than to invite them to leave a message in the comments?

You see it all the time in the ending of videos made by famous and popular YouTubers - that good ol’ “like, comment, and subscribe”. This is a means of expanding the community of viewers and inviting them to talk amongst each other. More importantly, you can also join in on the discussion and establish a connection with users on a more individual basis by leaving your own comments and replying to others.

Linking to your Other Social Media Accounts

Another common feature of the more popular channels out there are videos that advertise and link to their other social media accounts - after all, YouTube is mainly a video-hosting site. It’s challenging at times to make an interesting video that properly conveys what it is you are trying to tell your viewers, so why not use a social media outlet that’s better at portraying the message? For example, if you hosted a photography event, you could make a video that talks about and links to your new Instagram post, where all the best shots of the day have been uploaded.

Hosting Live Streaming Events and Interacting with Viewers in Real Time

Finally, another way of connecting with your viewership is to have live streams - especially when it comes to your hosted events. Similar to the comments section, live streams can be used to connect with your community by allowing real-time discussion and interaction with the followers currently watching. When using this approach, don’t forget to reply to your audience! It can be something simple like an acknowledgement of a debate erupting in the comments, or answering questions that may arise during the stream.

Remember, a community is not about “you” or “me”, but “we, as a collective”, united under one topic. With this in mind, we can bridge the gap between us promoters and our viewers by actively inviting them to the comments section to discuss, engaging with them during live streams, and keeping them up-to-date with information from all our social media outlets.

Step 2: Advertising With YouTube

Another useful feature of YouTube is its powerful integration with advertising. This is because Google AdWords offers a lot of options for choosing when and where your ad will be shown. Knowing your target demographic and where to display your ads is vital for successful advertising on YouTube. First, create an account here and then you’re ready to start adjusting these settings.

Decide on your demographic

When creating an ad through AdWords, it’s important to consider target languages and locations. Setting a target language makes your ads display only to people that have that language set in their Google settings. Also, consider where your customers are located. Make sure to only advertise in places relevant to your product. Selecting all countries may be acceptable if you’re advertising a YouTube video, but if you’re promoting a local college then only select locations nearby. Location and language are important for ensuring your ad is shown to relevant customers.

Decide on your ad format

When advertising on YouTube, the decision must be made to use discovery ads or in-stream ads. Discovery ads display your ad on the homepage, search results page, and in related videos. These types of ads should be used when your ad can be related to videos that other people are watching. When an ad is relevant to what a viewer is watching they are much more likely to click it. The second type of ad to consider is in-stream ads. These ads are displayed at the front of videos. There is no limit on their length, but they can be skipped after a few seconds. In-stream ads only cost money if the viewer clicks on the video. When using in-stream ads, it’s important to make your ad eye-catching at the beginning. A good impression at the start of the video decreases the likelihood of it getting skipped. Deciding if you should use discovery ads or in-stream ads or both is crucial when marketing on YouTube.

Step 3: Learn More

Even though you know how to build your community on YouTube, you still need to tackle the other social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to expand your reach and growth. Check out these other Instructables for more information.

https://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Use-Twitte...
https://www.instructables.com/id/Creating-Instagra...
https://www.instructables.com/id/Facebook-As-a-Com...