7 Steps to virality
That interminable problem, the express desire of all content creators. How can you increase views of your video content in a saturated online space? Of course there is no fool-proof method; if there was, everyone would be doing it. But here’s a rundown of five simple tricks to increase views of your motion content online that could ultimately help build your audience.
- Keep it relevant. You could create content that is timely or culturally specific, or aligned with TV or sporting events and news stories.
- Target influencers in the industry or Key Opinion Leaders to share the content for you. Again, keep it relevant, but take advantage of their pull and their followers. The more it can be shared on third-party sites and embedded on other pages, the more views you will obviously rack up
- How the content is framed is key. Write an engaging headline that drives curiosity and is provocative without being offensive or overly opinionated. Use succinct descriptions that entice, but don’t give too much away, along with filling out the rest of the metadata, for example Key Words.
- You can use YouTube’s paid promotion tools to increase the visibility of your content, as one of the determiners of search results order.
- Retain viewers. Once you’ve got people watching your video, try and keep them watching it for as long as possible. A 2012 change to the YouTube algorithm means that the longer you’re watching, the higher the video will appear in search results. Ensuring engagement throughout is therefore key.
- Get subscribers. Try to get consumers to subscribe to your channel using clickable subscribe buttons, or a request to subscribe within your video content itself.
- Finally, a big slice of luck. All of the above are ways to ease access to online content and promote it, yet many of the most beautifully shot videos go unseen. Luck plays a huge part in this; you never know where the content will be shared.