Best Ways to Promote Your Channel From the Start?

[Callum Mcintyre]

So I've just started my channel, and I'm looking for some ways to promote my channel and videos to get some initial viewers and hopefully subscribers.
Does anyone have any methods they used which allowed them to grow their audience?

 

[Mehdi Reacts]

Keep making videos, one day your subs and views number will suddenly increase even before you notice it

 

[WilliamRayWalters]

Keep making videos, one day your subs and views number will suddenly increase even before you notice it

That's possible If he has high quality videos. Otherwise that strategy cannot work.

and I'm looking for some ways to promote my channel and videos to get some initial viewers and hopefully subscribers.

There's a guy named Youtube1978 who posts frequently on here and is known for his anti-promotion stance. I used to be 100% against it but I've softened on that a bit. I still think there are ways to promote that will result in high retention views (specifically targeted YT search result advertising, for example), but after taking careful note of my retention from various traffic sources across all of my channels I've come to the conclusion that almost any promotion that intends to drive viewers from sources outside of Youtube will hurt your channel (the exception being Reddit, but only if your content has very broad appeal and is very compelling.

The reason I brought him up is that he said he has channels similar to yours and says he has had great success in not promoting them and just waiting it out. The theory is that the few views that trickle in over the course of a few months will be high retention views and will lead to your video ranking highly with the suggested video algorithm. Again, that's just his opinion but I mention it because he has top ten type channels as well.

Good luck.

 

[Callum Mcintyre]

That's possible If he has high quality videos. Otherwise that strategy cannot work.

There's a guy named Youtube1978 who posts frequently on here and is known for his anti-promotion stance. I used to be 100% against it but I've softened on that a bit. I still think there are ways to promote that will result in high retention views (specifically targeted YT search result advertising, for example), but after taking careful note of my retention from various traffic sources across all of my channels I've come to the conclusion that almost any promotion that intends to drive viewers from sources outside of Youtube will hurt your channel (the exception being Reddit, but only if your content has very broad appeal and is very compelling.

The reason I brought him up is that he said he has channels similar to yours and says he has had great success in not promoting them and just waiting it out. The theory is that the few views that trickle in over the course of a few months will be high retention views and will lead to your video ranking highly with the suggested video algorithm. Again, that's just his opinion but I mention it because he has top ten type channels as well.

Good luck.

That's really helpful, thanks! I'll have a look at my analytics over the next few weeks and keep up my upload pattern and hopefully, start to entertain a larger audience

 

[kpop]

How can you drive viewers from sources inside of Youtube to your channel?

 

[WilliamRayWalters]

How can you drive viewers from sources inside of Youtube to your channel?

Adwords Youtube search advertising has given me similar retention to the retention I get from organic search traffic. It's possible that interacting on relevant videos could generally produce some views that, while not ideal, would still achieve retention higher than promoting where someone has to leave the website they are currently browsing to go to youtube. It sounds like it wouldn't be a big deal for someone to do that, but my retention numbers from people finding my videos on FB or other social media naturally (without me promoting) are still lower retention than any traffic from within Youtube (suggested video, search, YT advertising, etc). Only the most laser targeted social media can result in anything close to the retention you get from traffic within youtube, in my experience.