Where to market your videos (small new channel)??

Kruchiver

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Hi,

I have recently set up a new channel dedicated to making marble racing videos with my son. The aim is to produce 1 video a week, which, after 3 videos, is still on track.

My question to all the more experienced youtubers here is, where are the best places to promote your videos/channel to get that initial exposure and audience??

Currently, I have tried the following channels:
  1. A twitter account to tweet about upcoming or recently released videos;
  2. An instagram account to do the same as twitter. On instagram I am also trying to engage with other people who post about marbles with meaningful comments;
  3. Facebook groups. This includes posting on various facebook groups dedicated to youtube or marbles as well as sharing on my own personal page;
  4. Reddit - with no luck;
  5. A marbles online forum;
  6. Sharee.com; and finally
  7. Youtube itself, by commenting on other marble run videos and other youtubers who comment on those videos.
Are there any other possible things I could be doing to help gain that exposure that I may be missing? I do understand that marbles would have a fairly small audience compared to other genres so I am not expecting huge growth, but the larger channels in this space have up to 500K subs+, so there is a "market' there.

Any tips?
 

Dave2017

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Hi. I think you are doing a lot of things right but it will take time to grow a channel:) Social media is the easiest/cheapest way to start (I sont think Reddit will work with your content) but work with Facebook, Twitter, instagram just like you do:up2: Forums are good too and of course do your VERY best with SEO. If you have a budget you can always to to promote your videos too:)
 

Kruchiver

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Hi. I think you are doing a lot of things right but it will take time to grow a channel:) Social media is the easiest/cheapest way to start (I sont think Reddit will work with your content) but work with Facebook, Twitter, instagram just like you do:up2: Forums are good too and of course do your VERY best with SEO. If you have a budget you can always to to promote your videos too:)
Thanks Dave. Like you said, time will probably be the best tool. Having a body of content (say at least 10+ videos) might help as well.
 

LIVEst

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I think all your actions are good and well-planned. I'm keeping such strategy as well. Good luck!
 
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Crown

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Hi,

I have recently set up a new channel dedicated to making marble racing videos with my son. The aim is to produce 1 video a week, which, after 3 videos, is still on track.

My question to all the more experienced youtubers here is, where are the best places to promote your videos/channel to get that initial exposure and audience??

Currently, I have tried the following channels:
  1. A twitter account to tweet about upcoming or recently released videos;
  2. An instagram account to do the same as twitter. On instagram I am also trying to engage with other people who post about marbles with meaningful comments;
  3. Facebook groups. This includes posting on various facebook groups dedicated to youtube or marbles as well as sharing on my own personal page;
  4. Reddit - with no luck;
  5. A marbles online forum;
  6. Sharee.com; and finally
  7. Youtube itself, by commenting on other marble run videos and other youtubers who comment on those videos.
Are there any other possible things I could be doing to help gain that exposure that I may be missing? I do understand that marbles would have a fairly small audience compared to other genres so I am not expecting huge growth, but the larger channels in this space have up to 500K subs+, so there is a "market' there.

Any tips?
My advice would be don't go crazy with the promotion on third party websites. - Too much promotion will kill a new channel or at least stop it from getting to the next level. Why? Because views from promotion often have a very low audience retention - People will click out of curiousity, watch a few seconds and then close the video and go back to what they were doing before you interrupted them. - That results in low watch time and the algorithm doesn't like that and so the video won't do very well in search and probably won't have much chance of getting in the coveted "suggested videos" list on the right. You'll be stuck in an endless loop. You'll get a short-term boost in views for a few hours after you promote but then that will stop and your videos will get buried.

Concentrate on 3 things at the beginning:
1) Making good content that will keep people watching as long as possible. (Your videos are too long for a new channel btw)
2) SEO - Write titles and descriptions and tags which include longtail keywords that accurately describe your videos and that are terms that people are actually searching for. Also ensure that the title accurately describes the content. If it doesn't, people will click away early in the video. Read articles on this forum about good SEO practices. -> http://yttalk.com/forums/youtube-video-marketing-strategy-seo.88/
3) Wait ! Be patient. Sit on your hands. Resist the temptation to promote your video all over the internet. Steps 1 and 2 above will result in people actually find your videos by themselves either through search or via the "suggested videos" list. Those views will have good audience retention because the person has CHOSEN to click proactively and they were ALREADY on Youtube when they clicked. This means they're actually in the mood to watch a video. Compare that to Twitter or instagram traffic. They're there to read 200 characters of text or look at photos, not to watch 20 minute long videos!

This 3 step approach will result in fewer views at the beginning, but in the longer term, those fewer views will have a higher audience retention and that is what the algorithm is looking for. After a while, the algorithm will notice this high retention and start moving your videos up in the search results and on to the suggested videos list. But your content MUST be good. Really good. If it's boring, no amount of SEO will work.

Good luck.
 

PMW

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Yea all this is really well thought out but like the comments said above it takes mostly patience and dedication
 
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Kruchiver

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My advice would be don't go crazy with the promotion on third party websites. - Too much promotion will kill a new channel or at least stop it from getting to the next level. Why? Because views from promotion often have a very low audience retention - People will click out of curiousity, watch a few seconds and then close the video and go back to what they were doing before you interrupted them. - That results in low watch time and the algorithm doesn't like that and so the video won't do very well in search and probably won't have much chance of getting in the coveted "suggested videos" list on the right. You'll be stuck in an endless loop. You'll get a short-term boost in views for a few hours after you promote but then that will stop and your videos will get buried.

Concentrate on 3 things at the beginning:
1) Making good content that will keep people watching as long as possible. (Your videos are too long for a new channel btw)
2) SEO - Write titles and descriptions and tags which include longtail keywords that accurately describe your videos and that are terms that people are actually searching for. Also ensure that the title accurately describes the content. If it doesn't, people will click away early in the video. Read articles on this forum about good SEO practices. ->
3) Wait ! Be patient. Sit on your hands. Resist the temptation to promote your video all over the internet. Steps 1 and 2 above will result in people actually find your videos by themselves either through search or via the "suggested videos" list. Those views will have good audience retention because the person has CHOSEN to click proactively and they were ALREADY on Youtube when they clicked. This means they're actually in the mood to watch a video. Compare that to Twitter or instagram traffic. They're there to read 200 characters of text or look at photos, not to watch 20 minute long videos!

This 3 step approach will result in fewer views at the beginning, but in the longer term, those fewer views will have a higher audience retention and that is what the algorithm is looking for. After a while, the algorithm will notice this high retention and start moving your videos up in the search results and on to the suggested videos list. But your content MUST be good. Really good. If it's boring, no amount of SEO will work.

Good luck.

Thank you for your detailed response. Agree with you regarding the length of the first few videos. The next few will be much shorter. But given I want my son to have most of the creative input into the channel, I may not get a say in how long they are...lol!!! I will take on board what you have said and I will try to implement them.

Thanks again
 
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Crown

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Thank you for your detailed response. Agree with you regarding the length of the first few videos. The next few will be much shorter. But given I want my son to have most of the creative input into the channel, I may not get a say in how long they are...lol!!! I will take on board what you have said and I will try to implement them.

Thanks again

I understand. It's not easy to keep videos short but you have to bear in mind: People on the internet have the attention span of an ant! They are bombarded with links to click, articles to read, memes to laugh at and videos to watch. You have to keep it short. :) A 20 minute videos is about the length of an episode of a TV sitcom (minus the ads) - They are shows with million dollar budgets and are great entertainment but even then, I know people who get restless halfway through!
 
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