How to Promote YouTube Videos On Forums

Michael

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Promoting your YouTube videos on forums is an excellent way to drive new people to your channel, it can help people who are already highly interested in your niche discover you and there are right and wrong ways to do it.

Why Promote Videos On Forums?

The best reason is because it is completely free and targeted advertising. When promoting on a relevant forum there are members there already who are interested specifically in your niche and your videos could provide something to them whether that be entertainment or an educational experience, you have something to offer their members.

How Much Can I Expect From Promoting On Forums?

This all depends on the forums traffic, how much you contribute to the forums you join and the amount of interest you create within the forums you are a apart of. You could never expect a forum to launch your channel into fame but you can gain a following from forums you take part in.

How Should I Promote My YouTube Videos On Forums

To begin with you should set out to find forums that are in your niche. Your niche could be gaming for example and therefore you should look for forums that discuss gaming or a particular game if you are doing a series on a specific game.

To find these forums use Google and search "your niche" forum or "your niche" forums, the results will vary by changing the S at the end of forum so make sure to search both.

If you do videos in a very popular niche such as gaming I suggest going back a few pages as some of the smaller forums that are further back can have more relaxed rules regarding promotion and you might have a higher chance of standing out more on smaller slower paced forums than extremely fast paced forums where your posts are buried nearly instantly. You want to be taking part in a forum that is active however and I strongly suggest not bothering with brand new forums with little to no visitors.

So now you have found yourself a forum or even a few forums you want to read their forum rules and look specifically to see if they allow promotional threads/advertising threads and links within signatures to YouTube channels or external websites, if there is no mention at all you can usually assume it will be fine linking in your signature and proceed to sign up.

Once you are signed up I recommend filling in your profile details thoroughly and uploading an avatar, without doing that you will not look nor feel like a part of the their community and you want to become a part of it.

I dont recommend posting an advertising thread right away even if they have a dedicated section for it, I strongly recommend your first step after filling in your details to be to introduce yourself and not your channel on the forums you join, let them know who you are and what you love and your interests.

One of your main aims while promoting on a forum should be to get involved and to build connections with the people there by actively taking part and posting, you want to become one of their regular members. The best way to promote on a forum is by not actually thinking about it, just join one, start taking part and enjoying it and before you know you will have 100+ posts there a link in your signature and a small amount of views coming from the website.

Whatever you do, do not spam the communities you join, you do not want to give yourself a bad name nor come across as only wanting to get your videos out there, it can be extremely annoying for members of forums and their staff and will likely lead to you being banned which is never good.

One of the great things about forums is that every post you make with a link in your signature, that link has a chance of being indexed by Google and being seen by not just the members of the forum but also the guests, on forums most of the visitors are guests looking for information which they take and usually leave once they have it. Your signature link could easily become an exit link, the link they click on which takes them away and I find that by helping people within communities you have a much higher chance of increasing your forum signature click through rate.

You will notice that it is the same at YTtalk when it comes to the Videos and Channels forum, at YTtalk the majority of promotional threads that perform well are the ones that come from those who are highly active within the community, these people have peaked curiosity in their videos through consistent contributions and the same applies to all forums, if you peak curiosity by just being helpful and a valuable member of a community, the higher chances you will gain something from it in the long run.

Thanks for reading and good luck!
 

Mikes

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Really great advice! I've seen quite a couple of YouTubers that have trouble knowing where to start when it comes to community interactions, and this is definitely a fine idea, and an excellent basis on where to start. :D