Top Strategies for YouTube Engagement by Community Experts

As a creator, it’s not a one-day job to create a video, edit it, and post it on the platforms. It takes a whole lot of time and energy, and it can be frustrating if your videos aren’t getting enough attention and views. Maybe that’s because you aren’t promoting your videos properly. Therefore, one must become good at engaging and promoting your content on the world’s largest video platforms.

We asked our community experts to share their top strategies/best practices that they implement to drive higher engagement on their YouTube videos. We asked them, ‘What are the best strategies/practices to drive engagement on your YouTube videos?’

Here’s what they have to say!

Martin Boyle

 Director Brand & Communications at Lead Forensics

It sounds ridiculously simple, but I’d always say that you can’t go too far wrong if you start with your audience in mind. What makes them tick? What are they interested in? What do they want to know? If you’re doing a piece to camera, speak to your audience like you’re speaking to a friend. Keep it punchy, keep it entertaining. People go to YouTube to find things out, but they subscribe to a channel because they like something about you.

When you’re starting to grow your audience, you need to be consistent and predictable in your timings. Your audience are busy people with busy lives – you need to make it easy for your content to fit into their schedule!

When it comes to shares, likes, and comments, if you don’t ask, you don’t get, so actively ask for them. Try and start a dialogue within your video. If you’re creating something with no right or wrong answer, have an opinion! People will agree or disagree, but you will have provided them with the opportunity to do so. Don’t be afraid to create a debate!

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Harry Johns White

Marketing Manager at NBA Blast

If you want to create videos that will drive engagement on YouTube, it’s important to create a dialogue with your audience.

This can be done in a number of ways, including responding to comments, asking questions, and using calls to action. By creating a two-way conversation, you’ll not only encourage viewers to keep watching your videos, but you’ll also create a community of loyal fans who are invested in your content.

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Milosz Krasinski

Founder at Milosz Krasinski and Chilli Fruit Web Consulting

One effective approach is to engage with your viewers in the comments section. Respond to comments, ask questions, and start discussions. This will help to create a community around your channel and encourage people to keep coming back.

Another strategy is to pin relevant and interesting comments to the top of the comments section. This ensures that your most engaged viewers are being showcased, and it encourages others to leave thoughtful comments on your videos.

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James Angel

Co-Founder at DYL

Constantly Publish New Material

Being a reliable and constant source of information is a certain approach to gain and keep people’s interest. Get people to come back for more after you have their attention. Regular updates with relevant, timely, and, most importantly, helpful information are essential.

Keep in mind that you are competing with thousands, if not millions of other vloggers for the same audience. If you’ve built a name for yourself as a reliable source of information, you shouldn’t risk ruining it by giving your readers bad news.

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Brian Case

Director of E-commerce & Retail at Selkirk

Recognize Who You’re Talking To

People these days expect instant gratification or fast-food information, so they can get exactly what they want. There’s nothing more frustrating than watching a video only to feel like you were duped.

Establishing a connection takes time and effort; once you’ve done so, make sure to keep providing your audience with the things they want. Keep up the good work as an informational resource. You should keep entertaining people if that is what you do.

Keep in mind that viewers are interested in what you have to say because of something specific, and use it to your advantage.

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Ranjeet Gomez

Senior Dev at Startups Anonymous

YouTube is one of the most popular online video platforms, and as a digital marketer, it’s important to know how to drive engagement on your videos. Here are some tips on how to do that:

1. Make sure your videos are high quality. This means good lighting, clear audio, and a well-shot video. Viewers are more likely to engage with videos that are well made.

2. Make sure your videos are interesting and relevant to your audience. If your videos are boring or not relevant, viewers will not stick around to watch them.

3. Use creative and engaging titles for your videos. This will help to attract more viewers.

4. Share your videos on social media and other online platforms. This will help to increase viewership.

5. Use call to actions in your videos. This will encourage viewers to take action, such as subscribing to your channel or visiting your website.

6. Use annotations and other forms of engagement to keep viewers engaged. For example, you can ask viewers to answer questions or leave feedback in the comments section.

7. Experiment with different types of videos to find what works best for your audience. Some viewers prefer short, fast-paced videos while others prefer longer, more detailed videos.

8. Be consistent with your video content. If you only post a few videos per month, viewers will lose interest. Try to post videos on a regular basis.

9. Analyze your video analytics to see what is and isn’t working. This will help you to improve your video content and engagement.

As a digital marketer, it’s important to know how to drive engagement on your YouTube videos. These tips will help you to create videos that are high quality, interesting, and relevant to your audience.

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Bram Jansen

Chief Editor & Co-Founder at VPNAlert

Prompt people to share, like, and comment

Both the video and the viewer must put in the effort if they want engagement to take place. If we’ve learned nothing else in this era of social media, it’s that everyone has an opinion.

It only makes sense to give them a way to do so by encouraging them to share, like, and comment on posts. Put something like, if you have found this video helpful, feel free to share, like, or comment below at the end of your video.

If you actively seek out feedback from your audience, it sends a clear message that you care about their thoughts and are committed to making any necessary adjustments to your material.

By demonstrating its popularity, can attract more viewers. One way or another, though, you might not receive what you want unless you ask.

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Ellie Shippey

E-commerce Growth Specialist at EZ Contacts

Incorporate Markup, Visuals, and Calls to Action

Integration of markup, visuals, and calls to Action is, in my opinion, the greatest methods for boosting views and clicks on YouTube videos. Include calls to action and other visual clues throughout the film to assist get your message through.

Make use of calls to action to get people to take the desired actions, such as signing up for your newsletter, following you on social media, or downloading a lead magnet. Annotations and call-to-actions can assist you to convey your message and guide your audience in the direction you want them to go.

Include these prompts throughout the video rather than simply at the beginning and finish to capture information from viewers who were interested in the topic but didn’t watch the entire thing.

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Ebuka Val

YouTube Expert

From my experience, the best practices to drive engagements to YouTube Videos are as follows…

– Use Facebook Ads to Give your videos as initial boost: In my many years of uploading videos on YouTube, I can say that if a video does well in the first 24 hours of upload, it’s going to do well in the long run.

-While you can use Facebook Ads to boost your videos initially, your videos need to be high quality, and you need to design high quality thumbnails because these impact your Video’s Click Through Rate.

– Create Pins for your Videos: Sometime in 2020, while I was working on a YouTube Channel, I decided to try out a new strategy. Once I uploaded any video, I’d create a pin for the video and add it to a board, a board that is related to the video’s content.

It’s important to note that I have over 1000 Pinterest followers and the videos are related to my accounts content. After 60 days of implementing this strategy, I checked the Channel Analytics only to find out that 15% of my video views where coming from Pinterest alone (most especially the mobile app). I’ve been using this strategy ever since and it still works.

– Contribute to Forums in your Niche: For every problem which people in your niche face, they most likely need a video to guide them or should I say ‘give them a solution’.

-The most popular Forum in the world is Quora, what you want to do is to search for the keywords of the video which you want to drive engagements to, then answer the question in detail while strategically adding your video. Quora has a feature that Embeds your YouTube Video directly on the site, this helps users to watch it directly.

If you’re in the blogging space, you’ll know that Quora is an authoritative website and ranks for a lot of keywords, this means that your answer has a high probability of ranking on Google and getting consistent traffic and views for your YouTube Video(s).

There might also be other popular forums in your niche, you can use Google to find them by searching for your niche forum.

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Simon Brisk

CEO at Click Intelligence

Other Social Media Channels
Market your YouTube video on other social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook to generate leads from there! A lot of traffic on YouTube videos is through third party apps and that adds to the total views your video gets.

Make short videos aka YouTube Shorts!
YouTube is promoting its YouTube shorts these days, so they get more views and engagements than longer videos. For brands, this is the best time to make YouTube Shorts and post frequently to engage maximum traffic and boost views!

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Khrystyna Pankiv

Outreach SEO Specialist at Whatagraph

YouTube is a powerful platform with a global reach. In order to maximize the engagement of your YouTube videos, there are a few key strategies to keep in mind:

Ensure that your videos are high quality and offer value to your viewers. Use descriptive, proper and keyword-rich titles and descriptions to help your videos show up in search results.

Create engaging thumbnails that will make people want to click on your video. Regular communication with your YouTube subscribers through comments and replies is essential. Encourage viewers to leave comments and questions, and collaborate with other YouTube channels.

Promote your videos on other social media platforms and through email marketing to get as many views as possible. By following these tips, you can maximize the engagement of your YouTube videos and reach a wider audience.

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Joe Kevens

Founder at B2B SaaS Reviews

Here are two responses to choose from to your question, What are the best strategies/practices to drive engagement on your YouTube videos?

1. Partner with third parties to have your videos on their YouTube channels – For PartnerStack, we partnered with SaaStr to have a presentation of ours on their YouTube channel. We wouldn’t be able to get anywhere near this much engagement with the video organically on our channel.

2. Pay to promote your best videos – We’ve run video ads on YouTube to retarget high-intent prospects with a high likelihood of engaging with our videos.

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Brandon Wilkes

Marketing Manager at The Big Phone Store

1. Make Sure Your Videos Are High-Quality And Informative.
If you want people to watch your videos, it’s important to make sure they’re high-quality and informative. No one wants to watch a low-quality video with no interesting content – it’s just a waste of time. So, if you want viewers to engage with your videos, make sure they’re worth watching. Put in the effort to make them great, and you’ll be rewarded with an engaged audience.

2. Use Engaging Thumbnail Images.
Your video’s thumbnail image is one of the most important elements in determining whether or not someone will click to watch it. Make sure your thumbnail image is high quality and engaging, so that potential viewers will be intrigued and want to watch your video.

3. Use Descriptive Titles And Tags.
When creating a title for your video, be sure to include keywords that accurately describe the content of the video. This will help your video rank higher in search results. In addition to a descriptive title, be sure to include tags that accurately describe the content of your video. This will also help your video rank higher in search results.

4. Use Annotations And Calls To Action.
Annotations and calls to action can be effective tools to encourage viewers to take the desired action, such as subscribing to your channel, liking and sharing your videos, or leaving comments. By using these features, you can help to direct viewers to the most important parts of your videos and ensure that your message is being seen and heard.

5. Respond To Comments And Questions.
Engaging with your viewers by responding to comments and questions shows that you value their feedback and makes them more likely to continue watching. By responding to comments, you let your viewers know that you are listening to them and that their feedback is important to you. Additionally, responding to questions shows that you are knowledgeable about your topic and that you are willing to share your expertise with your viewers.

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Sohaib Hasan

Founder at My Tech is Solved

In order to drive engagement on your YouTube videos, you need to create content that is interesting and useful. This means engaging with your viewers on a personal level by answering their questions and providing helpful tips. Additionally, make sure to share thoughtful and relevant content often in order to keep them coming back for more. One way you can achieve this is by creating meaningful video topics or lessons.

By offering valuable information in an easily digestible format, you can help educate and engage your viewers. Another approach is storytelling — using video as an opportunity to connect with your audience on a personal level through the use of visual imagery and memorable characters.

To keep viewers engaged throughout the entire video, be sure to include interactive elements such as polls or questionnaires at appropriate moments.

And finally, make use of annotations (text overlays) so people can learn more about what they are watching without feeling lost or confused.
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Daniel Cook

Head of Business Development at Mullen and Mullen

 By producing video that encourages comments and shares, you may successfully engage with your YouTube audience and establish a genuine rapport with them. One of the best strategies in increasing engagement on our YouTube video is creating a thumbnail that catches the attention of our viewers.

The video thumbnail is probably the key factor in viewer’s decision to watch the content. Another tip is created content that somehow goes with the trend. With this, you can share with the traffic that this trend has created online.

To further increase engagement, I personally suggest to collaborate with other creators. You must keep in mind that you should only collaborate with creators involved in your industry.

Sachin Yadav

Founder at Technologers

YouTube doesn’t work like search engines. To drive engagement there, one needs to know how the target audience’s minds work. There’s no race to get to the top because people usually go through the list of result videos and choose the one that has the most vivid imagery and the most relevant content. You can have the best content but still not get viewed if you’re unable to simplify your content in this fast-paced era. The following strategies might help to drive engagement:

– The thumbnail should be vivid and if it isn’t or can’t be, then add some catchy text over it that is relevant to the video (usually 3-4 words).

– Focus on the comment section and reply to any critical comments with improvement in your next videos.

– It’s basic but always works – ask your audience to subscribe to your channel if they haven’t already and thank them for doing so.

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Angus Chang

Founder at Pets With Me

Live streaming
Live streaming helps you get maximum engagement on your Youtube videos. Live streaming has become hugely popular in recent years, and many brands use it to promote their products.

Like at the height of television networks, missing a specific live event meant you’d have to wait for someone to tell you what happened, but there’s nothing like seeing it yourself. Live streaming sends notifications to the audience and compels them to tune in Right Now.

Youtube live streaming maximized your reach and raised the chance of your video ranking higher in searches, ultimately driving more engagement on your videos.

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Nick Yu

Co-Founder at Beadnova

Understand your audience’s interest
You should understand your audience and know what they are looking for. Nowadays, people want information when and where they want it. It is the worst feeling to watch a video and leave feeling you didn’t get what you expected.

Once you’ve established a rapport, make sure you continue to give them what they want. If you are providing interesting information, continue doing so. If you are an entertainment source, keep entertaining. You should remember that people are watching your videos for a reason, and it’s up to you to pinpoint what that is and utilize it in your favor.

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Christian Velitchkov

Co-Founder at Twiz

1. Hit the quickie
Perhaps the most important component in a viewer’s decision to watch your material, especially if they are on their phone, is the thumbnail for your video.

It is the first thing viewers see when they explore videos, along with the title. Furthermore, using a single eye-catching frame from your video is insufficient. You should alter your thumbnails so that they feature a distinct, compelling image that both informs potential viewers about your film and draws them in.

2. Respond to trends strategically
YouTube trending topics are excellent sources of material for your viewers. They’re a great approach to improving brand awareness in addition to giving your viewers entertaining films.

3. Work along with other artists
It makes no difference if you want to grow the number of subscribers to your YouTube channel, podcast, or newsletter. Working with other producers is one of the best methods to expand your audience and raise interaction with your videos.

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Chun-Kai Wang

Developer at Snake

1. Focus Your Videos on One Keyword or Topic
The most effective strategy to increase traffic and expand your YouTube audience is to create your video around a specific theme or phrase.

2. Promote your YouTube content on other social networks
You may cross-promote content across platforms on social media, which is one of its wonderful features. The simplest strategy to increase your audience is to promote your YouTube videos on your other social media accounts.

3. Participate & Stand Out
Personalizing the channel by taking part in videos can be quite helpful if you’re running YouTube by yourself or as a small group. Your audience will be able to relate to you as a person more readily if you put a face to a brand.

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Sara Gutterman

Founder at Green Builder Media

High-quality content is the number one factor that will help you get more engagement on your YouTube videos. The content that offers genuine value to your audience. Your material must give a solution to people’s issues.

Another tip is to use the power of social media. Today, social media has a great influence on every business. Everyone uses social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and others to drive engagement on their youtube videos. The more you get found on the web, the more engagement you will get. 

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Daniel Gray

Digital Marketing Manager at Smart Scouter

Make your videos enjoyable and informational. Make your video clear, concise, and easy to understand. Keep the video’s content short, sweet, and to the point. Use visual elements in your video as well as audio elements in your video to create an engaging experience for viewers.

When I say visual elements, I mean adding some video effects, a slow zoom-in as you talk, and using subtle camera movements to drive attention. When I say audio elements, use some sound effects and don’t make it obnoxious. Add captioning if needed or desired by viewers, so a wider variety of people can better understand what is being shown in the clip.

Utilize all this information and invest in making shorts. People today love 15-30 second YouTube shorts. Make a lot of them, but keep them brief. You may also find it suitable to make clips from your already existing videos.

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Meena Gupta

Chief Operating Officer at Nearby Movers

YouTube offers creators a unique opportunity to engage with their audiences in real-time. However, driving engagement on YouTube can be a challenge. The platform is incredibly competitive, and there are endless hours of content available for viewers to watch. As a result, creators need to be strategic about how they drive engagement on their videos. Below are three best practices for driving engagement on YouTube:

1. Use engaging thumbnails and titles: The thumbnail and title of your video are the first things that viewers will see. Make sure that these elements are attention-grabbing and accurately reflect the content of your video.

2. Optimize your keywords: Conduct keyword research to find the best keywords to use in your video titles and descriptions. This will help your videos appear in search results and make them more likely to be clicked on by viewers.

3. Create compelling content: At the end of the day, the best way to drive engagement on your YouTube videos is to create content that is truly compelling. This means creating videos that are interesting, informative, entertaining, or some combination of all three. If you can hook viewers in from the beginning, they’re more likely to stick around until the end.

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Sinoun Chea

CEO at ShiftWeb

For my clients, we typically make a three-pronged approach to driving engagement on YouTube their videos:

1. Increase Watch Time: The first step is to ensure that your target audience is watching your videos all the way through. You can do this by creating content that is interesting, informative, and entertaining. Also, make sure to include calls to action throughout your videos so that viewers are encouraged to stay engaged until the end. Finally, you can use YouTube’s annotations feature to add links to related videos or your website so that viewers can easily find more of your content.

2. Optimize Video Content: The next step is to make sure that your video content is optimized for maximum engagement. This means creating videos that are of high quality and relevant to your target audience. Additionally, you should use keywords in your titles and descriptions so that your videos can be easily found by viewers who are searching for topics related to your business.

3. Create an Engaging Thumbnail: Finally, you want to make sure that your thumbnail image is engaging and enticing so that viewers will be more likely to click on and watch your video. You can do this by including an interesting or eye-catching image as well as an accurate description of what the video is about.

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Will Cannon

Founder at Uplead

Creating transcripts of your videos and adding them to the description can be extremely helpful in driving engagement as it allows viewers to follow along with the video, even if they are unable to turn on the sound.

Another great way to increase engagement is by including calls to action throughout your videos. For example, you could ask viewers to subscribe to your channel, leave a comment, or share the video with their friends.

Finally, it’s important to ensure that your videos are high quality and informative. If viewers enjoy watching your videos, they are more likely to engage with them. For example, you could create helpful how-to videos, share interesting stories, or provide expert tips and advice.

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Denis Ristić

General Manager at AskGamblers

As a YouTuber, one of the best things you can do to improve engagement on your channel is to optimize your videos for SEO. YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world, so making sure your videos appear near the top of the search results can make a big difference in how many views and subscribers you get. There are a number of things you can do to optimize your videos for SEO, including:

-Choose descriptive, keyword-rich titles that accurately reflect the contents of your video
-Write compelling descriptions that include relevant keywords and entice viewers to watch your video
-Use tags to help YouTube understand what your video is about and match it with relevant searches
-Create engaging thumbnails that grab attention and make people want to click on your video

By taking these steps, you can give your videos a better chance of being seen by potential viewers, which can lead to more engagement on your channel.

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Awesome! Looks like we have got a bunch of top strategies/best practices from our industry experts. Social Champ would love to thank everyone for taking their valuable time and sending in their responses. We will be back with another healthy discussion. Till then, enjoy these tips.