To truly grow on YouTube, you need more than great ideas and amazing content. A crucial part of your strategy needs to be community. Unfortunately, that is something we see creators get very uncomfortable putting into their content.
But have no fear! Today we have a practical approach to creating the “know, like and trust factor” on your channel. So read this email (or listen here) and start implement these today!
Embrace the Community
YouTubers seem to have a fear of community content. I’m not totally surprised since typically a channel is used to creating a certain type of content, and so making community content seems really different…and scary. “Now I have to talk about myself?! Show my face?! What? I might just ruin my channel!” The fact is, it’s basically impossible to have an engaged community if you’re just a pair of hands showing how to do something. By not sharing yourself, you are limiting the reach that you will have to impact the world.
There are so many ways to embrace your community! Any easy way is to use your community tab. And use it in a way that is NOT to just pitch a sale or advertise your next video. Be yourself! Treat it like Instagram or Facebook. Share what you are up to! Your audience is genuinely interested! Don’t make them leave the platform to get to know you. But at the same time, don’t ONLY talk about yourself. Ask questions about your audience! Get to know them. What are they struggling with? What do they want? What do you have in common with your audience? Use your community tab to find out. PLUS, did you know that you can actually gain subscribers from your community posts? That’s right. YouTube surfaces post on the homepage. So people who are subscribed and non-subscribed can both find you with your posts.
So what should you say? Ask open ended questions. Get their advice! “What do they think about…?” “What do they do when…?” People love to talk about themselves and this is the perfect place to get them to do that. Schedule these questions to pop up on days that you don’t have a video posted. That will keep people coming back to your channel which will only make the algorithm like you more.
Tools for the Community Tab
There are now multiple ways to engage with your audience on the community tab. There are polls that can now be text polls or visual polls. But don’t just leave it at that. Even if you are doing a poll, ask an open ended question so people will comment as well as vote. As a YouTube consumer, do you ever engage in a community post? If so, ask yourself why you did. Why were you drawn in to engage? Now, how can you create that same type of post for your channel?
Another way to engage is with a text post. But, ALWAYS use an image along with it. Remember, this is a visual platform! The posts with images FAR out perform the posts without images. Just recently on mobile they’ve allowed you to add text, filters and stickers on your photos for posts as well. So have fun with it! Just make sure you make it about the viewer as well as about you.
How do you do this? Pull the curtain back on your life and then turn it back around to their lives. A way you can do that is to highlight your creation story, then ask your viewers about theirs. If you’re nervous of being vulnerable, the community tab is a good place to start. It’s not as scary and seems like a great place for it if you feel like it doesn’t fit on your channel.
And you can use the community tab to talk about your videos too. Hype up a live that you’ll be doing soon. Poll your audience and try to get some ideas that your audience wants to see in upcoming videos. The more they feel like part of the process, the more they will enjoy the video you post.
YouTube Stories
Not a lot of people even know about YouTube stories! It is a lot like instagram stories, but unlike instagram the stories are up for 7 days and not just 24 hours. They are only on mobile (which might be why they are less known.) But you can use these to share anything! And they are surfaced on the home page as well. YouTube Stories can be a very easy way to engage between your videos.
Now I must admit, it is a bit clunky to create them in YouTube. But if you are creating them in Instagram already, download them and just upload them to YouTube as well. This is another great place to show behind the scenes content. If you a cooking channel, what are you eating when you aren’t making a video? Share it here!
Community Videos
There is a difference between community content and content only your community is interested in. Remember the main goal of a community video is to grow the “know, like and trust factor.” You can get stuck in thinking that your podcasts or livestreams are your community content and leave it at that. But it’s only true community content if you are being vulnerable and getting to know your community as you actively get to know them more as well.
Think of a community video as being less polished and more personal. Craft this video asking yourself, “What would your audience want to know about you?” Also, don’t confuse the intent of the video. You aren’t looking for a ton of subscribers gained or a bunch of views. That’s not the point of this video. It is to engage the people who are watching. Share about yourself and invite them to share about their selves.
Power Tip
Community video titles can be so hard. So today we are just handing them out! No matter what type of content you make, you can use these:
Day in the life of a ___________. No matter what your niche, people are curious to know what a day in your life looks like!
What my wife/mom thinks about ___(my career)__. This allows people to learn about your family, but also helps them identify with you if they are in the same field.
How you went from ____ to _____. People are curious of the process of how you got to where you are today. What where your struggles along the way?
Wild stories from working in ________. I’m intrigued by this one already! Any wild stories you can share. Go for it!
Keep changing lives!
Tim Schmoyer
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