How do I bring attention to my Youtube video?

[Kreamalade]

So, I'm new on the forums, and I'm also a pretty inexperienced film-maker. I recently added a video to my Youtube channel, but I'm not sure how to bring attention to it. I added tags as well, but I was wondering if maybe there is some sort of video sharing forum. I looked for one, but couldn't really find one. Thank you guys for the help in advance!

- Kreamalade

[Cornucopia]

Yes there's always tagging and other SEO tricks, but really your videos ought to be calling attention to themselves.

Scott

[Kreamalade]

Yes there's always tagging and other SEO tricks, but really your videos ought to be calling attention to themselves.

Scott

Yeah, but the issue with YouTube is that the site favors videos with more views, which means that even if somebody searches all the tags I used, they may have to go a few pages before finding my video...

[Hoser Rob]

Last I heard there was 300 hours of video uploaded to youtube every minute. You're going to have to make videos that stand out, as cornucopia said. Everyone else is tagging and doing SEO too.

[johnmeyer]

I've had a YouTube channel for over a decade. Most videos only get a few hundred views, but once in awhile I upload one that gets tens of thousands of views. And every so often I've had some that have gotten thousands of views in just a few hours.

So, while I've never had a true "viral" video, here is what I've learned.

1. Post links on relevant sites. I do a lot of film transfers of people's home movies. I often post things that have general interest. As an example, one client's movies had some footage that was taken just prior to WWII at a Detroit army air corp airport. It included scenes of what turned out to be the third B-17 bomber ever manufactured. I researched and found a site that specialized in WWII "war birds" and I signed up for that forum and posted a link there. I immediately got hundreds of hits, just from that one site.

2. Make the first few seconds compelling. If you've ever looked at YouTube's "analytics," you will find that many of your videos don't retain viewership: people click, don't see anything interesting, and immediately move on. So, don't make the mistake of adding a long "introduction" or a lot of flashy looking stuff at the beginning of your video that has nothing to do with its main content. People's attention spans have never been all that long, but thanks to the Internet, people have the attention span of a gnat.

3. Don't upload something boring. I still can't believe the number of "unboxing" videos I see on YouTube. They usually don't get many views. By contrast, really well-done tutorials often get huge numbers of views. I've done quite a few tutorials, and they generally get lots of views.

4. Make sure to assign lots of search tags. Many views come from searching. Spend more than a few moments thinking about how people will search for your video. For instance, the closest I've come to a viral video was one I uploaded six weeks ago which was a time lapse of the massive wildfire that had just started burning near our house:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_h67zCfY9E

When the fire first started, it was called the Garappata fire, but within a few days most people were calling it the Soberanes fire. Therefore, both terms needed to be in the search tags. In addition, I included "fire" "wildfire" "Monterey" "Carmel" "Central Coast" "California" and lots of other terms I thought people might use when searching. I then posted links on several local blogs and, eventually, Facebook. I got so many views in the first two days that I was contacted by three different companies who specialize in marketing YouTube viral videos. I did not sign a deal with any of them and would recommend that you don't sign such deals either, unless you have absolutely no business experience and cannot do your own deals. I've done all sorts of licensing deals, including one a little over a year ago for footage that was used by Sony Pictures in the Will Smith movie "Concussion." If you do your own licensing, do research on "stock footage" sites to learn the parameters. For instance, for world wide distribution on a major picture, licensing rates are $100/second with a ten second minimum. You won't get this from a small documentary film maker, but when dealing with TV stations and motion picture production companies, these are the rates they are accustomed to paying.

5. Use Facebook. This seems to drive more views than just about anything else. Do some research into what groups have Facebook pages, and try to post in those groups or, if you can't join, find someone who can.