Alright, you created a video, uploaded it to YouTube and perhaps even embedded it into a blog post or landing page. You might feel an urge to sit down and give yourself a high-five…

However, there’s still some work for you to do to make sure your video gets all the love it deserves and, ultimately, helps you move your business forward.

What are the elements of a video promotion? What can you do to make sure people actually see your video among all the other 7 billion YouTube videos?

In this article, we break down what it takes to spread the word about your video far and wide.

Optimize your YouTube video for SEO

Before we jump into promoting your YouTube video elsewhere, there’s a lot you can do on the video itself to make sure it can be found when viewers are searching for the topic you covered in your video.

After all, YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world!

Your video will be the most successful when you’ve dedicated a target keyword for it. For example, our target keyword for a video might be ‘video promotion’.

The elements included in your video content that drive SEO are those you can see on your upload page: your video’s title, description, and tags.

Your video title should be 5 to 10 words long (20 to 70 characters) and include a highly-specific keyword that the video is about. As Brian Dean of Backlinko mentioned in his YouTube SEO guide, putting the keyword at the beginning of the title results in a slight video SEO boost.

Putting the keyword at the beginning of the title results in a slight video SEO boost.

Your video description helps YouTube understand the context of your video—remember, YouTube can’t ‘physically’ watch your video (yet!), but it can use textual signals you provide. Include your keyword in the first paragraph and ideally a couple of times throughout your description.

Your video tags should first and foremost match your target keyword, as well as variations and related topics so that your videos can be recommended to your viewers as they watch.

Bonus tip: Another great suggestion from Brian Dean’s guide is to actually say your keyword in your video. This is another thing that will help YouTube ‘get’ what you’re video is about as they automatically transcribe your video and add closed captions to it.

Promote your video on social media

Oftentimes, I see businesses post videos to YouTube and never mentioning them on their social media.

And another mistake I see is only sharing on social media once.

The concept of sharing the same piece of content multiple times is wonderfully explained by CoSchedule’s Ben Sailer with a real-life illustration of how this approach works:

The key benefit here is that you can and should share your video multiple times on all of your social channels.

The main difference between the individual channels is that you can share the same video on Twitter much more frequently than on your other channels. Still, there’s room for sharing at least three to four times on each of them within the first month from publishing your video.

Here’s how! Let’s look at all the content formats you can turn your main video into to share on these channels:

The variation of formats across these networks is exactly what will help you share your video multiple times without coming across as annoying or pushy. In fact, it will help your accounts look fresh and always up-to-date!

Here is how to leverage each of these formats.

Text-only posts

Write down all the main takeaways from your video or a quote from the video and create posts that bring value on their own. Many creators on social networks make the text post extremely useful on its own and then add the link to the content they’re promoting in the first comment (or in the bio, for Instagram).

At #PeabodyWelcome18 Orientation, we asked new students an important question: Why did you choose @VanderbiltU Peabody College? #Watch this #video to hear the wide range of responses we received! https://t.co/nqOxdrft1Q pic.twitter.com/W2CGZ7uD95

— Peabody College (@vupeabody) September 17, 2018

One thing to keep in mind, though, is that most social platforms favor native videos. This means that they are more happy with the videos you upload straight to the platform as opposed to sharing a YouTube link. If possible, try uploading a video directly to the platform of choice.

Link posts

Unlike text-only posts, these posts have an embedded link with a headline, short description, and a thumbnail along with the actual copy in the post. You can take a similar approach as with text-only posts here, keeping in mind that the reader will see the actual headline of your video, so you can go with more playful or intriguing copy to complement that.

“it takes a strong person to be a leader, not in the body, but strong in the mind.” https://t.co/FOydtyo2PS #video #professionaldevelopment #ntchat

— The Leader in Me (@TheLeaderinMe) September 14, 2018

Image posts

Images are awesome because you can take up a lot of space on your viewer’s screen. Your images can be anything from headline variations, main takeaways, statistics, quotes, screengrabs of most interesting moments in your video, questions, graphs, and anything else about the topic you covered.

If you want to easily create your graphics, head over to a tool like Easil, a free and easy graphic design tool, and create your images from pre-created layouts or create your own new layouts:

Video posts

Unlike sharing just a link to your video, video posts allow you to upload a video file natively to the platform, which helps you grab attention quicker than with a static post. Video posts give you a lot of freedom to play around with formats (e.g. square vs. vertical), length (e.g. 15-second snippet vs. a one-minute summary), and the copy you add to your post. 

This won’t take you long, either. With a Wave.video account, you can turn literally any video into the format you need and snip it into shorter versions so that you can intrigue you viewers and send them to your full video on YouTube.

For example, if you have followers that usually watch your Instagram stories but don’t engage with posts on your feed, this is how you can capture them. Another win is that Facebook pushes impressions to video posts more than links or images. Video gets you in front of the right people on socials!

Use GIFs

When done well, GIFs draw attention and are super engaging. If there is a particularly fun, dynamic, or interesting part of your video, turn it into GIF. Complement it with attractive social post copy and watch your video get clicks. 

It’s time to do the laundry!#funny #gif pic.twitter.com/p7OtGQvzOy

— Ernie and Berti (@Berti_and_Ernie) September 13, 2018

You can easily turn your video into a GIF using tools like Giphy or Animatron Studio.

Promote your video with Pinterest

Even though Pinterest started out as a social network, it’s very much a search engine now. Pinterest’s search features are always evolving, from their search suggestions…

…to the way their Lens feature lets you point your camera at anything and get inspired by related ideas.

You can promote your videos on Pinterest in two main ways: by adding a static image pin that leads to your video and by adding an actual video—or, even better, its snippet—to Pinterest using the Promoted Video feature.

We came up with a complete guide on Pinterest video. Make sure to check it out!

Promoting your video with a static image pin

If you think it’s not possible to promote a video with a static image, you might want to reconsider. Here’s why and how to make it work.

First, you’ll need to create an image. Use tools like Easil or Canva and choose the Pinterest image size. Normally, DIY design platforms would know the optimal size.

Here’s an example of how I did it in just about 10 minutes. First, I created a Pinterest image with the name of the video. Then, I uploaded it to the Pinterest board dedicated to video marketing.

Notice how I linked to a YouTube video from the pin.

The best strategy is to create multiple pins for two reasons: you will have more chances to show up on your target viewer’s feed on Pinterest, and you will be able to see which pin performs better so you can create more images in that style. The idea is to link to a YouTube video with every pin you create.

Here are some ideas to create a variety of pins for the same video:

• A simple pin with video’s headline
• 3-5 key takeaways from the video
• The most important quote from the video
• An inspiring main takeaway from the video

Your options are endless. Once you’ve exported all your pins, get to pinning!

Using the Promoted Video pins

You may have noticed that some pins on your feed appear as videos.

As of now, you can add a video to Pinterest as a Promoted Video only. This means you pay for its impressions, but the more people see your video, your cost per view goes down.

Promoted videos on Pinterest can show up in people’s home feeds, as well as search results and the ‘More like this’ selection when they open a certain pin.

To leverage Pinterest promoted videos to get views on your YouTube videos, you can take these steps:

1. Cut your original video down to the part of the video that teases the most compelling takeaway
2. Edit it to be vertical as this format works best on Pinterest because it takes over the majority of the screen (you can do this edit easily in Wave.video!)
3. Head over to your Pinterest business account and start creating your video ad

As your campaign goes on, you will see metrics such as brand impact of your ads, offline sales, watch time, and much more.

Send your video to your email subscribers

Video marketing revolutionized every single marketing channel, and email marketing wasn’t left out.

In fact, including the word ‘video’ in the email subject line boosts open rates, increases click-through rates within the emails, and reduces unsubscribes. 

Make sure it’s obvious there’s a video in your email: other than in your subject line, your copy should clearly communicate what the video is about and why they’re missing out if they don’t watch.

Source

Another effective way to drive clicks to your video is using an enticing thumbnail for your video. There are a few things we learned about thumbnails from folks in Wistia:

• The play button and the play bar at the bottom are the best indicators that the image is, in fact, a video thumbnail
• The thumbnail should be crisp and action-driven
• If there’s a human on the thumbnail, make sure the thumbnail captures a friendly (ideally smiling) face and their eyes are visible

Reach out to your network

Finally, know that your friends and closest connections, both inside your industry and out, want you to succeed with your videos.

That’s why it’s important to let them know when you have a new video up. Here are some ways you can do this easily:

Share your video with your Facebook friends. When I did this with a video we made for Wave.video, I got an extra 56 likes that I otherwise wouldn’t have!

Add an image or a video that promotes your new video to your Facebook Page cover. From there, you can make your Facebook Page button lead to the video, or you can even have a shortened link on your cover by using a service like Bit.ly. 

Add your latest video as a link in your email signature. Just like you add links such as your social networks and your phone number, you can add a line that says something like “See my latest video about [topic]!”

Pin your social updates to the top of your feeds. You know what new followers do when they first find you? They click through to your profile. Make sure that your Facebook post, tweet, and Instagram story are right at the top so that they can get the best of you right away—and you get more clicks on your video.

It’s your turn

You’re now ready to do a lot more than just sit and wait for your video to gain traction.

You can now get it in front of the right eyes every single time and in creative and fresh ways. Gone are the days of reposting the same thing over again with the exact headline and no context and seeing success with it.

By optimizing your video and taking its best parts into different formats and angles, you can keep your audience always wanting more.

By optimizing your video on YouTube and taking its best parts into different formats and angles, you can keep your audience always impatiently wanting more.

Don’t forget to play with all the formats you can turn your video into directly from your free Wave.video account.

Happy promoting!