Creating content for YouTube

Since its creation in 2005 YouTube has built an active user base of two billion. In fact, one billion hours of video are watched on the platform on a daily basis. So, how do you make sure your content cuts through the noise and is seen by the right people? Building an audience on YouTube may seem like a daunting task, but it’s not an impossible one. We believe there are three key things you can do to make your content stand out: inspire or educate your audience, build a community and stick to a regular posting schedule.

Inspire or educate

When it comes to videos on YouTube, the best tend to do one of two things: inspire or educate. People visit YouTube to learn something new, or feel inspired by the way others live their lives. So when it comes to your content it’s good to keep this in the back of your mind. You could either focus exclusively on one of these things, or do a bit of both, it really depends on how consumers view your brand. If you are going to do a bit of both it may be a good idea to decide the ratio of each you want to create. When you’re clear on this it will mean when people visit your channel they have a clear idea of what they will get from viewing your videos (and they’ll be more likely to subscribe to keep up to date with your latest uploads).

The second thing worth deciding is your exact ‘why’ for creating content. Start with writing down why you’re creating content (for example, this could be ‘to encourage people to fly on our airline’ or ‘to inspire people to visit my hotel’) then write down why this is important. After you’ve written down why it’s important, finally write down why people need to watch your content (for example, this could be ‘people need to watch my videos to discover the exclusive perks our airline has’ or ‘people need to watch my videos to feel confident in our hygiene and safety measures’). These three questions will help you to drill down into a more specific and compelling reason for people to watch your videos.

Knowing what the purpose of your videos is (to inspire or educate) and your ‘why’ will make it much easier to plan your content and attract a loyal audience who know exactly what you’re about and what they can expect from your channel if they subscribe.

Build a community

YouTube isn’t just about pressing publish on a video and waiting for it to attract thousands of views. There’s a great community element to the platform, and the way to stand out from the noise is to actively engage with your followers. When you build a relationship with your audience they’re more likely to engage regularly with your content and recommend it to their peers.

Can you involve your audience in the planning of your future videos? Allowing your audience to help you choose what you film can make them feel more involved in your channel, and therefore more loyal to your brand. It will also build excitement for your future content! It’s important to make sure you reply to any questions and comments. Take on feedback, even if it is constructive criticism, and put your audience at the centre of what you’re creating. Having a close relationship with your viewers will make them far more likely to share your content or encourage others to watch it. It will also ensure you’re always tuned into what they want to see, increasing your engagement on the content you do publish. The more engagement your videos get, the more likely the YouTube algorithm is to boost it and recommend it to more people. This will help you to reach more people and build an audience.

Set a regular posting schedule

The final thing to do is to create a content schedule that you can stick to. Uploading content regularly, and planning it in advance, means your audience will know when to expect fresh videos from you and you can spend time promoting them on your other social media channels before they go live. When people know when to expect your new videos you’re more likely to get an immediate hit of engagement and views on the video which will help the video to be shown to more people, therefore increasing your reach.

Planning your content in advance will also ensure you don’t run out of steam when it comes to brainstorming video ideas and finding the time to film them. You can batch film videos and schedule them on YouTube so they will automatically upload at the right time. This will give you more time to focus on promoting your videos and replying to comments.

If you put these three things into practice, you’ll see the engagement on your posts increase. Then you can watch that audience grow!

You may also be interested in…

• Keeping teams motivated during a crisis
• How to maintain your wellbeing while working from home
• Bringing your brand to life with video content