HOW TO Get More Views For Your Videos

With every video I create and release I’m learning more about what the social web responds to, and what they ignore. While there’s no guarantee you will get a million views if you create a remarkably entertaining video, there are a few activities you can do each time to accumulate more views, love, and attention for your content.

Social Sites
Posting your video link on social sites is a good start. My favorites are: Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Reddit, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Buzzfeed, and if you have a potential viral hit on your hands then submit to Devour. I’ve given up hope on the dying Digg. WTF titles, broad and niche tags, and eye-catching thumbnail images are key.

Timing is also key too, even though there’s no way to know when a digital influencer may see your content and when they won’t. Most of the time they won’t. I have had some modest success stories of getting over 290 saves on Delicious for various videos. My theories as to how I got so many are suspect, but I think what happens is some power user bookmarks my video link, and their thousands of followers see that and do the same. It’s rare but it can happen, and it leads to many more views and higher placement in Google. But the problem unfortunately is that there’s no guarantee, and there’s no secret formula. All you can do is put your best video links forward, and hope for the best.

Leverage the Trends
A good tip for Twitter is that when you are promoting your video link via tweets, be sure to look at what’s trending globally, and if your video is somewhat related to those words, phrases, or hashtags, then use them in your tweets. Never come off too salesy though. Also what I’ve found works is asking people a question, or shocking them with something they aren’t used to. For example: Have you ever ate so much food, that you felt like your stomach was going to explode? Yeah, this guy in pain can relate video link

Keep Your Fingers Crossed
Always be sure to seed your video’s earliest views by sharing your link with your friends, family, and co-workers. Chances are if they like what you’ve created, and are inspired to share your video, then you may be onto something. Produce content that’s emotionally engaging, short, and irresistible not to share, and your video could be joining the “million high club” soon. Easier said then done, in fact most video creators and producers who have hit it big likely never will again. In fact, your chances may be higher of getting struck by lightning then ever seeing one of your videos hit 1,000,000 views.

Invest as much passion, energy, creativeness, and fun into your videos that you can, and see what happens. Just don’t do what many individuals do which is create something, then spend no time marketing it. If you spend 10 hours creating a 2 minute video, then spend at least 1-3 hours promoting it across the social web and your social graph. Don’t just tweet out the link one time, always be looking to promote any of your videos when the timing is right. For example, if you create a Halloween video this October, then why not promote it again in October 2014, October 2015, etc. just as long as its story is evergreen.

And if you are creating quality entertaining videos but are having no luck on YouTube, or on other popular video sites then consider uploading via Spidvid to UnleashVideo where there’s much less noise, and spam trolls. Good luck!