You can’t imagine Youtube is the most effective and engaging platform globally. However, many companies do not know the true power of YouTube in regards to a marketing campaign. Those that are aware of the effectiveness of YouTube often do not properly implement a good strategy.

This article will cover some tips that will help you master YouTube. Specifically, this article will cover points that can help increase your engagement rate on Youtube, which is one of the most important metrics on YouTube.

Use the Proper Thumbnails to Increase Your Engagement Rate on YouTube

The first step to increase your engagement rate on YouTube is to use the proper thumbnails. That’s right, thumbnails.

These are so important because they take up so much space on YouTube SERP. In fact, the first thing that most users notice is not the title, but the thumbnail.

Now, a good thumbnail will have a few traits. 

First, it will include a frame or picture from the video. This might sound obvious, but so many YouTubers decide to use thumbnails that have no relevance to their video. Do not do that. It is spammy and just annoys everyone on YouTube.

Next, the thumbnail will be something exciting from the video. You do not want to use a boring thumbnail of you walking or something like that. Instead, you should follow one from the most interesting part of your video. 

It will peak the curiosity of the viewer and force them to click on the video. An amazing thumbnail will make uninterested people view your video to see the thumbnail.

Finally, the thumbnail will match up with the title. As mentioned earlier, the thumbnail is the biggest part in the SERP. However, people will still view the video title. Write the video title first and then choose a thumbnail that further highlights the video title.

Annotations Can Increase User Actions

Annotations are one of the most misunderstood parts about YouTube. Many of the more inexperienced YouTubers do not really know how to utilize annotations in their video. In fact, many YouTubers do not even bother with creating annotations.

Do not be one of those YouTubers. 

Annotations should be used to guide the user to do a particular task. For instance, if you want a user to subscribe to your channel, then you should ask your viewers to subscribe in the video. When you invite them to subscribe, an annotation should appear that reads “Click Here to Subscribe.” When someone clicks, it should subscribe them to your channel.

You can do this with other actions too like leaving a comment or liking the video. Basically, use the annotations to guide the viewer to take a step. 

This will significantly Increase Your Engagement Rate on YouTube Video. Plus, it is straightforward and quick to do.There is really no reason you shouldn’t be using annotations to guide someone to make a move.

Short Videos Make Everyone Happy

Short videos are the biggest secret to increasing engagement on your videos. This is because YouTube shows the length of the video on the thumbnail.

If a user sees a video over three minutes, then they are less likely to click on the video. Obviously, this rule does not apply for every niche or video, but it is generally true. 

You should aim to make your videos three minutes or less. Some niches can have videos around seven minutes long and podcasts can have videos that are three hours. Again, it just depends on the niche. 

Generally, you want to keep the videos as short as possible.

This means you will need to cut out any unnecessary parts and edit out parts that do not move the video forward such as breathing or stuttering. 

Promote Your Videos to Increase Engagement on Youtube

Promoting your videos is another excellent method to increase engagement. Promotion not only increases engagement, but it also increases the exposure of your video.

You can do paid promotion, but this is probably the least effective model for promotion. 

A much better option is to find relevant blog posts that do not have a YouTube video. You should then email the blog owners and ask them to include your YouTube video in their blog post. Many will say no, but a surprising number will agree to include your video in their post.

Remember, people like to watch videos, but frequently, there are not enough videos in a niche. If you can create videos in a niche, then you will likely have some success at getting people to include your video in their blog.

Other promotion methods include doing a collaboration with another YouTubers. They will promote your channel and video because they appear in your video. You will then promote their channel and video because you appear in their video. 

Collaboration is probably the most common way that people promote videos on YouTube and also one of the most effective, but the other methods listed in this section will work well too.

SEO Also Applies to YouTube

Finally, make sure that you apply SEO principles to your YouTube videos. This includes the usual stuff like using relevant keywords and an effective video title.

The hard part about YouTube SEO is that backlinking does not work. In other words, the only SEO you can really do is using relevant keywords in your title and description. YouTube can also listen to your video and determine what it is about, so make sure to mention the keywords at least once, so YouTube’s algorithm has an easier time understanding what your video is about and the niche.

Final Thoughts

All in all, increasing your engagement rate on YouTube is not a difficult task. It does require some work and the method of increasing engagement is a little different than other social platforms. However, the reward from an increased engagement rate, a higher SERP ranking, is worth the extra effort spent implementing all the tips listed in this article.