Recently, he made a great video and posted it online (YouTube or some other popular video website). You took great care to make sure the video was the most effective length, the subject was incredibly engaging, and the overall quality of your video was top-notch. The only problem is that no one is looking at it. What is your job?

Setting up your video for success

When you first set out to shoot your video, you have no way of knowing if it will be seen by a large number of people. All you can do is make your video the best it can be based on what you understand makes an effective video. Well, if you’ve done everything that you were supposed to do, the only thing left for you is to promote your video effectively. Of course, easier said than done.

• Make sure your video title grabs attention: As with the written word (blogs, longer articles, etc.), people pay attention to the title before anything else. If your viewers aren’t drawn to the title, they probably won’t make the effort to watch the video. Your title should provide a clear understanding to the potential viewer about the content of the video beyond the title. Nowadays, people don’t have time (or patience), so they want to understand what your video is about right away. Your title should be clear and concise and should include strong keywords or key phrases.
• Create revealing thumbnails of your video: Your thumbnail is also extremely important when it comes to promotion. The thumbnail should connect strongly with its title. After all, you want the thumbnail to elicit the same reaction as the title – you want your viewer to want to see the video in its entirety. There are some simple guidelines that you should consider following, such as making sure the thumbnail is large (you want it to be easily seen in the preview), has a high resolution, loads as an image (jpg, gif, bmp, or png). It is important for you to remember that the thumbnail is extremely important and if you do it the right way it will go a long way in promoting your video.
• Make sure your profile on the social media channel where you post the video is complete: Your profiles on all your social media channels of choice are extremely important and it is absolutely necessary for you to complete each one. The same goes for profiles on sites where you can post videos. If you’re using YouTube, for example, you’ll want to make sure the following closely matches your brand when it comes to color, background, logo (s), social media buttons, and banner (s) and layout. Considering that this is content that is visual in nature, aesthetics are obviously extremely important. In essence, you are bookmarking that particular social media channel.
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO): SEO is extremely important to the success of your brand and no matter what type of content you are publishing, the need for effective SEO is the same. There are several things you need to consider when it comes to SEO, including audience retention (memorability), title tag information, effective keywords and key phrases, the length of your video, tags, number of viewers, likes and comments and Questions. After all, you want people to be able to find your video easily. This is why you want to do everything you can to make sure your SEO is up to scratch. Some of the information that you may consider including is detailed descriptions of your video, strong keywords and key phrases, a good choice of where to post your video, links, etc.
• Create a buzz about your video: Even though you’ve created an amazing video and done everything you can to promote it properly and effectively, you still need to get people involved. Commitment is critical to your success. That means that you will not only encourage people to leave comments, questions, etc. about your video, but it will also mean that you will engage people by offering your opinion (s) on other people’s videos. That’s a very good idea because you want to solidify your position as an active and interested member of your online social circle (s). When you speak, other people will listen to you and appreciate your contribution. Also, while sharing other content, don’t forget to mention your video. Just make sure you don’t seem too promotional.
• Promote valuable interactions with members of your target audience: The fact is, no matter what type of content you are promoting, you must interact with your target audience. Plus, your content should resonate with them too. If you cannot make the emotional connection, you will not have the opportunity to continue the relationship you have established with the other person. There are a number of different ways you can interact and a video automatically lends itself to interactions with other people online.
• Never forget to include a call to action call to action): As effective as your content is undoubtedly, without a CTA, the relationship will be dead before it has a chance to live. The call to action is the only way the viewer can connect with you individually. Remember that your CTA can be customized and each CTA can be different for each new content. You may want to include a question, run a contest, ask your viewer to vote for something, offer a free trial, fill out a form, or watch a second video. All of these possibilities can be included in your CTA.

Conclution

Creating an amazing video is extremely important, but it’s only half the battle. The other half is promoting that video effectively so that many people will see it and want to share it with other people they know and respect.