A lot of church struggle to be many views or subscribers in YouTube. That’s a shame because I would guess practically all of them have life-changing messages that would really help almost anyone. Meanwhile, I’ve been plugging away at YouTube for the last 40 months posting a weekly video on church finances. Not exactly life changing. Not exactly helpful to anyone outside the church finance world. Why is it that I have more subscribers and views than the vast majority of churches on YouTube?
I put together the below short video for a class I’m taking through Dakota Wesleyan University. That will give you eight things to think about to help grow your viewership. The one that I neglected to mention in the video is this: Don’t give up, and be consistent. There is something powerful about showing up every day (or in my case, every week) and delivering. I haven’t missed a weekly post since I started on March 6, 2019. Has every post been stellar? Obviously not. Roughly only 5% of my videos break 1,000 views. It’s becoming increasingly rare, but I still post the occasional video that doesn’t even break 10 views. I didn’t give up. I posted consistently. I’m working at improving my posts.
Here’s the rest of my tips:
- #8 Use Tags for Common Misspellings: Back in the day, Tags were used to help the search process. I have been wasting my time by not reading the YouTube tips. The best use of Tags is to include commonly misspelled words.
- #7 Organize Videos with Playlists: Playlists group videos that are part of a series or are on the same topic. They make it easier to find messages and easier to binge watch.
- #6 Poor Audio Quality: I have posted a handful of videos where the audio cut out. Listen to your video (at least sample it) before you ship it.
- #5 Treating YouTube as Video Storage: I’m guilty of this one too. I have some webinars and trainings on there that no one is going to search for. It would have been better to post them unlisted than clutter up the channel with video not created for the public.
- #4 Forgetting your Audience: I usually try to imagine I’m talking to a workshop crowd when I’m talking to the camera. Sometimes I forget who I want in that audience: primarily church treasurers, church leaders, and pastors.
- #3 Have a H-O-T Intro: I just heard this one from Aussie Dave on the Carey Nieuwhof podcast (link below). With many popular YouTubers, that first minute of the video is so important. It should have a Hook, Outcome, and Transition to keep viewers long enough to get them into the heart of the message.
- #2 Your Thumbnails are Lacking: When you scroll through YouTube, I tend to look at the Thumbnails first and the titles second. The Thumbnail should catch the eye. Look through your list of videos. Would you have any idea what the video is about or be compelled to click on it?
- #1 Use Search-Friendly Titles: A lot of times we like to be creative or use insider-language when we title our videos. Many just use the date the video is posted. Imagine your marriage is falling apart, and you don’t know what to do. Would you search, “June 11 – Relationship Series?” Of course not. Why not retitle your video to something like “3 Principles to prevent your marriage from ending in divorce.”
Useful Links
- Dave Adamson on Carey Niewhof: https://careynieuwhof.com/episode490/
- Sean Cannell on Carey Niewhof: https://careynieuwhof.com/episode264/
- Megan O’Neill from Adweek: https://www.adweek.com/performance-marketing/get-more-youtube-views/
- Clifford Chi from Hubspot: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/youtube-tags
JCT Accounting Co 