How To Promote Your YouTube Channel Without Using Social Media

You spend so much time making YouTube videos, but when you start learning about how to promote your YouTube channel, you’re inundated with horrible advice about using social media. Because your channel promotion options are pretty limited. You can cross your fingers and hope for the best. You can try to optimize directly via YouTube. You can share them on social media. Incessantly. Until people stop following you.

This back and forth is totally normal. If video creation is part of your marketing strategy, you want people to watch them, right?
This is why most business owners turn to social media, sharing their content incessantly in the hopes it will catch on and go viral.
This is a mistake.

Why? Because major websites throw lots and lots of money at social media for the exact same reason. But they have the budget to be successful at it. Meaning your tiny-in-comparison budget will usually just go down the drain.

But you can’t just post them organically, right?
No.

Take this study by Forrester Research: top brands’ social media posts reach only 2% of page fans. Less than 0.1% of their fans interact with each post.

Translation? Your unpaid posts will rarely be seen.
So, unpaid posts are out. What next?

The good news is, there are tons of promotional strategies that don’t rely on social media.

1. Share your YouTube videos via email

Good ole email. When managed effectively, email is the most powerful marketing tool at your fingertips. And it’s a fraction of the cost of social media advertising.
Here’s how to do this:

• Use features like merge tag to embed video screenshots straight into your email. Those screenshots will then link to the original video.

• TailoredMail lets you embed videos within your email campaigns. This service also tracks view counts, video length, sharing behavior and device breakdowns.

2. Promote videos using pop-ups

Want to promote videos on your website? Consider website pop-ups. Most pop-ups ask for contact information. But they don’t have to. Pop-ups are a great way to promote YouTube videos and encourage social media sharing.

Website owners can use Wisepops to make video popups. Target visitors by source, frequency, browser or device. This is enormously helpful if you want to promote a video to a specific audience.

3. Promote your YouTube channel on your blog

You’re probably using a blog to attract search engine traffic, so why not use it to promote YouTube videos too?

It’s easy to embed videos into most blogging platforms. Just create a dedicated post for the video and write a blurb to accompany it. You can even create a dedicated video section on your site.
If you’re going to use this strategy, here are a few tips:

• Encourage clicks with a catchy headline

• Describe (or even transcribe!) the video to create keyword-rich blog content

• Include a call-to-action asking viewers to subscribe to your YouTube channel

• Add the video to a YouTube playlist using relevant keywords

4. Become a guest contributor

Guest blogging showcases your knowledge by providing great content to audiences across your niche. You can embed YouTube videos to support the contribution or mention your YouTube channel in the author bio.

Write for sites, magazines and blogs that cover content in your industry. After your contribution is up, comment to draw even more attention to your YouTube channel.
Don’t discount local press either. Small-town newspapers are always eager for content, so find the name of the appropriate editor and get in touch with your article pitch. Alternatively, wrangling an interview is another great option and you can use HARO to get on press distribution lists.

5. Podcasts and internet forums

Doing a podcast is a unique way to bring attention to your YouTube videos. All you need is a mic, a computer, and audio editing software. Any podcast you create can be uploaded to YouTube as well, giving you even more content for your channel.

Another option is to join internet forums, most of which are free or have low membership fees. Then, contribute to topics relevant to your YouTube videos. So if your videos are fashion-focused, participate in fashion forums.

The tip here is to place the URL of your YouTube video/channel in the forum signature – a line of text that will appear under every post you create.

Final verdict

Even if you just follow one of the above-mentioned ideas, you’ll likely see an increase in your YouTube video views.
Can you think of additional ways to promote YouTube videos without using social media? Tell us in the comments!