How to Use YouTube to Build Community

How to build a YouTube community

Though YouTube offers significant opportunities for authentic connection, the breadth of content is immense, making it challenging for new content creators to stand out. Understanding your audience and the platform’s mechanics is crucial to building your community.

1. Match your channel to your brand image.

Your brand’s YouTube channel should showcase who you are and the kind of videos you’ll be sharing so viewers can decide if your content is something they’d enjoy. It’s essential to cultivate and infuse your brand image into all aspects of your channel.

Consider your banner and profile images, text, intro and outro cards and links when first developing your branded YouTube channel. All of these elements need to represent your business accurately so you attract subscribers who will be interested in and engage with your content. Your video metadata, including captions, alt text, descriptions and titles, must align with your brand voice to connect with your target audience. Incorporate links to your other social media profiles and website into your videos and descriptions to foster a relationship with your audience across all channels. 

If you’re savvy in graphic design, create a custom banner that showcases your brand so viewers know they’ve come to the right channel. If not, seek the help of a professional who can make one for an affordable price. Review your video thumbnails to ensure they represent each video accurately.

2. Create video playlists.

Worldwide viewers of YouTube spent about 29 hours using its mobile app each month, according to Statista. Encourage users to spend more time on your channel by making playlists for your videos to keep your content organized. When viewers begin a video in your playlist, it will direct them to the next video automatically. So, not only do playlists encourage viewers to stay on your channel, but they can also boost your view completion rate or the percentage of users who watch the entirety of your video. Group videos by themes, challenges or topics.

3. Provide value to your target audience. 

Understanding your target audience and their needs is a crucial aspect of YouTube success.

“Focus on providing consistent, valuable content that directly addresses the needs and interests of your target audience,” Dennis advised. “Know your niche well and create videos that solve problems, educate or entertain, while staying authentic to your brand.”

Dennis has found success in offering her audience clear, actionable financial advice, including tax-saving strategies and accounting tips for small businesses. She also leverages trending tax topics, such as changes in tax laws, to keep her content timely and relevant.

4. Encourage action.

Incorporate calls to action (CTAs) into your video content to drive viewers to complete a certain action, such as subscribing to your channel. For instance, you can use a CTA that encourages your viewers to like, comment and subscribe during your intros and outros. Keep your CTAs simple and direct so viewers are more likely to convert. Be judicious with what actions you want your audience to complete since too many CTAs can confuse and frustrate your viewers.

5. Engage with your audience.

To build an online community of YouTube viewers, engage with them consistently. Here are a few ways to interact with your audience:

• Review and respond to comments.
• Post polls to ask viewers which type of content they want to see most.
• Ask for their input on posting cadence specifics, such as the days and times they’re most active.

Engaging with your audience helps humanize your brand and show viewers that you want to create content that resonates with them. 

Take advantage of the comments section of your videos as this can be a hub of valuable information, such as the topics or types of videos your audience is most interested in. Give a shoutout or tag the users who inspired your new videos to take interactions a step further.

YouTube mistakes to avoid

Mistakes are part of the learning process, but it helps to know how to spot them. Here are some common things content creators get wrong and what you can do instead.

Not paying attention to data

If “content is king,” data-driven content is the master of the social media marketing and digital universe. Creating content based on data-driven results is the best practice you can implement when developing your overall brand marketing strategy and videos for your YouTube channel. YouTube’s analytics dashboard provides several key performance indicators (KPIs) that can inform and refine your video publishing process:

• Keyword and search term performance analysis to identify organic keywords that generate the most traffic. [Discover key technical SEO tips to boost your website traffic.]
• Audience engagement analysis to quantify your channel’s likes, comments, shares and subscribers.
• Traffic source data.
• Video performance data, such as the styles, formats and topics that resonate most with your audience and the average watch times on your videos.

When you can generate new videos based on the information garnered from your channel’s performance metrics, you may experience an uptick in views and subscribers. 

Lacking objectives

To give your YouTube channel the best chance for success, identify the objectives for your channel and strategize how your video content can help achieve those goals. Launching your YouTube channel without considering the outcomes for your overall brand will likely result in a disjointed viewing experience. To ensure that your channel aligns with your overall marketing strategy, consider which measurable objective you’re trying to achieve with your YouTube content.

• Brand awareness
• Customer support and education
• Building an engaged community with your audience

Wasting your budget 

You can’t afford to waste even a dollar of your business’s budget if you have limited marketing funds dedicated to your YouTube channel. You may be tempted to approach an advertising agency to help create specific campaigns to drive traffic to particular videos on your channel. However, the help of an agency isn’t always sustainable and will likely only amount to a small bump in views and subscribers. It might be better to use your marketing budget to develop your own video marketing strategy based on the holistic performance of your entire content library.

Don’t be afraid to experiment a little. Engage in A/B testing for the following tasks:

• Refining your content calendar.
• Identifying the types of videos your audience enjoys most.
• Determining the best CTA placement in your content.
• Learning how to best interact with your viewers and subscribers.

Not uploading enough videos 

It may seem like an arduous task to post new videos on a fixed schedule, especially if the content you create is a time-consuming endeavor. However, it creates constancy that your audience can rely on. “Consistency in posting and staying true to your brand’s voice will help foster trust and long-term engagement,” said Dennis.

If one of your YouTube channel objectives is to foster a sense of community with your viewers, one of the easiest ways to do so is by consistently uploading new videos. Maintaining a diligent posting schedule for your YouTube channel is necessary to building a robust content library. It also helps to keep your channel active and increase your number of quality subscribers. 

Creating a content calendar can help you plan the number and types of videos you’ll produce each month and when they’ll be published. If you need to deviate from your posting schedule, let your audience know when they can expect new content. While the exact publishing cadence will depend on the videos you publish, a good rule to start with is one new video each week.

Exclusively uploading short videos

The rise of TikTok and multiple short-form video content creation options might lead you to believe that solely creating YouTube Shorts would be best. However, YouTube uses minutes watched as the KPI to rank video performance, so longer videos perform better on the channel when compared to shorter content. This is great news for creators who want to go in-depth and deliver detailed, meaningful information to their audience. 

From a search engine optimization perspective, it’s better for your channel if, for example, a viewer watches 20 minutes of a 90-minute video than if someone watches the entirety of a 10-minute video. Like every other website, YouTube also tracks how long visitors spend on your page and posting longer videos can help decrease your channel’s bounce rate.

That being said, content creators shouldn’t be afraid to incorporate short-form content into their video schedule if they think the information would be of value to their audience. “I use a mix of short, informative videos and longer, in-depth tutorials to cater to different audience needs,” said Dennis. 

Consider experimenting with different formats while staying true to your brand, then track your metrics and adjust as needed. Ultimately, the key to success in building a community on YouTube is just like developing any other kind of relationship: Be genuine, be consistent and be social.

Syed Balkhi contributed to this article.