The Absolute YouTube Channel Checklist Part 3: YouTube Community

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The Absolute YouTube Channel Checklist Part 3: YouTube Community

Congratulations! You’ve made it to the third part of the YouTube Channel Checklist series! By now, you should have a strong and dynamic Homepage, and have optimised your visual and written content to draw traffic to your channel.

It’s important that you interact with your audience as it grows, to give you the best chance of turning casual viewers into active, long-term fans.

The YouTube Community tab is home to a number of tools that can help create a real connection with your fanbase. It provides artists with the ability to engage with their fans in different ways whilst promoting their music.

Community posts:

Interact with your fans by uploading text, images and GIFS ahead of a release. You can read comments on your posts and videos and respond to them in a number of ways:

  • Heart AND reply to a comment/question. This will make fans feel recognised and encourage them to be active.
  • Pin comments to the top of your feed. This way you can ensure people visiting your videos see the most positive comments first.
  • Include fans in the conversation. Have viewers answer a poll or question in the comments.

All these steps will make your audience feel more visible, meaning they’re more likely to become or remain active fans.

Premieres:

Premieres help artists build excitement and create a buzz in the lead up to a new video.

YouTube recommends that you:

  • Enable your Watch Page early.
  • Tease your release on socials in advance, and cross-promote on YouTube Stories.
  • Be present in the Live Chat, and talk to your fans. Click here for more on YouTube’s Live Chat best practices.
  • Include a call to action for viewers to subscribe to your channel after the premiere. If viewers subscribe, they will be sent reminders about any future premieres and uploads to your channel.

Tip: Set your premiere to go live at a time when your core audience is awake! Look up the geography of your audience in the demographics report in YouTube Analytics to optimise for your top two countries.

YouTube has some useful guidance on setting up a premiere on your channel and promoting your video after the premiere.

Ticketing:

Promote your tours by selling tickets through YouTube.

You can list your upcoming concerts on your video Watch Pages. A shelf will appear below the video with your tour dates, tailored to the viewer, based on the event geographically closest to them, as well as other dates. This will work on both mobile and computer devices. Once an event is sold out, it will be removed from the shelf.

Read YouTube’s ticketing guide to find out if your account is eligible for the feature and get it set up.

Tip: Alert fans to your upcoming performances by posting links in your Community. You can even include behind-the-scenes content here, to differentiate this content from your music.

A few other things you can try:

Stories:

A YouTube Story is a collection of short videos, similar to those on other social media platforms. Each Story lasts for seven days.

Viewers who subscribe to your channel will see your YouTube Story in their Subscriptions tab on the mobile app.

Click here for more on how to get started with Stories.

Live Streaming:

Use YouTube Live to engage with your fans in real time. This could be taking them behind-the-scenes while you shoot a music video, or to have a chat with them about your latest release.

Click here for more on Live Streaming.

Finally, it takes energy and perseverance to build relationships, so commit some time to developing the bond with your viewers every week.

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