Want to know an incredible hack to increase your YouTube watch time? There are some ways, going to help you to gain YouTube watch time or views.
CREATE CUSTOM THUMBNAILS FOR YOUR VIDEOS
Optimize your video thumbnails for clicks.
You could have the best video in the world, but if nobody clicks on it, your watch time will be zero. Together with your video title, YouTube thumbnails are the most important success factors for high video click-through rates. A great thumbnail communicates the value of watching your video to viewers when they browse their YouTube newsfeed. YouTube will select three freeze-frames from your video as thumbnail suggestions during the upload of your video. But you should always design and upload your own unique video thumbnail to stand out from other videos. You will get the best results if you plan for the thumbnail before writing your video script. I wrote an in-depth article on how to plan, design, and optimize your YouTube thumbnails. Make sure to check it out!
ADD VIDEO CARDS TO YOUR VIDEOS
You also have to get more people to watch more of your videos to get more watch time. One of the easiest ways is by recommending someone one of your related videos via video cards. Those are the little info icons that appear in the top right corner of your videos. You can recommend up to 5 videos per video, and I highly recommend incorporating this strategy for all of your videos.
CREATE END SCREENS FOR YOUR VIDEOS
If your video is fun and entertaining to watch and someone stays all the way till the end, ask them to watch some of your other videos via your video end screens.
RECOMMEND RELATED VIDEOS IN YOUR VIDEO DESCRIPTION AND COMMENTS
Another awesome way to promote your videos to new viewers is by sharing links to some of your videos and playlists in the description of your videos.
ADD YOUR VIDEOS TO PLAYLISTS
Every YouTube channel should have at least one playlist. You can start by creating one for all of your videos and then, wait for it. Add all of your public videos to it. The idea of creating a playlist creates a very convenient way for viewers to bulk-watch your content.
TAKE ADVANTAGE OF SERIES-PLAYLISTS
If you want to turbocharge your YouTube playlists, you must take advantage of a little-known yet super-powerful feature called series playlists. For example, you made a travel documentary about your last vacation and split it into three movies. Yet, it would make sense to watch them in sequential order.
SHARE PLAYLISTS INSTEAD OF VIDEOS
Another way you can take advantage of video playlists is by sharing playlists instead of individual video links. First, find a playlist of your choice that contains the video that you want to share. Open it and then select the video you want to share. You'll notice that the URL changes into a long, convoluted address. Select it, copy it, and paste it into a new tab in your browser. It should play your video AND then continue with other videos from your playlist. If it works, share this far and wide. Not everybody will continue to watch your entire playlist. But some will, and that's all that matters. More watch time for your channel.
PROMOTE YOUR VIDEOS ON SOCIAL MEDIA
You must drive as much traffic to your own videos as possible. Don't rely on YouTube. This is a win-win partnership. YouTube will reward those who help themselves. When you send viewers to your videos, a couple of things will happen. You bring fresh users to the YouTube platform. This allows YouTube to show them ads, which translates into extra revenue for YouTube. YouTube will reward you with organic impressions.
You know your audience best. By recommending your videos to people you know are interested in the content, you allow YouTube to create lookalike audiences. You also make it convenient for others to share your video on social media.
GO LIVE ON YouTube
We talked about the importance of longer videos before. With longer videos, you need a much smaller number of viewers to get to the same number of watch hours. Since you don't have your first 1,000 subscribers yet, that's generally a good thing. I recommend recording longer videos of 10-15 minutes.
I recommend having a regular schedule, for example, every Monday evening, so your audience can form a habit of attending your live streams.
START VIDEO PREMIERES
A cool method to increase the number of initial views for new videos is to publish them as a video premiere. It's like a watch party for your new video. Just select a date and time, and YouTube will live-stream your new video at your specified time. Viewers can join the live chat and interact with you.
Afterward, it will turn into a regular video that people can watch whenever they want. The benefit of premieres is that it's a unique experience. You can only ever watch it for the first time, and then it's over. Because of this factor, you'll get a lot more people to watch your premieres in comparison to publishing videos the regular way.
CREATE AN ONLINE COURSE AND HOST YOUR VIDEOS
Have you ever thought about creating an online course as a lead magnet? I use Teachable to host my online courses. But you can keep it super simple. Just create a hidden page on your website and add all course videos as embedded YouTube videos. Or if you have an email list. Send them a sequence of daily emails, each with the link to a different YouTube video. People love structure and are more willing to consume larger amounts of content if presented and structured the right way. This will help you in gaining more watch time.
CREATE A VIDEO AD CAMPAIGN ON GOOGLE ADS
If you don't have the patience, there is another way that you can think of. Creating a video ad campaign on Google Ads.
How Google Ads work?
Find a video on your YouTube channel that's reasonably long. So no shorter than 10 minutes, ideal half an hour to an hour. Then you create a Google Ads account and set up a new campaign. You select "brand awareness and reach" as the campaign goal and then "video campaign" on the next page.
Give your campaign a name. Then select a CPC bidding strategy. I recommend manually setting a low bid cap, so you don't accidentally burn your campaign budget too quickly.
Set a campaign budget as well as a start and end date. I recommend starting with $10-20 and a time frame of 1-2 days to familiarize yourself with how everything works.
In the networks section, select "YouTube videos".
There are two targeting options. One is tailoring your campaign to your ideal audience, or another is just going for cheap and everyone. I recommend option two to get as many watch hours as possible at the lowest possible price. And option one, if you not only want to amp up your watch time but also gain subscribers with your video ads.
Now it's time to create your video ad. Select a video of your choice from your YouTube channel and design your ad. Promote your own YouTube channel in your ad copy and then linking to your channel URL.
Pro-tip:
If you add "?sub_confirmation=1" to the end of your channel URL, people will see a popup that asks them if they want to subscribe.
In the end, click save and continue. Once your video ad campaign has been reviewed, it's ready to go.
I recommend logging into your YouTube Creator Studio and keeping an eye on the real-time views. This is what it'll look like on a daily basis once you have many more subscribers!
WATCH YOUR OWN VIDEOS ON YOUR FRIEND'S PHONE
That's a bit of a hack. Next time you meet your friend, tell them that you want to show them your new YouTube channel on THEIR phone. Then let them watch one of your videos. And while you're at it, why not subscribe to them at the same time. Every bit helps, and who knows, maybe they'll turn into one of your most loyal subscribers who watch all of your videos.
CONCLUSION
In summary, create a video strategy that works for you. I recommend publishing three videos of 10-15 minutes per week and one hour-long live stream per month. Add up to five video cards to each of your videos to promote related videos from your channel to encourage viewers to watch more of your content. Create a pinned comment and recommend the same videos you recommended on your video cards.
Add end screen for your videos and promote at least one of your videos and your playlists. Make sure they're either your most popular videos or playlists and/or closely related to the video someone just watched.
Add a list of your most popular, recommended, and related videos in the video description of each of your videos.
Organize all of your videos into topic-specific playlists. This allows viewers who are interested in a specific topic to watch all of your content in bulk.
Take advantage of Series Playlists to improve the likelihood that one of your videos will be recommended as "next video to watch".
Instead of sharing the direct link, add your videos to playlists and then share the playlist with your video of choice as the currently selected video instead. This will boost your watch time tremendously.
Make sure that you always promote all of your videos on social media. Promote your videos on social media
Frequently go LIVE on YouTube and use the Premiere function to create a more immersive experience with your audience and boost watch time.
You can also create an online course and host your videos on YouTube to increase the watch time on your channel.
If you want to get results even faster, create a video ad campaign on Google Ads.
And if all of these are not enough, bug your friends and force them to watch your videos on their smartphone.
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