Why is YouTube Video Engagement Important?
Guest Post By Paul Stainton
Video engagement is a metric that gauges the total number of YouTube videos or channel views. As a result, YouTube video engagement is crucial to monitor as it determines both popularity and reaches.
And why is it important to perform well on YouTube? Although you may think of it as just a place to watch cat videos, with its approximately 2.6 billion active users, YouTube is considered the second most popular search engine in the world.
It is also the most trusted social commerce platform in the US, according to eMarketer.
Why Is YouTube Video Engagement Important?
The purpose of YouTube video engagement is to monitor the number of visitors and other variables. Finding the engagement rate–which is part of YouTube analytics–is the critical outcome of this exercise. To raise your engagement rate, you need to have a reasonable amount of clicks, shares, comments, and likes (which is a crucial point for an aspiring YouTuber).
The usual method for calculating engagement rate is adding the total number of likes, dislikes, shares, and comments and dividing it by the total number of subscribers. So, why is it essential to determine engagement or engagement rate?
Instead of just focusing on specific categorical variables like the number of likes, comments, shares, etc., the engagement rate is an all-inclusive metric that offers a more detailed account of content effectiveness on your YouTube channel. It is a valuable statistic to assess the degree of audience participation and learn more about the value of the content.
YouTube engagement rates and other metrics are found in the YouTube Dashboard. If you’re looking to save time on manually pulling those stats, use a reporting tool with a customizable YouTube Dashboard feature. This will evaluate the effectiveness of your channel and videos and the viewing habits of your audience.
There are various approaches to increasing YouTube engagement. Even well-known brands haven't always used the right tactics for creating and distributing their videos on the world's biggest video platform. After all, there are a lot of factors for video creators to consider. Learn how to enhance YouTube video engagement in the following section.
8 Ways to Increase YouTube Video Engagement in 2022
Follow these eight measures below to increase your YouTube video engagement in 2022, boosting your channel’s presence across the network.
1. Explore Topics and Keywords Properly
Many YouTubers don't do proper topical research. When that falls short, you also miss out on keyword research. As with SEO and blogging, keywords are crucial for video marketing. Several tools are available to determine YouTube keywords, which will also assist in creating a compelling topic.
Even if you don’t use a dedicated video keyword research tool, spending a bit of time in the world of keywords can make a big difference in the world of YouTube. After all, what people search for on Google often aligns with how they search on YouTube.
As you can see from the example below, many variations of the same core keyword can be tackled with a YouTube video, so picking the one that aligns best with your target audience and your video strategy is a winning combination.
That’s why a keyword tool like Semrush can be invaluable to your YouTube creation, posting, and engagement strategies.
Finding topics and creating relevant YouTube content that will engage your audience makes a finely-tuned video machine that can drive awareness and brand affinity.
Ahrefs Keywords Explorer, Kparser, and Google Trends are popular tools for researching keywords for YouTube. A well-known all-in-one digital marketing tool called Kparser can also assist with topic and tag generation.
2. SEO for YouTube Is Vital
The foundation of the explosive growth in YouTube engagement is SEO. Applying keywords for your video's niche should not be ignored in this SEO process and subsequent keyword optimization. The most popular keywords help the audience quickly reach your videos when enabled.
After all, you want your video to be found by the people who would be interested in its content.
Relevant keywords should be incorporated into your video's title, description, and scripting. This activates the YouTube algorithm and aids in increasing the visibility of your videos. This is especially important to reach a target audience that inputs comparable search queries or keywords.
3. Thumbnails Should Be Engaging
Having a poor thumbnail (or none at all) for your YouTube video makes no sense. According to experts, a stunning bespoke video thumbnail might decide whether a visitor clicks through to your video. Therefore, it’s no surprise that most popular YouTubers concentrate on making attention-grabbing thumbnails.
And it pays off. As you can see from this example, thumbnails grab attention also–typically-grab-engaged watchers.
When creating a YouTube thumbnail, the creator has the chance to explain why the audience should pick their video briefly. Therefore, you must put quality time into creating the thumbnail to instantly capture the audience’s eye.
4. Create Short Videos
Short videos are becoming increasingly popular because they are easy and quick to watch, especially if they contain crucial information or humorous aspects. It is vital to cooperate with YouTube's dedicated Shorts feature now that it exists.
Because YouTube is frequently viewed through mobile devices, short video content is accessible to your intended audience. Anyone can reach a new audience using YouTube Shorts by simply utilizing a mobile phone or the Shorts camera in the YouTube app.
But how short is short? That depends on the type of content being consumed.
Although the average has been around 11-12 minutes for several years, blog content in a video format typically comes in at less than 9 minutes. A recent study by TechSmith showed that attention spans are shrinking, and most YouTube viewers prefer informational videos to be 3 to 4 minutes or 5 to 6 minutes in length.
5. Impress Your Audience With an Impeccable Intro
YouTube intro videos are brief opening sequences appearing before a site video. They often contain the name of the YouTube channel, brief history, animated bio, and any music that goes with them. Experts on YouTube advise against creating intros that are longer than 10 seconds.
Take Doctor Mike, YouTube’s medical phenomenon, as an example. He does a great job of explaining–in the first few seconds–precisely what you are about to watch in the first few seconds.
Initial impressions are crucial on YouTube. In video marketing, this is even more important because the audience gets to know you firsthand from your video only. If your video doesn't get the audience interested immediately, they probably won't watch it all the way through.
6. Delivering With the Strongest CTA
Any marketing content–including YouTube videos–should have a call-to-action (CTA). Most often, these fall at the end of the video and can be used to promote additional video content or off-YouTube resources such as further information on the topic or the product.
Using Doctor Mike as an example, you can see how he has created a cross-promotion to his other video, and a subscribe icon to encourage users to sign up for notifications about future videos.
Users may find it difficult to understand how to purchase a product or service without strong CTAs. The CTA should always be placed near the conclusion of your video to ensure smooth operation. Specify what your audience should do after watching the video with a strong CTA.
7. Interact With Your Audience
Interacting with your audience in the comment section will help you to enhance YouTube video engagement. Personal inquiries are not necessarily bad, so asking the audience about their preferences, tastes, and routines will help you get to know them better.
After all, people often love talking about themselves.
You will gain a deeper understanding of your audience and have more insight to create relevant content accordingly. Make sure that the question aligns with the video content and your brand.
8. Work Along With Other YouTube Artists and Brands
Partnerships are a great way to become part of the YouTube ecosystem. Either an expert from your business can join a popular YouTuber to discuss a topic where you have expert insights, or vice-versa.
The ultimate objective of a YouTube collaboration with another creator or brand is to persuade their audience to view your video content, so finding the right collaborator is essential for success. To increase the likelihood of brand recognition, partner with video creators with similar interests to your company, or a connection to your audience.
For example, if you’re company offers athletic footwear, partnering with a popular fitness expert is the perfect opportunity to align on the audience and the topic.
Additionally, you should evaluate the other person's audience to make sure they would enjoy your content. Suppose most of your content is geared toward middle-aged women in the USA, and the fitness guru you’re thinking about targets millennial males in Australia. In that case, it likely isn’t a match–no matter how many subscribers they may have.
Final Thoughts
These eight strategies will help drive higher levels of engagement for your YouTube videos and your channel s a whole. Remember to monitor your YouTube engagement metrics as you test these strategies. After all, what works for another company isn’t guaranteed to resonate with your audience.
The bottom line is that you must be consistent with your YouTube postings. Start with one video each week, and work your way up to two or three, based on the advice from digital marketing professionals.
Last but not least, don't worry about the critical comments and dislikes. Even the dislikes can boost viewership and traffic to the video. Hence, the naysayers can dislike your videos, but the YouTube algorithm is designed to drive more viewers to the video/channel. As the saying goes, ‘there is no such thing as negative publicity.’
Author Bio:
With over 20 years of experience in digital marketing, Paul Stainton is an expert at creating brand value through transformation and eCommerce strategies. He has extensive knowledge about go-to-market execution and demand generation within B2B and B2C Markets. He is currently the Director of Content and SEO at AgencyAnalytics, a client reporting platform built for marketing agencies.
