Let’s talk a little about publishing your YouTube video the right way. Anyone can just publish a YouTube video easily within two clicks, so what’s the point of this post?
But first, if you’re just starting out your YouTube Channel and haven’t read the previous post, do that now.
There are a few reasons why some videos attract attention and other don’t. I’ll now break them down:
1) Bad Content Value
This one seems rather an obvious one but it isnt. Bad content means that you don’t provide value to your viewers, but value is subjective, so which is it?
A video can be any combination of Entertainment, and Information. You need to first figure out what it is that you’re want to convey to your viewers, and then watch your video and see if you’re actually providing that.
If you come to the conclusion that your video doesn’t achieve that goal, you’ve got bad content right there.
2) Terrible Production Value for your YouTube video
Terrible product value can be interepreted as how tolerable it is to watch your video, and how consistent is the flow of it. We’ve all encountered videos where we started and then went “Meh, I’ll just watch something else”. That’s not where you want to be obviously. Testing the quality of your video is very important and can be broken down to the following:
Sound quality
The worst thing you can do to your video is to give it bad sound. Bad sound can be among the following:
- Crackling
- Slurring of words
- Volume that’s too high
- Volume that’s too low
- Annoying music
- Music that doesn’t fit the atmosphere of the video
- Background noise
The quality of the sound is the life or death of a video and I can’t even stress this enough. The sound is more important than the video quality.
If someone can’t understand you, or it feels wrong in their ears, they’re going to go away and might not come back.
So make sure that you keep your video’s sound quality to a high standard, and edit it to verify.
Video quality
As the technology advances, our tolerance for sketchy video quality diminishes. Today almost everyone has access to a smartphone, which includes a high quality camera that can produce quality video.
Wether you’re screen recording or filming, you need the quality to be as high as you can, as it increases the complete production value.
People like sharp pictures as it’s easier on the eyes. It helps them connect with your message and keep them longer on the video. Same goes for using higher FPS (Frames Per Second), it pleases the brain and makes you want to continue watching.
If you don’t have access to a high quality camera, use your phone instead.
If you’re screen recording, make sure that it’s set on the highest definition possible. Take note that this will make the file size larger so plan accordingly.
With that, I’ll say that even if the video quality is the only thing that’s bad in the video, and you don’t have any option to make it better, it should still be fine.
Editing quality
Another killer of your video’s views is bad editing. Unnecessary cuts, bad cropping, too much dead time, are the downfall of any video. You want to keep your message concise, and continuously engaging, which is where editing is an actual strong point.
I understand that at the beginning most people don’t have access to video editors, and that’s fine. That just means that you have to learn basic editing. A good starting point would be on this video of Jack Cole explaining how to use DaVinci Resolve.
For the new YouTuber one of the most important skills would be editing, as you probably won’t use an external editor. Editing will include video & sound editing as well, which means this is the most important skill you should improve as a starting YouTuber.
3) Unappealing YouTube video Thumbnail
We all know that we’re visual creatures. Like a raven being drawn to a shiny object, the human eye also contiuously searching for something out of the ordinary. There’s not much we can do about that, it’s in our DNA. We look for the unfamiliar (and familiar) in order to foresee danger, and distinguish between a friend or a foe.
This psychology applies to us picking a video as well. Flashy colors and big letters usually attract our focus and might cause us to click on this video rather than the other. Another trick would be to include eyes, as we’re also programmed to look for eyes to detect intention.
Another point is, depending on your target audience, sex sells, so we can abuse that. If my target audience is mostly male, if I include a girl with a deep cleavage in the thumbnail, it will incure more male clicking on the video.
Just a note about using this: you have to deliver and it should be relevant to the video. By just randomly sleazing a video with an attractive thumbnail that’s not related to the video, you will lose your audience retention.
Verify that your Thumbnail is not the default single frame picked from your video by YouTube and put some effort into it. A good place to start would be using Gimp or Canva for the beginners, PhotoShop (PS) or Canva Pro for the more advanced users. If you don’t have it in you to create a good thumbnail, you can always turn to Fiverr and get one done for you pretty cheaply.
4) Unrelated/Not Exciting Title
How many times have you encountered a clickbait and said no more? Or maybe seen some interesting video title that eventually had 2 seconds about that subject and the rest was self promotion?
The title is supposed to be informative as to what the user should expect to see, as well as attempt to get them to click. The problems starts when the title is too bland, or too extreme. Like everything, you should be somewhere in the middle.
Information videos require a descriptive video title to best describe what the user is going to get from the video.
Your titles should be addressing your user’s possible questions if you’re going for an information video. You can look at the title of this post as an example for it.
I was thinking what it is that people might search for in terms of a question “Why is my YouTube video not getting any views?”. That was the basis to my thought process to choosing this title.
Entertainment videos need to excite the user in order to get him to click, along with a generic concept about the video content without exposing too much. The thing is here, it must not mislead the viewer as well.
You can look at the top channels in your niche/similar niche for ideas of a proper title.
Copywriting is also some form of a talent developed with time. There are call to actions that will perform better and get more viewers to your videos if you use them. That doesn’t always work, and it seems that currently the mysterious content title is at large. Meaning giving the user a small taste without the actual result to get them to click.
Usually the Thumbnail will also include a different link to the title in some form.
Go over your title and see if it matches your content type, and if it adheres to the standard’s flow.
If all of the above doesn’t apply
So you’ve done everything right and you’re still not getting views, what could be the reason?
Before you freak out and close out your channel, you have to remember that persistence is key here. Growing a YouTube channel takes a long time mostly (there are a few exceptions), and it requires continous effort.
Now that you took a few deep breaths, it could be one of the following:
Wrong YouTube video visibility
We all make that mistake sometimes. Just go over to the YouTube management, edit your video, and change the visibility.
Time
You didn’t give it enough time. If you’re at a different time zone than your followers, it might take a few hours for them to see it.
If you don’t have a following, then it will take some time to be exposed to some new viewers.
YouTube video Audience & Competition
You might not have a big community behind you yet, that’s a good reason that your video has not reached a large audience yet.
Another option is that the video doesn’t correlate to your channel niche/theme well, or that it addresses the smaller sector of your audience. For example, if you have 83% male viewership and you release a makeup video, most likely your views will drop for that video.
You need to keep in mind the competition in the niche. If you release a video that the subject has already been chewed up and has a lot of content in the area (assuming it’s information), it might not compete with the well established videos existing in the field.
Epilogue
I hope this post helped you think about the different aspects of your YouTube video. If it helped you improve your video’s exposure, I’m even more glad.
Stay tuned for more channel building.
Till the next one,
Dekel
