One of the things that YouTube uses to decide which videos to show highest up in the results is the number of views that a video has received. Their computer program assumes – amongst other things – that the more views a video has, the more relevant and popular it is. Which is largely true, at least until some sneaky internet marketers decide to game the system.
It’s often suggested in internet marketing circles that you should buy real youtube views in order to artificially increase it’s popularity.
But you need to remember that YouTube is owned by Google and that they are wise to that kind of manipulation. Which means that even if the video responds now to that kind of underhand tactic, there’s absolutely no guarantee that it will happen in the future. In fact, there are lots of indications already that artificially boosting views to your videos is an accident waiting to happen.
Instead, you need to take steps to get real people to really watch your videos.
1. Send a message to your list
If you’ve got a list of any sort (and if you think you’re an internet marketer, you probably should have!) then send them a quick email when you add a new video.
That will get some initial views to your video and will be perfectly natural – that kind of promotion happens all the time.
2. Encourage people to subscribe to your channel
YouTube has a built-in mechanism that allows people to subscribe to their channels.
It’s in their interest – people get notified when you publish a new video, people come back to YouTube to watch it, everyone wins.
Even just a brief note near the end of your video’s description can nudge people to do this.
3. Put it on Facebook
It’s easy to put videos on your Facebook wall and people can either watch them directly on Facebook or they can click through to watch them on YouTube if they prefer.