With over 1 billion active users in 2019, Instagram is where people are flocking to and exactly the place where you should be marketing your YouTube videos. You can find a new audience, retain your existing fan base and drive viewers to your YouTube channel through Instagram. Here are 7 effective ways to promote your YouTube channel through Instagram:
- Upload content on IG TV and Instagram Stories
Use as many in-built Instagram features as you can. The Instagram algorithm pushes stories that have a tagged location, hashtags and mentions, more than a story with none of these features enabled. Post countdowns, polls, questionnaires, emoji sliders, go live, use the swipe up feature once you hit 10k followers, and upload teasers of your new videos and link it to your YouTube channel. For best results, post 1-8 stories a day and upload 1-2 videos a week on IG TV.
https://www.instagram.com/tv/BzRhGScHFjv/?igshid=piz2r2u1l02z
- Find DM groups
Direct Message Groups or DM Groups are a closed list of members who post content in exclusive niches. When you post new content, you message on the group asking people to comment and like the video. It’s a give and take policy where you need to actively participate in the group and engage with other member’s posts as well. You can find these groups by simply messaging famous influencers in your niche and asking them if they participate in a DM group.
- Tag accounts that repost videos in your niche
Make a list of accounts that curate content in your specific niche and tag them in your posts. Accounts like 9GAG and Shitideas have accumulated over 1 million followers and get high engagement on their posts by simply reposting curated content from influencers in the comedy genre. These accounts already have a targeted audience who are interested in the type of content you make. Exposing your videos to them can get you a whole bunch of new fans.
- Redirect people from your feed to your YouTube channel
Post snippets of your YouTube videos and get people to watch the whole video by redirecting them to your YouTube channel. Eg: “Watch the entire video on my YouTube channel. Link in bio”. Instagram doesn’t let you embed video links in post captions, however, you can update your Instagram bio with your latest video link.
- Post branded content on your Instagram feed
You can post teasers, repurposed memes and quotes from your YouTube videos. Your Instagram content can get reposted by other accounts, so make sure you brand your content with your logo so people learn to associate you with your content. A good rule of thumb is to post once a day on your Instagram feed. You can scale it up to 2-3 posts a day once you have more than 10-100k followers.
https://www.instagram.com/p/ByYSCYJB4Tf/
- Use hashtags strategically
Using the right hashtags will increase your posts’s visibility. Websites like displaypurposes.com give you a list of best performing hashtags in your niche. Instagram lets you use a maximum of 30 hashtags per post, so make sure you don’t exceed the limit.
7. Engage with your audience
When people engage with your posts more, your posts reach a wider audience. Use the Instagram search bar to look for people who are posting content in your niche. Reach out to them by liking and commenting on their posts, and let them know that you create similar content that they might like. You can also shoutout to your fans, post photos of your most loyal viewers and tag them, reply back to all comments on your posts, randomly pick out followers from your profile and drop comments on their photos. Allot yourself time to like and comment on around 100 photos a day, but make sure you don’t overdo it, or the Instagram algorithms may pick up your account as spam and ban it temporarily.
There you have it. That’s how Instagram can be leveraged to improve your YouTube’s channel overall growth.
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