Likes, comments, and shares prove that your video was useful, entertaining, or worth discussing to your audience, and are not just vanity metrics. These metrics show that your content created a response.
To gain likes, comments, and shares on YouTube, you need to capture the audience’s attention and then offer them a reason to engage. Empty comment prompts, commenting squads, and other forms of purchased engagement will not develop a dedicated following. Package your content well and make its value clear. Then, engage in real conversations with your audience.
How to Get More Likes, Comments, and Shares on YouTube
Your video must prompt a user to perform an engagement action. The reason they watch your video, why they engage, and what they get must be cohesive. A request for a like or comment will feel out of place and forced if any of the steps of the user engagement action path are skipped.
Every video must have a purpose, and that purpose must be clear to the viewer. For example, one video could show a viewer how to take a high-quality picture using their phone, and another could tell a story that features a plot and a resolution.
Sharing a video is related to either the audience’s practical needs or their identity. Travel guides tend to get shared by users that plan on a trip because it serves a practical need. Other videos get shared simply because it’s funny and it contains an idea that a user wants to convey to their friend. A viewer liking your video should be as a result of a solution to their problem that you’ve illustrated in your video. From a video that features alternative solutions, you must ask the viewer which of the solutions they prefer.
Snaphappen can help you get more visibility for your YouTube videos with engagement services. More activity on your videos attracts attention, helps with other promotions you do, and provides more reasons for viewers to check out your entire channel.
How to Win Those All Important Clicks with Better YouTube Titles, Thumbnails, and Hooks
The play-button is only the start of engagement. Your promise in the title and thumbnail needs to be met in your opening line or viewers stop watching and don’t even get to react.
Intent matched, concrete titles attract interest and communicate promise. A title like “How I Plan a Week of Meals for $60” tells the viewer exactly what they’ll learn, vs. a title like “This Changed Everything” that has no promise. Use title research in YouTube search suggestions, Keyword Planner, and TubeBuddy to get an idea of what people actually search. Use title research to craft a title that delivers the message, rather than a mashup of keywords.
A thumbnail is meant to communicate one idea. A facial expression, a finished project wrapped in a contrasting color, or a bold image will do the trick. Avoid cramming a bunch of small images. Test it on a mobile device, which is most likely the first device your viewer will see it on.
Your opening needs to honor the promise you made in your title. Get straight to the point. Skip long greetings.
To structure the middle of your video, think of the answers in this order:
- Describe the problem in a way your viewer will easily recognize.
- Show how you discovered the answer and/or explain how you got to the answer.
- Explain the answer or key takeaway quickly.
An example is a coffee stains removing video. It begins by showing a coffee stain free shirt. Then it describes all the failed attempts and on what eventually worked. Surprisingly, this method works best. Viewers like to see a result and the process to get there.
– Make sure your sentences are varied in length (a mix of long and short). Avoid overuse of similar sentence starters.
– Do not add extra information to the output.
– Do not change the meaning of the original passage.
How to Use Calls to Action to Engage Your YouTube Audience
Don’t crowd your audience with “Like, comment, subscribe, share, and click that bell.” Too many options leads to the overwhelmed tenth grader in all of us to do absolutely nothing. Choose one call to action to fit the situation.
You taught them something? They’re ready to like. If you made them laugh, they’re ready to like.
If you made a video that would help a first time home buyer or that co-worker who can never figure out how to use Excel, it’s ok to ask for a share. Leave detailed comment prompts for points that provide enough context, as those are the videos that will get the most informative comments.
For questions framed in this way, you’ll get way more quality responses:
What did you choose, more buck or less buck?
Which step was the hardest for you?
What should I put to the test in the next video, option A or B?
After you finish making your video, and have answered the questions in the pinned comment, mention the question and say the pinned comment in your video. This will help the people who come in late, and will help keep the discussion topic on something useful instead of off topic questions.
If you’re looking for more likes, comments, and shares, timing your call to actions helps more than just blasting as many as you can. If they get value from your content, they’ll be happy to help you out. Explain to them why their like, comment or share helps the channel. Sincerity shines through and you’re not another spammer.
How to Get More Comments by Starting Real Conversations
The first hours after you post are a good time to stay online. This is your best chance to have a conversation with a viewer while the comments section is still active. A quick response lets future viewers of your videos know that leaving a comment can lead to an actual back-and-forth conversation with users.
Comments should not be one or two words. Asking for more detail is easy. A comment that states they solved a problem by watching your tutorial can be followed by a question about what problem they solved.
Creating an open and welcoming channel is easy by simply thanking and pinning comments with constructive criticism. Those comments can help improve videos and even inspire new upload content.
People will trust you more to use the chat section and be more constructive rather than use bots and message spam.
When users know that their comments can be constructive, it changes the entire channel and how you interact.
Capture Audience Attention with Built-in YouTube Features
In between uploads, you might think existing uploads are your only avenues to engage your audience. Think again! YouTube’s built in features engage viewers and direct them to more content.
Explore your channel with YouTube Shorts! You never know who might stumble across it. They serve as a great teaser to who your channel is and what it has to offer. A think of the short, and if you have a longer video of that concept, provide the viewer with a link to where they can check it out!
YouTube’s Community Posts are a low-effort way to engage subscribers. Make them filler for a poll where you pick your next video topic, share a behind the scenes photo, or pick the thumbnail of your next video. Polls are a great way to get quick participation from the audience.
- Build playlists around one viewer need, such as beginner camera lessons or weeknight recipes.
- Add cards only when the linked video answers the next natural question.
- Use end screens to direct viewers to one related video and a subscription option.
- Schedule a Premiere when you can attend the live chat and respond in real time.
Captions are extremely important as many users watch videos without sound. You also have the ability to ensure the auto-generated captions are correct! Mistakes can result in viewers leaving the video. Your message could also get lost in translation.
Publisher Your Videos Beyond YouTube and Maintain a Consistent Schedule
A consistent schedule makes users know when to check your account. You don’t need to post every day. One solid video posted once a week is better than several mediocre videos in a shorter amount of time. Figure out how long it takes you to do the entire process for posting, researches, filming, editing, and commenting. Maintain that pace so you don’t run out of time to comment.
Promotion of your videos depends on the platform. If it is Instagram, use an instructional video and turn that into an Instagram reel. If you want to boost a business video lesson on LinkedIn, then post a video lesson. For an email newsletter, post the video and send a direct link to the subject or topic you think will interest your subscribers.
Facebook Groups, X, WhatsApp, and other blogs, websites, and niche communities can be channels to send users to your YouTube videos. To do this, you need context. Tell the users what your video is, and what the video is solving, and answer any questions based on your video. Of course don’t get spammy by posting the same link to all groups.
Collaborations are a great way to reach new audiences. Find or partner with creators who cover related topics to you and make a video that appeals to both your audiences. As an example, a creator of home organization and a creator of budget meal videos, may make a realistic pantry video reset.
It is a bad idea to buy likes, comments, or shares. It will produce users that are uninterested and want to leave your videos. It may also appear untrustworthy to your target user base.
Analyze Your Audience and Update Each New Video
Forget relying on Casting Call. Trust the data you have with YouTube Analytics. Avoid viewing data in a vacuum. A video with 500 views and 30 comments might be having a better conversation than one with 50,000 views and 100 comments.
Analyze how your audience is retaining the information. A video review on a product should not be compared to a personal story because they’re totally different in purpose. Look where people are dropping off in the retention reports and check what happened there. Did you ramble in your intro? Did you repeat yourself or maybe answer the question in the video before you promised in the title?
Only test one change at a time. If you had poor click-throughs, change the thumbnail and title. If they watched but did not comment and you asked an open-ended question, change to a closed-ended question. Comments can show the topic they would want you to talk about next.
Repeat the cycle: publish, then look at your data and each time think about how you can keep one small improvement, and be sure to connect it to what the audience really likes.
Conclusion
Clear promises, valuable content, and appropriate prompts all build engagement. Regardless of sweepstakes follower count, genuine members of a community will interact with posts, recommend content, and build trust in a channel.
Make a stronger thumbnail, improve opening hook, and ask just one question to be answered in a comment. Post to its’ best location and review the analytics.