Internet Video Marketing Tips- Subscribing to Youtube Channels a Double-Edged Sword

Recent numbers released regarding online video show that YouTube is the leader as a destination for web video, not only getting people there, but having them view multiple videos per visit, and keeping them coming back for more. In this post I’ll share an Internet video marketing tip about the subscribe feature that keeps YouTube users, potentially your prospects, coming back for more driving more traffic to your site, as you share relevant information about your products or services.

Important Note: Never uploaded a video to YouTube? Not required to benefit from what YouTube has to offer. Using the social networking features, can still get traffic and targeted visitors to your site.

Internet Video Marketing Tips- Subscribing to Youtube Channels a Double-Edged Sword

With the growth of video, YouTube has done a decent job to include new features with the growing demand for online video. One of those such features is the ability of YouTube to notify its viewers of new videos by a producer through the subscribe feature. The option to subscribe is found on every YouTube Channel, it looks like this.

Subscribing for Viewers

By subscribing to some one’s channel on Youtube, you will get updates from YouTube automatically whenever the channel is updates with a new video. This is great because you will be among the first to know when fresh content is available, and be the first to view it.

If your subscriptions provide value, this can be a great opportunity to interact with comments and ratings. Commenting will drive interest to your channel, giving you more social traction on YouTube, and with it more subscribers to your channel.
In addition, subscribing tells the channel owner that you appreciate what they are doing and that it is adding value, and, under the recent activity feed for the channel it can show that you have subscribed to the channel (if you prefer to hide that info, it is configurable in your account privacy settings).

Each of these touchpoints is an extension of your channel and your brand.

Subscribing for the Video Producers

The main benefit here is twofold:
1.) Whenever you upload new content, your subscribers are notified, driving more views of your video, and more traffic to your website. It works much like an opt-in list, they opt-in, but YouTube delivers the message.
2.) As you get more subscribers you are creating social currency, that is others who see that you have subscribers will be more interested in subscribing to your channel themselves.

Important Update: In recent testing, I find that the delivery speed to my subscribers is far from instant, in fact days (or longer) after uploading a new video, notifications drop in their YouTube inbox. Not really efficient, especially if you have time sensitive information. Not a big deal for everyone, but something to be aware of.

It’s All In The Content

As a publisher, I’ll be the first to acknowledge that I’m not real polished on camera (no additional comments here :-), what others have indicated is that the content is helpful and valuable. While I’m hopeful to improve the productions going forward, what I cannot do is deliver flat content (though it will likely happen from time to time). My point is, while it is important to engage the subscription feature as both a viewer and publisher this doesn’t make up for good content. Leverage the benefits YouTube channel subscriptions provide, and as a publisher, create valuable content, you’ll help grow your channel, and very well may help your brand.

You can visit the MarketingProfessor.com YouTube Channel here.
Your Turn: Got a YouTube Channel to Share/Subscribe to? Questions or additions for this post? Engage in the comment boxes below.

*Image credits to ST33VO