One of the best parts about youtube is that creators can be accessible to their viewers. This regular interaction with your audience will help to build and maintain a relationship with them. You can engage them in many ways, but here are a few that many youtube professionals use. Lets look at some best practices:

Participating in an active conversation with your audience will not only give you feedback that you might be overlooking, but you will also get to know what they want.

Asking for comments in your endslate or end card will start the conversation, inviting them to engage.

Once the conversation starts, answering their questions and debating issues with them will engage them and even give them a way to offer compliments. All these things will grow your relationship with your audience.

At the core, everyone wants to be known. Trying to know your audience will let them know that you value them, even to the point of inspiration from their input.

Linking to your videos on other social media outlets is a great way to distribute outside of your youtube community. Remember, not all people use youtube as a social media outlet, it might just be a place they go to look for videos. So meeting them where they choose to participate will help diversify your viewership.

Like with your video’s title on youtube, this will be where you should make sure to pay attention what description accompanies the video. It can be the difference between someone clicking on it or passing it by.  

Here’s an exercise to try out: the next time you’re using a social media site, pay attention to what gets your attention, what you click on. Deconstruct why you choose to click on it.

Now, continue to look down your feed, and choose something you normally wouldn't click on. Follow that link, read the article or watch the video, go back to the original post in your feed, and re-write their title into something that would get your attention. This simple lesson will show you that just spending some time thinking about how you invite your audience to watch your video makes a big difference in how well it will perform. In some cases this could double or triple its performance.

Once you are able to get your audience to participate by commenting on your videos, take it one step further.  Take those comments and make a video featuring those comments.

Engaging your audience helps to solidify your relationship with them but also shows that you value them and their time, enough to spend time on them. It will also give them personal ownership over your video. This will cause them to share it with their world, because they are a part of it. Lets take a look at an example at coment integration from epic rap battles…

Your audience is your community. They’re your most valuable asset as a youtuber. It’s a best practice to give them what they want; more videos and offer them up on a consistent posting schedule.  You can share that schedule to them at the end of your videos. Your upload schedule will allow your audience to look forward to your next video. Share it at the end of your videos but also in your youtube banner image. So the main lesson is to upload regularly. Nothing can kill a channel’s growth more than uploading infrequently. Make a schedule and stick to it. Even if you can’t make videos every week, let people know that you’ll upload every other week.

Connecting with your audience on multiple levels through video comments, other social media platforms and with viewer comment integration will allow for the deepest connection from your viewers. Plus if you post on a regular schedule, viewers will make it an appointment to view your newest content.