With two in five users of social media users in the Arab world currently being subscribers on YouTube, according to the 2015 Arab Social Media Report, approximately 66 percent of social media users in Arab world access YouTube on a daily basis.
According to a talk on YouTube at the Arab Social Media Influencers Summit earlier this week, here are the top 10 pillars to gaining more attraction on YouTube:
1. Be current: Look at what is happening in the world around you and work on videos from there. You always want to relate to your audience, if you are talking about something that is happening, that will easily get you more views.
2. Make your posts like they are a conversation: Have a conversation with your audience; it is one of the most important things. When creating your videos come up with an element to speak to your audience about and find a way to speak to them about it.
3. Interactivity: How interactive are you? For example Jimmy Kimmel, the speakers explained during the Summit, is very well known for asking parents to submit videos of them playing tricks and he uses them either on television or on his YouTube channel. What is great about the interactivity on YouTube is that you can actually speak to your audience, ask for opinions and ideas and use your viewers’ videos to respond to them.
4. Consistency: Do not just post random videos; it is not an every six months or four months kind of thing, you really have to be consistent. Have a regular schedule and stick to it.
5. Targeting: Know the audience that you are creating for. So if you are doing make-up videos, assume that most of your audience will be interested in make-up, if you are creating tech videos, make sure that this is the specific audience that you are targeting your content for. Always understand your audience, this goes along with the consistency point.
6. Sustainability: Always have ideas that would work for you in the long term. Do not think about the most expensive production, because if you are trying to create a full series of content for yourself, that could make it a bit more difficult. Be realistic with the time frames that you put and the budget that you set for yourself.
7. Always know what’s next: Try block shooting, shoot four or five videos at a time, and then release them separately, this will help you with your time management.
8. Discoverability: Will people be able to find your audience or find you? Look for Google and Twitter trends to make sure you are creating content that relates to what is happening in today’s world. Find the big events that you know people are looking for or are interested in and create content that will relate.
9. Accessibility: This is quite simple, not every single person wants to watch on a daily basis, so be accessible for whenever they decide that they do want to watch your videos. Often, there will be a fan that are interested in more than one kind of content, so if you can find another YouTube star that you can collaborate with that is relevant to your content, do it. You will drive traffic from the other persona’s pages to your videos, and that is great.
10. Inspiration: Do something that you actually love. Do not create videos of things that you think people want to hear. The most important thing is you do something that you are interested in because when people are watching your content, they are watching you and engaging with you, so if you are passionate about something, they will be as interested as you are.
