YouTube has more than 2.5 billion users, and it is the second most popular social media network worldwide. Yet, only some marketers are making use of this platform.
A recent Social Media Examiner industry report found that only 51% of marketers use YouTube, but 59% plan to increase their use of the platform.
Even though not all marketers use YouTube, they do recognize video is an essential part of marketing and learning. According to Wyzowl, 91% of businesses use video as a key marketing tool. Data suggest that online videos have an audience reach of 92.3% worldwide.
The image below illustrates the percentage of global internet users who viewed online videos for learning purposes during the last week of the fourth quarter of 2023, categorized by region. Morocco leads the way with 63.3%, followed by Turkey and South Africa.
Image from Statista, August 2024
How To Build A Following For A Show
There is no secret formula to being successful when running a live YouTube show, but I want to show what has worked well for us.
I ran three different shows, Turn Digi, Tea Time SEO, and, most recently, SEO Office Hours with Mike Chidzey from Good Signals. The third show has had the most success, and these are some of our learnings:
Engage With Your Audience
SEO Office Hours has two special guests who answer questions along with the host, Mike, and the co-host, me.
During SEO Office Hours, we have a live chat, and we encourage our live audience to ask questions in the chat to our special guests.
Sometimes, we are not as quick to reply as other audience members who answer the questions. This works well as it encourages audience members to get involved with the discussion.
Bring In Guests From All Backgrounds
We have freelancers and entrepreneurs take part in the show. We also have those from agencies and brands.
We have guests calling in from all over the world and, in one episode, including Brazil (so it was quite early for them) to New Zealand, the other time of the day.
The show is on at 9:30 a.m. BST, so that does allow others from the West to join.
However, if you want to run an event and have it open for the US to join, then you need to choose a time in the afternoon (if broadcasting from Europe).
Be Part Of Communities
There are many communities in digital marketing, including Women in Tech SEO, The Digital Marketing Union, and The Freelance Coalition for Developing Countries, to name a few.
Being part of communities in your sector helps you to get to know others and in turn, invite them to take part in your show.
Answer Questions Our Community Wants Answered
SEO can be overwhelming, and there can sometimes be many solutions to the same problem. Therefore, with SEO Office Hours, we ask people to submit their questions and then join us live to listen to the answers.
We also have a lot of discussion in the chat where other questions are asked. We tend to get through six questions a week and we include them in the transcript of the videos.
Consistency Is Key
When you want to make a difference in anything you do, being consistent is key.
Mike was adamant from the beginning that we do the show every Friday at the same time until at least the end of the year.
That would have been six weeks. By the end of those 6 weeks, we had 16k views and 48 subscribers.
Engagement
Sprout Social recommends that to increase engagement, you need more comments or likes on your video.
However, SEO Office Hours is a live show run via Zoom, so they cannot like or comment when we are recording.
We do not stream directly to YouTube, we upload the video later so audience members will have to come back and watch it and then like/comment.
We have not seen an increase in the number of likes per video, but we have seen more people join us live. In the beginning, we had 4 attendees, and in our most recent episodes, we have had up to 40.
We also have many questions asked from our audience members and guests answer the questions submitted in the chat sometimes before Mike or I are able to ask our special guests.
Have A Dedicated Landing Page
If you are running a live YouTube show, make sure you have a dedicated landing page with all information on how to get involved. Include the sign up on the home page as well.
For SEO Office Hours, we have all the videos of the previous episodes so guests can watch them, they can also read how to submit a question and sign up and where attendees sign up to calendar invites which grows each week – this is something that people naturally share.
Different Ways To Stream To YouTube
Dacast compares some of the best live streaming platforms in their post here. The platform you decide to use is up to you and depends on the objectives of the show.
For example, with SEO Office Hours, Mike did not want it to be too polished or rehearsed – because it isn’t. He wanted it to feel like a regular video call, like the original hangouts that John Mueller used to organize.
He likes the fact he can see everybody, including attendees, if they decide to share their video. Sometimes, attendees will jump on and give context to a question or help with answering a question.
When running a live YouTube show, there are two main options I have used in the past:
Zoom
This is a live video platform where anyone who has registered for the event can attend.
This means you can edit the video before you upload it to YouTube. At SEO Office Hours, we amend the video by taking out the “ums” and “you knows.”
We then upload it to YouTube so everyone can see it.
Streamyard
There are two options: either to run this live and have it streamed directly to your YouTube channel or simply run it live but have it recorded. Then, you can upload it to YouTube at a later date.