With lots of work being done to promote short films on the web, YouTube has been attracting a lot of the attention of producers. But is it easy to make the most of it?
Every day thousands of people upload short films to YouTube, and there is a wide range of genres and subjects in demand. The power of YouTube can’t be understated; the reach is almost limitless and all you have to do is upload your work and hope to catch someone’s eye.
That said, you don’t have to be one of those dedicated Hollywood directors working on a big-budget independent movie to make use of the medium. If you have an idea for a short film that you want to make, here are ten ways to promote it on YouTube.
If you are making a short film, you must make sure you get it seen by as many people as possible. One of the easiest ways to do this is to make sure your video titles make sense and give viewers an idea of what they will be watching.
It’s all too easy to try and use a title to grab a bit of attention, but it could be easy to miss a vital piece of information. A number of studies have shown that viewers can recall only about two thirds of what a title says.
Even the title of your video is enough to stop people clicking through to another website – especially if it doesn’t match the clip on the page, and could be a sub-par description of the content you are planning to upload.
I feel like I need to reiterate this. Yes you need to make your title catchy so that someone will click on it. It doesn't need to be dry. But if it's not CLEAR what it is for, the YouTube algorithm will not sort it correctly.
However, keep your title under a max length of 80 characters, because this is the average length of a YouTube video title.
If your video is not being shared widely enough to get your desired results, try these other tactics.
As an alternative to your title, you could use your credits or episode numbers, but you have to get that far ahead of the video title.
You can also use the end of the video to announce the date or time of the release of the film.
As an increasing number of people upload a short film to YouTube every day, you are never going to have all of your viewers watching the same videos. This means it’s wise to plan out the approach you will use to promote your film to maximize its impact.
Often, filmmakers end up putting their work on YouTube without actually considering the wider distribution channels. But one of the biggest problems here is that for any one video on YouTube, you only have a limited number of views possible.
You only get the number of views you’re prepared to put up there – if your YouTube channel is empty you won’t be seen.
When you get a video up on YouTube, you need to share it with the wider world. If you make the video publicly available, share it on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Digg, your website, mailing list, or wherever you can reach your audience. If you can increase your own exposure, this will only increase the number of views your film will get.
Don’t forget that the chance to share your film with the rest of the world does not have to be on YouTube.
If you want to get your video published on blog with thousands of daily views consider PR (public relations).
A good PR expert, like our company, will get your video on stellar blogs with far reach. We work on getting ACTUAL ENGAGEMENT on videos, not just views or clicks. If you'd like to know more please visit our website.
Brand your video to make it easier for the viewer to associate it with you. Branding helps viewers remember what they have just seen, and make them
We just launched short film.com with an exclusive 10 day free listing offer where you can advertise your film to a platform of over a million YouTube video fans for free. We made our own film, and wanted to know how to promote it.
With a world of creators, artists and musicians uploading their work to YouTube, there are plenty of options to advertise your film. Below we share our ideas for promoting your short film on YouTube and we hope you have fun learning about all the choices.
This campaign has 12 video stats listed so you can see the growth, reach, engagement and most viewed video stats
I created a comprehensive list of artists who have used this campaign.
It is free to post your video. You pay for the marketing of your film.
