How to Grow Your YouTube Channel with Gleam
Learn how to run giveaway campaigns and collect user-generated content to promote and grow your YouTube channel with Gleam.
Growing your YouTube channel can be tricky with the sheer number of established accounts on there already.
Obviously, the first most crucial step is to create awesome content that captivates your audience and keeps them coming back for more, but even if you do this, it can be hard to get it in front of the right people and make sure they actually see it.
In this guide, we have some great tips and tricks to increase your reach and access huge new audiences. From referral programs to sweepstakes, we’ll guide you through our favourite ways to grow your YouTube channel with Gleam.
Run a classic YouTube giveaway where you ask users to complete actions for a chance to win an awesome prize.
Actions could include visiting your social media page, subscribing to your YouTube channel, viewing an Instagram post, leaving comments on your videos, sharing your channel URL with friends, or signing up to your mailing list.
The easiest way to run this is through this Gleam Competitions template as it is really difficult to track and verify all of those different actions manually.
All you have to do is customise the widget with the actions you want to drive and then promote it everywhere you have an audience.
This is an awesome way to get more views not only on your YouTube channel but across all of your socials.
Make sure you promote this across all of your channels - not just YouTube. You can't presume that all of your followers on Instagram subscribe to you on YouTube for example, and you don't want to miss anyone who could be interested.
You can also include some other beneficial actions with Gleam, like subscribing to a mailing list, following your other socials, and referring friends, which add extra value to your giveaway campaign. Check out all of our YouTube actions here.
Running a YouTube Scavenger Hunt is an awesome way to engage viewers. To run this type of giveaway, you have to hide secret codes or clues in your YouTube videos and encourage people to watch and subscribe to your channel to find the answer.
Once viewers find the secret code in your video, they can submit the answer into the Gleam widget where it'll be automatically verified for you.
Make sure you share the details and info on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, or any other platforms you have a following on to extend your reach and make sure the maximum amount of people check out your channel.
It's important that you promote giveaways so that people can see the awesome content you're putting out and you don't miss anyone who is interested in entering.
There's no point in hiding clues and nobody even knows they're supposed to be looking!
This is a great way to incentivise your audience to spend more time on your videos and makes them engage deeper with your content in order to increase their chances of finding the answer and win the grand prize.
An awesome way to engage your subscribers is to run a sponsored Gleam Rewards campaign.
To do this, you need to partner with a sponsor that complements your YouTube content and your brand. The sponsor then provides you with discount codes that you can give out to your subscribers.
Your subscribers then have to sign up to the sponsor's mailing list to unlock the discount.
You can also boost engagement on your side of the deal by adding a secret code somewhere in your video. Then, you can require that code to unlock the discount so users have to watch your YouTube videos to find it and redeem the offer. You just need to make sure you let your viewers know that they should be looking out for a code.
This is a great way to engage your viewers and give something back to your YouTube community.
Similarly, you could run a partner or sponsored giveaway with Gleam Competitions.
This works in more or less the same way, but it is a giveaway rather than a discount code unlock.
For this option, the sponsor gifts you their product to give away to your subscribers in exchange for some promotion.
To run this type of giveaway, you need to make the entry requirements beneficial to both parties.
So, for example, you could require the participants to follow both you and the partner on social media, sign up to their mailing list, or engage with both of you in some way.
This is a great type of giveaway as you don't have to have a big budget as they are offering up the prize.
It's an awesome way to engage your audience and grow your following, like a regular giveaway campaign, but with this option you get the massive added benefit of expanding your reach and visibility.
This is because the sponsor will also likely post about it on their socials, and fans of their product who may not know about your YouTube will then enter the giveaway.
Essentially, it is a really great way to do some cross-promotion with a partner.
We have an in depth guide that will tell you everything you need to know about how to run a partner campaign with Gleam.
Using Gleam Galleries you can embed your YouTube feed onto your website. This is a fantastic way to lead users directly over to your YouTube when they're browsing, not only via a plain link, but by being able to click on thumbnails with a short description.
This is a really great way to freshen up your website and showcase specific videos on specific pages. For example, if you have product demos you want to show on one page and customer testimonials on another.
Using these promotional campaigns is a great way to get your content in front of new people and ensure your YouTube channel gains some traction. These are great ways to boost engagement and viewership when your growth hits a plateau, you're just starting, or you're a big channel already but want to grow even more!
Charlotte Czarnota
Charlotte is a Content Marketer at Gleam. Share this post if you got something out of it ☺