YouTube Channels For Dummies

Chapter 10

Building Your Audience

In This Chapter

• Developing an engaged community of channel subscribers and fans
• Understanding who your fans are and how best to communicate with them
• Setting up annotations to drive audience engagement and interaction
• Making comments work effectively for your channel and your audience

There's obviously more to being an excellent channel manager than simply uploading a few videos and arranging a playlist or two. To truly excel as a channel manager, you have to realize that the core of your YouTube channel activities centers on your audience and understanding and responding to their needs. Your audience, whether it consists of one person or ten million people, is coming to your channel and watching your videos for a reason, whether it's education, entertainment, production information, or what-have-you. Building an audience is about catering to the requirements of your viewers.

In the “good old days” of television, content was broadcast to a mass of viewers who were, for the most part, anonymous. It was never truly clear how many people were watching, so companies such as Nielsen provided estimates. The only feedback the audience delivered was either watching or not watching. As important as it was to retain regular viewers, the television networks knew they had to build an audience as well. They did this by putting together good shows and doing lots of advertising. There wasn't much else for the audience to do other than show up and watch shows ...