Having over 2 billion logged-in monthly users, it’s no surprise that YouTube is the second most-visited site, right after its parent company—Google. With such a massive audience, several influencers and celebrities make it a home for their livelihood, advertisement, announcements, and many more.
However, creating a follower base can be very tasking and can get very competitive. With so many big-time influencers already established in the YouTube community, are there some specific ways to produce a successful YouTube channel?
Let’s take a look at how URL shortening services may just be the tool you and your YouTube channel need.
4 Ways URL Shortening Services Can Enhance Your YouTube Channel
URL shortening services offer so much more than just shortening and rebranding links. Several, hidden features have been used by brands with household names. There is no reason these features shouldn’t be used by you as well. Here are four features you could start using to enhance your YouTube Channel.
Link Retargeting
Retargeting is monitoring the people who happen upon your site and presenting them with your ads when they go to other sites online. Link retargeting takes this a step further—you wouldn’t need your viewers to go to your site. With link retargeting, you can monitor and display your ads repeatedly to anyone who clicks on any of your rebranded links.
So much effort is placed on getting viewers into our site, but oftentimes, not much effort is done to keep them coming back. Link retargeting ensures that our audience is constantly reminded and reconnected with your YouTube content and much more. This guarantees continual exposure to your viewers.
Experienced digital markers often use link retargeting because they know it is easier to manage and is more affordable than your usual ads. This, of course, is because the audience you’re advertising to is limited to the users who clicked your link instead of the whole world. However, the purpose of retargeting isn’t mainly advertising (that’s merely a bonus) but reconnecting.
Deep Linking
Deep linking may sound like a foreign, intimidating term. When someone says “deep linking”, several times people who are less educated in advanced internet terms think of the deep web. Deep linking is far less intimidating and more so convenient and user-friendly.
Have you ever clicked a link that was supposed to lead you to Facebook or Instagram, but was met with the browser version of them instead? This browser version of the app also does not have your log-in info. This means without deep linking, your viewers cannot like, comment, and subscribe without going through the tedious task of logging in first.
Deep linking gives your viewer this convenience. It links them to actual in-app locations instead of an annoying web browser. When you click on a link that leads you to a platform that has an app version on your phone, you are provided with an option to open the app instead of the browser version. Your audience is now free to engage, thereby boosting your videos, without having to log in.
UTM Tracking
Have you ever wondered where your users came from? Or which specific platform they were in before they happened upon your link and clicked it? UTM tracking answers these questions; it is the digital assistant you never knew existed but sorely need.
Let’s say you posted links to your YouTube channel or video across multiple sites—one on Instagram, one on Facebook, one on Twitter, and one via email. When your channel suddenly receives more traffic, without UTM tracking, it would be difficult to figure out which platform was most and least effective. This is what UTM tracking does—it takes note of how many users come from every platform.
Knowing which platforms bring the most engagement allows you to focus your efforts on the most effective one. When your channel gets more successful, you may even start to consider paid ads. At the same time, figuring out which platforms bring in the least engagement is also an advantage. With this information, you know which platforms you can cut off, especially if you are paying for ads.
Or perhaps you figure the platforms with the least engagement are the ones you need to work on a little bit more and the platforms with the most engagement are the ones you are allowed to work on less. The strategic moves are up to you. At the very least, your decisions in managing your marketing are based on solid and accurate statistics as opposed to guesses and vague inclinations.
Detailed Analytics
This is perhaps the biggest reason you should employ a URL shortening service for your channel. Despite its harmless term “short link”, the analytics provided is nowhere near short. A world of information is hidden within the limited characters of a short link.
Information is extremely valuable when making decisions for your brand. This is why the data the short link provides you with is essential. When a user clicks your branded link, information about the user is immediately offered to you. Location, devices being used, your website’s rush hour, etc. are all pieces of relevant and valuable information you need for your YouTube channel.
Just by knowing the location of most of your viewers, you can adjust your content to be more or less sensitive to their cultures and preferences. Information on your channel’s rush hour will also tell you when it is best to post a video. In several cases, the right information may just be the key to your channel’s success.
URL Shortening Services and Social Media
Although URL shortening services are a great partner to YouTube, the two aren’t mutually exclusive. The exposure and data a URL shortening service can provide you with are far too advantageous to be used only for YouTube.
YouTube should only be the start. Business-friendly sites and apps such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. hold a world of potential and opportunities. You just need to be smart about it and know which tools can help you on your journey to online success.
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