As a content creator, you wear a lot of hats. You serve as the talent, editor, director, producer, and marketing director for your channel. Not only are you creating the videos for your channel, but you’re also in charge of promoting them so you can reach more viewers.

Here are a few tips from the advertising industry that you can use to promote your videos.

Know your target audience.

Every ad campaign is created with a target audience in mind. It’s designed to appeal to a certain demographic, which is defined by factors such as age, gender, and location. A campaign’s target demographic influences everything from where ads are placed to what colors are used.

As a YouTuber, your target audience is the kind of viewers you’re trying to reach. To determine your target audience, decide what kind of viewers you imagine watching your videos. For example, you may be a woman in her twenties who wants to reach other women in their twenties. You could also be a woman in her twenties who wants to reach an audience of teenage girls. To reach women in their twenties, you might promote your videos more on Instagram, but to reach teenage girls, you’d resort to TikTok.

To learn what demographic you’re actually reaching, go to your YouTube Studio. Under “Channel analytics,” click on “Audience.” Then, scroll down to “Age and gender.” There, you can see who is watching your videos. You can also see where they’re watching from under “Top countries.”

Have consistent messaging.

Advertising campaigns help build strong brands through consistent messaging. No matter how many different campaigns a company runs, they all share the same general idea. For example, Nike athletic clothes are always marketed for athletic performance, not lounging around the house.

The social media posts, community posts, etc. promoting your videos should share consistent messaging. To get a baseline idea, ask yourself what the main idea behind your channel is. Do you create beauty tutorials because you believe makeup is for everyone? Do you film Let’s Plays because you think people should be able to see what a game is like before they buy it?

Once you determine what your channel’s main message is, you should keep any promotional posts consistent with that idea. You wouldn’t say makeup is for everyone in one tweet then make an Instagram post boasting that you’re one of the few people who looks good in blue eye shadow. Think of every social media post and video you make as a piece of the puzzle that is your brand.

Invoke a sense of urgency.

How many times has a commercial told you to “act now” or “call today” in the last week? This commanding strategy is called a call-to-action. These statements invoke a sense of urgency in their audience. They’re meant to grab your attention and spur you to action with immediacy.

Many YouTubers are familiar with the term “call-to-action.” A lot of videos end with the instruction to like, comment, and subscribe. While you may think viewers would follow these instructions intuitively, a call-to-action can increase their level of engagement.

Don’t limit calls-to-action to your videos. End promotion tweets with “Check it out!” or “Share with your friends!”. In your Instagram story, instruct viewers to watch your new upload through the link in your bio.

You can learn a lot about marketing your videos from the advertising industry. Follow these tips to start getting more views through social media posts. Comment your own social media advertising tips!