21 Rules For Honest Success On Video Platforms

Video Platforms like YouTube have an incremental step-by-step process toward success, defined by usually 7 actions taken by users when they are presented with a video:

Impressions, Clicks, Views, Likes, Comments, Subscribing, Sharing.

They are incremental, and their desired effect should be positive to be considered success:

1. Impressions: The user notices a video.
2. Clicks: The user clicks on the video thumbnail.
3. Views: The user watches the video fully.
4. Likes: The user reviews the video positively.
5. Comments: The user writes good feedback about the video.
6. Subscribing: The user subscribes to the video's content creator Channel.
7. Sharing: The user shares the video/Channel with other users.

In order for each and all of those actions to be performed succesfully and with a positive impact, I've organized 21 rules in groups of 3.

So in order to get IMPRESSIONS, it requires to:

• Be about a highly Requested Topic: Do your own research and find what the current trends are, or even better, what the current knowledge topics or areas of expertise require. Knowledge is easily transferrable (for the most part) and is always needed.
• Be Easy-to-Find: Use simple words for the name of your video, and try commonly-used words. The title should describe what is in the video with high precision so that people who find it know exactly what they are going to see in there. This also helps your video be better ranked in the results by relevance.
• Be focused on a Specific Audience: Know who is going to watch your video, and anticipate by planning it beforehand with this thing in mind. Ways to do this include watching other videos that are similar to what you're planning, and seeing the comments of users on those videos. A word is worth a thousand thoughts. By reading their comments, you'll know better about them, what they want and need, and what they value the most.

To get CLICKS, it has to:

• Be a Useful Topic: Make sure the viewers get what they need, they spent their time probably searching in order to reach to your video. Give them something in return for their effort. Examples of this could be, if you're doing tutorials, giving exact solutions and ways that are simple enough to reach them. Or if you're entertaining your audience: That they enjoy the show, having fun in a healthy way. Always be loyal to your audience!
• Have a Clear Intent: Inform your viewers of what to expect from the very moment they see your video on the results page and when they are about to click on it. This will avoid any unexpected surprises later.
• Be Well Presented: Make sure it is something of Good Quality. Use a proper video Codec, record using reasonable compression, but not too much that the video losses too much original data. Remember, this also applies to what you display in your content: Thumbnail, how things are displayed in the video, everything should be aligned as best as possible. Things should be easy to understand and see.

To obtain VIEWS, it must:

• Provide Something: Like previously mentioned, make sure to keep your audience healthy with the information they need, the answers they look for, or ultimately, by constantly providing them with that specific thing you know they've been looking for. If there's more than one way in which you can explain things, do it. If there's a better way, do both. In the end, you can make an absolutely short video in case you only can provide 1 simple thing. Your audience will thank you for saving their time!
• Be Simple to Follow: Use simple words, easy-to-understand concepts and optimize your content as much as you can, it will make it easier for you and for your audience. When you do your analytics, it will also help you understand your video data better.
• Be Enjoyable to Watch: Ideally, your viewers should watch until the end of the video. In order to do this, everything that is presented in it must be familiar to the audience as much as possible, guarantee a pleasant experience for them, and don't be overwhelming or tiring to watch. Keep things short enough to be interesting, and not too short so they don't make sense. A bit of experimentation and watching at Highly-Succesful Videos may help. Keep in mind that learning by example is a great tip too!

To get LIKES, it has to:

• Be Worthy of Keeping: Liking something on platforms like YouTube saves the video in a list called "Likes". Also liking a video is an indication of support or a positive attitude towards both the content and the creator of it. To obtain this result from viewers, you need to make sure your video has value to them and that they will be comfortable enough to give a "Thumbs Up" or "Like". When you make your video, think about what adds and what doesn't to this factor. Keep what adds, and remove what doesn't. Again, some guidelines can be checking other videos and seeing which have the most likes and why. For example, videos about cute pets usually have great potential of becoming "Worthy of Keeping". You can also think of this differently as "Worthy of Remembering" or "Worthy of Rewatching".
• Inspire Supporting: Always be thankful in your video to your audience, and give them a chance to support you. If they like what you've done, they will certainly love to support you. Make content that encourages, motivates and inspires.
• Be Memorable: viewers will remember about what they saw in your video, for as long as it's worth doing so. Make sure your content produces a good impact, is rewarding and worth looking back at. If your video is easy to watch, easy to understand, and provides something of use, be sure it is on the right path to be memorable!

To get COMMENTS, it should:

• Motivate Giving: In the context of comments, viewers will give feedback based on what has motivated them to do so. Make sure your video has no flaws as best as it's possible to you, and if there are, state them so that contributions are actually showing feedback based on constructive criticism. That is just one example, keep an open mind toward this, and you'll find more answers along the journey!
• Be Discussable: Your video's content should promote talking, feedback, comments and social interactions. If for example it's something that has only one answer and can not be discussed, you are limiting the chances here. On the other hand, if the topic is a bit more open, yet not extremely open in the sense that it would tend to diverge, then things will be easier in order to comment, especially if you're expecting good comments.
• Generate Positivity: To achieve this, focus on being optimistic in the video, being truthful and realistic, while motivating and serious. Or any healthy combination that can guide the conversation to a good outcome.

To get to be SUBSCRIBED, it must:

• Be Worth The Updates: People love news, especially when they are good news. Make sure your video is focused on good things, respecting the rules previously mentioned, and stay relevant on the topics by keeping them consistent. Then, they will probably be worth the updates and you'll get even more subscribers.
• Be Returnable To: Give your audience a reason to return, revisit your videos and expect new ones. One way is to update often with more quality videos. Another is interacting with the audience and making new videos based on those interactions. And so on.
• Give Legitimate Interest: Don't force your audience, instead, let them subscribe, like, and take all these actions by themselves. This is highly important.

And finally, in order to be SHARED, it must:

• Have Social Acceptability: If your video is decent, helps others, is useful and generates a social impact that is positive, then I personally think it should be acceptable. This requires a bit of common sense and an analytical eye, but it's not impossible!
• Be Relevant to Others: If the video is shared and others find it useful, revisitable and replayable, but especially relevant to the topic and to the audience, then the previous guidelines should technically aim toward this goal as well.
• Inspire Trust: Base your video on true facts, cite your sources, and show your experience. Say what led you to your conclusions and why. It is very important if it's an explanatory video to explain the "why" of things, not only the "what". As human beings we always ask ourselves many "why(s)" every day of our lives.

These rules can also be thought as simple guidelines, and are the result of a though-process. They may not be perfect, but still serve as a means of getting closer to the best possible results. If you would like to try following a couple of those, you'll probably see substantial improvements, not to mention if you wish trying them all out with every video.

Thanks for reading.