Successfully growing a YouTube channel is a feat which takes a lot of effort – including posting excellent content at regular intervals, promoting your channel as widely as possible, and interacting with people who leave comments or questions for you, Even then it can be a slow process, but there is something else you can do to get things moving faster – and it involves a little bit of snooping and creative thinking!
There can’t be a store or company out there who doesn’t keep at least one eye on what their competitors are up to, after all, it makes perfect sense and is a great way to learn a lot. So that’s why here we are looking in more detail at why it is so important for you to analyze your competition on YouTube when building your own empire on the platform.
Define your target channels
Anyone offering the same kind of content to you who is doing well is a worthy target, you can include famous names if you want to but remember they have a team of publicists behind them! You can extend this to look at those in your genre who are struggling if you think there’s anything to learn there too.
Why analyzing your YouTube competition is so important
It’s pretty simple really, you are looking for what works so you can be inspired to steal those ideas and adapt them to fit your style and channel. Here’s how:
Look at their content
Consider not just the topics (are they evergreen? Topical? Informative?) but also the style (chatty?), length and the way they are presented. Is there a difference in the number of likes different things get, or the amount of interaction things generate? Can you take some of their topics and improve on them, or extend the content to appeal to those who have seen theirs?
When do they post?
Make a note of how often they post, and what time, bearing in mind their time zone of course. It may be that you need to adjust when you post to grab the prime time attention slots.
How do they interact?
Get ideas from the way they respond to and interact with those who comment, and also how they communicate with other YouTube posters. Look them up on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook and see if they cross-post, then do the same.
Check their SEO tricks
Look at the tags and metatags they use and compare these to the most popular content on the channel for inspiration.
Focus on their core followers
If you can identify any particularly vocal supporters of your competitors you can probably find those people on other sites and get to know them. If they have a YouTube channel you could interact with them there, or do so subtly by responding to their comments on videos and so on with the hope that they get round to checking you out and becoming a fan.
Analysing how your competitions subscribers act, and possibly your future subscribers, will not only help you better understand your fan base but also help you get a creative edge over then, as explained here by Social Media Daily.
There are lots of benefits to be had from analyzing your competitor’s channels, so get snooping and find those useful ideas which you can take and make your own.
