When a YouTube creator starts a YouTube channel, it is normal for them to share their content with friends and family. However, it can be counterintuitive since not all YouTube creators' content is something that their friends and family are interested in. When that happens, there are some drawbacks to sharing your content with friends and family. If you are one of those friends and family, it might be helpful for you to understand what those drawbacks are.
Engaging with Content and Subscribing
One of the simplest ways to support a channel is by subscribing to it and then engaging with the content by liking the video and sharing the video and spreading the word around. This is a perfectly good thing to do; however, the only caveat that needs to be understood is that if you don't watch a YouTube video all the way around, it messes with the algorithm on your video.
Therefore, it's a pro tip for most YouTube channel creation teachers that you should not share your video with your family, like your mom and your sister or your cousin or your work colleague or something like that, because they might not watch your video all the way through. If they're not committed to that topic or niche, it's unlikely they'll watch it all the way through.
They might engage with the content, give you a like and a subscription, or even share the video to other people who have no interest in your video, creating a false narrative to the YouTube algorithm that your video is not interesting at all.
Committed Support
By knowing all of the above, if you really do want to help and support the content and the person who's now shared with you their new YouTube account or channel, then it might be a good idea for you to inform them of the content of this article and steer them towards the same kind of thinking. If you still want to support them, you're going to need to commit to staying on and watching those videos from start to finish at least once per video, giving it a like, and giving engagement that actually matters.
Another way for you to really support the channel in a positive way is to make sure that the topic or niche of the video and of the channel is being shared on platforms and places where people with that relevant interest are found. For example, if you're going to be sharing things about music, you might not want to post it into a group or channel that's based around cars. You want to share it in a place where other musicians will be found.
If you post it on Facebook, maybe post it with an open-ended invitation for people to like and subscribe to that channel if they have an interest in that channel. This will give your friend or family member's channel the best chance of success, as the YouTube algorithm will now pick up people who actively watch and engage with a full-length video and can share that video and put it as a recommendation to people who consume that sort of content.
Conclusion
It might be clear from the above article that supporting a YouTube channel might seem a little bit counterintuitive. This is because most people possibly think about promoting and supporting something the same way as you might support the advertising of a service and spreading the word of a product. So, if you were supporting a business that was cleaning carpets, you might mention that to everybody that you know.
And anybody who is anyone will think about, "Oh, somebody told me about a business that cleans carpets." And they might ask you for the number and they might even take a flyer or something like that and save the number or put the pamphlet somewhere where they will remember to pick it up at a later date. And this would be an effective way of support.
However, a YouTube channel is all about engagement and retention, and being computer people, we need to understand how the YouTube algorithms and the system of the YouTube entertainment business works. Therefore, that is why there's a big difference between what we think we need to do to support a channel and what we really need to do to support a channel.
Cheers!
@zakludick
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