Using the First 1 Minute of Your YouTube Video for Brand Promotion: Tips & Tricks

Countless brands have taken to YouTube to promote themselves along with their products and/or services. And why not? After all, no video-streaming platform comes even close to YouTube in terms of the numbers. Right now, YouTube sees more than a whopping 2.6 billion monthly users, and it’s also second only to Google in terms of search engine popularity.

So, if you want your brand to become a household name one day, you simply can’t afford to not have a YouTube channel. However, simply having a YouTube channel isn’t enough – you’ve also got to create and publish videos consistently to make your mark. What’s more? You’ve also got to pay attention to the different sections of your videos. In this article, we’ll focus on the first 1 minute of your videos, or the introduction section.

Read on to know some of the most effective tips and tricks you can put into practice for promoting your brand during your videos’ first one minute. But first, let’s try and understand why the video start matters so much.

A compelling YouTube intro: Why it matters

If you watch videos created and published by the biggest brands on YouTube, you’ll find that they have one thing in common. Sure, their niches and styles may be different, but they’ve all got compelling introductions. Why do you think that is the case?

Well, the answer lies in capturing the attention of the viewers, so they feel motivated to watch a video until the video finish. When viewers watch videos from start to finish on YouTube, a channel may benefit in the following ways:

• More subscribers: The ultimate goal of every YouTuber is to turn a viewer into a subscriber. That’s why most YouTubers use the call-to-action (CTA) message ‘Subscribe to my/our channel’. However, the CTA messages can only be effective when the videos are top-notch. When you make the first 1 minute of your videos memorable, you drastically increase the likelihood of your viewers hitting that subscribe button and becoming loyal YouTube subscribers.
• Higher rates of user engagement: User engagement on YouTube refers to how viewers are interacting with your videos, i.e. whether they are liking, disliking, and/or sharing the video. YouTube comments also play an important role in increasing user engagement. So, when the first 1 minute of your YouTube videos manages to compel audiences, your user engagement is bound to shoot up. Over the last few years, the YouTube algorithm has been favorable to videos with high user engagement rates in terms of rankings.
• Increased views: The best videos are always shared by viewers, which play a vital role in increasing views. Also, if the beginnings of all your videos manage to capture the audience’s imagination, they’re likely to watch the video beyond the 30-second mark. On YouTube, a view amounts to a user watching a video for more than 30 seconds.
• Greater watch time: A channel’s watch time refers to the time spent by users watching videos on that channel. A few years back, watch time wasn’t an important metric for success on YouTube. However, times have changed, and now, it’s one of the most significant metrics on the platform. Due to the metric’s ever-increasing importance, more and more YouTubers have started to publish videos with greater frequency and consistency. It’s safe to say that when the first 1 minute across all your videos makes for great viewing, your channel’s watch time will stack up in your favor.

Tips and tricks to make the first 1 minute of your YouTube video memorable

Now that you know all the benefits that great video intros can bring to your YouTube channel, it’s time to turn our attention to the tips and tricks for creating awesome beginnings:

• Your intro should last only a few seconds: Attention spans among internet users are dwindling, and if your intro lasts more than ten seconds, viewers are bound to lose interest faster than you can blink. So, keep your intro short so your video starts immediately after the first few seconds. Only established YouTubers who already have millions of subscribers can dare to experiment with long, elaborate intros. On the other hand, beginners should get the intro out of the way as soon as possible.
• Incorporate all your branding elements into your intro: If you want your brand to stand out from the competition and be remembered by viewers, you should include all your signature branding elements into the introduction. From the logo of your brand to the color schemes to any other visual or audio elements that may define your brand – be sure to incorporate it all. Also, the way you do your branding on YouTube shouldn’t be any different from how you do branding on any other platform. For instance, if your Instagram account has certain branding elements, you should incorporate the same elements in your YouTube introductions. If you don’t, you’ll fail to achieve branding consistency.
• After you introduce your channel, introduce yourself: So, the first ten seconds or so are all about introducing your channel to your audiences. Once you’re past the channel introduction, it’s time to introduce yourself to viewers. You might be wondering why this would be necessary. Well, the fact is that no matter how incredible your branding is, your audience will only trust your brand if it can establish a human connection with it. That’s where a human face can come into the picture and work wonders. Again, keep this section short and keep it within ten seconds. In this section, you can talk about who you are and how you can provide solutions to your audience’s pain points. For instance, if your channel is about tech product reviews, you can say, ‘I review tech products, so you can choose the best ones for yourself.’
• Next, tell your audience briefly about the content of the video: After you’ve spent the first 20 seconds introducing your channel and yourself to your audience, it’s time to talk about what your video will be all about. You can make this section 20 seconds long and include all the key takeaways from your video that audiences can expect. At this point, it’s important to not give away too much information. Ideally, you’d want to incorporate some suspense to keep audiences guessing as to what’s coming up. At the same time, you should give out some information so that audiences aren’t completely in the dark regarding the content of the video.
• Include call-to-action (CTA) messages right at the get-go: So that’s 40 seconds done and dusted. In the next 20 seconds, incorporate call-to-action messages such as ‘subscribe,’ ‘like,’ and ‘share.’ This should encourage your audience to take action right at the beginning of the video. Also, tell your audience how subscribing to your channel will help your cause. Simply saying the CTA messages out loud probably won’t make enough impact on your audience. So, take your time with those CTA messages. Now that the first one minute is out of the way, you can go ahead with the main content of your video.
• Observe the best in your niche and how they structure their introductions: For inspiration, you only need to turn to YouTubers in your niche who have made it big. The thing is that you can learn a lot from your competition on YouTube. Simply watch some of their videos to understand how they work with their introductions. Of course, it’s possible that you won’t like each introduction. However, take notes when you find something you like. You can incorporate similar elements into your video beginnings. But you must exercise caution, as incorporating too many similar elements from other YouTubers’ channels may make your channel feel like a cheap imitation. So, don’t forget to add your own unique twist to things.
• Tie things together during the editing process: A lot of YouTubers have managed to become successful simply by honing and mastering their editing skills. Quite simply, if you don’t want your videos’ introductions to have any loose ends, you’ve got to focus on editing. Even if things went slightly awry during the recording stage (which is likely for new YouTubers), you can put things right during the production stage. You can find countless resources on the internet that can help you out with a wide variety of editing tips and tricks.

Conclusion

If your brand is primarily focusing on promoting itself through 1-minute videos using the YouTube Shorts feature, you can cut down your brand promotion to ten seconds or so. However, if long-form videos are your thing, you simply can’t afford to neglect the first one minute of your videos.

We’ve almost come to the end of this article, but before we bid you goodbye this time, we’d like to tell you about SubPals. If your brand is taking its baby steps on YouTube, it needs the numbers to be on its side to make a mark. That’s where SubPals can come into the picture and help you out. SubPals offers a software tool that offers YouTube likes and YouTube views. You can also buy YouTube subscribers through SubPals.