How to improve your engagement rate on YouTube?

Being the second search engine, Youtube is the perfect place to advertise. To know the level of audience and the reach of a publication, we use the engagement rate. It varies depending on whether it is a micro-influencer or a macro-influencer. It is interesting to know that we can not only calculate the engagement rate on YouTube, but also increase it.

What is YouTube engagement rate?

The engagement rate is used to measure the interaction of the public with the contents of a channel on YouTube. It is by him that we evaluate the reach and the interest of the public for the videos on YouTube.

What is calculated in the rate of influence?

Concretely, the element measured in the rate of influence is the rate of participation of Internet users vis-à-vis a video, that is to say the mentions “I like” or “like”, the ” I don’t like” or “dislike”, comments and shares. The value of these actions is not the same, which will affect the results of the calculation of the commitment rate.

First, there are “likes” and “dislikes”: these are the audience’s reactions to YouTube content. They make it possible to determine at what level the video has affected Internet users and whether the feedback is rather positive or negative. They require little effort and little engagement from the audience. On the other hand, they contribute to raising the video in question in searches and contribute to increasing its interest if the rendering is positive.

Then in second place, there are comments: this is an active and direct interaction of the public with a video and is therefore more valuable than likes and dislikes since they require more effort and therefore commitment. If YouTube actively responds to comments, the participation rate and user comments will also increase, as well as the influence rate.

Now let’s talk about shares. This point exceeds the two previous reactions in terms of value for the simple reason that we only share a video because it touched us. By this gesture, the content of a video meets more audience because it becomes in a way a proposal of content to watch, even a recommendation.

The formula used to calculate the engagement rate from these three elements is as follows:

YouTube’s engagement rate averaged 0.75% in 2020 and rose to 1.7% in July 2021, according to an analytics tool from Social Status. This is what justifies the growing interest of marketing campaigns for YouTube.

Does the size of the community increase the engagement rate?

KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders) can be divided in 5 categories, according to the analysis of Kolsquare:

• With less than 10,000 subscribers: nano-influencers
• Between 10,000 and 100,000 subscribers: micro-influencers
• Between 100,000 and 500,000 subscribers: macro-influencers
• Over 500,000 subscribers: Influencers in this category are viewed as true social media stars and are very active. Companies and advertisements will therefore invest in macro-influencers to reach many more people.

In 2020, Kolsquare researched the engagement rate of these different influencers and reported that micro and nano influencers have a higher engagement rate than macro influencers. The figures speak of 5.22% against 1.99%.

Of course, macro-influencers bring notoriety, but micro-influencers bring guarantee.

This is because people trust micro-influencers on the main topic of their YouTube channel. Also, the public is more active in the videos of micro-influencers. This means that their engagement rate is higher. It would therefore be wise to invest in these two categories in order to target a specific community while reaching a large audience.

How to improve the engagement rate on YouTube?

To improve the engagement rate on YouTube, certain parameters must be observed. Knowing what is measured and considered by YouTube and by the public, gives us a global vision of the actions to be taken to increase its audience rate.

• Increase video visibility: hashtags

They may not be the main guarantee of the video’s visibility, but the more they increase, the more chances there are that people will come across the video by typing the keyword in the search bar. Using effective hashtags, containing the keywords and searches of the public in the title of the video and in its description, helps to increase its visibility in search engines.

• Good content

Internet users are looking for data in relation to a given theme. The more a video meets this demand, the more its engagement rate will be reinforced because it arouses the interest of the public. Also, the quality of the video must be worked on in order to attract and retain the attention of Internet users. We must therefore not neglect the quality of the image and sound, as well as the editing of the video itself.

Brands, to create this content, will seek content creators. Macro-influencers bring value to the product and micro-influencers will bring relevance, provided you choose the community of the latter. For example, to advertise a charcuterie product, it will not be towards a predominantly vegetarian community that you will have to turn to gain notoriety. It could even tarnish the reputation of the brand. Hence the importance of choosing the right influencer and looking at their engagement rate.

• Interact with Internet users

We said previously that the comments and reactions of Internet users participate in the calculation of the audience rate and therefore influence its value. The fact that Internet users like, comment and share the video sends a signal to YouTube that it is a video to be valued, which will increase its visibility in search engines, thus increasing its audience.

• To know the audience

Knowing who is watching the videos helps tailor the content to that audience. This is what will increase audience reactions and improve the channel’s engagement rate. To have this data, YouTube has set up YouTube Analytics. Thanks to this tool, content creators can have a report on information about their audience: their age, gender, location, the overall duration with which they watch the videos as well as the number of views for at least 30 seconds of viewing. Are also analyzed the interactions with the content, the device used for viewing (PC, telephone) as well as the sources on which the videos are watched (by shares, on the channel itself, by a search or a link, …)

• Analyze what the competition is doing

It’s always interesting to know what other YouTube channels dealing with the same subject are doing to gain more audience. 

What is appreciated by Internet users in their content?
What do they do well?
How do they present the subject?

How long are their videos? In what format? etc

Of course, it will not be a question of imitating them but just of identifying what factors drive results.