How to write an effective Youtube description & promote your video (PART 1) Ep88

This topic is back by popular demand.  And it makes sense because when you create a film and post it to Youtube, you want people to watch it!  But Independent filmmakers didn't get into filmmaking to write copy so it's not second nature.

This Episode 88 is Part 1 on how to write an effective YouTube description to maximise its potential to be discovered and watched.  Part 2 next week will discuss how you can market, network and promote your Youtube video to make sure it gets shared, liked and drives engagement.  

These two parts together, the description along with the marketing and networking, are how you're going to get your video out into the world and help you succeed in getting lots of happy eyeballs watching your content.

I try to always talk about things that I have done myself or that my team have done so that I can speak with genuine experience on the topics.  I worry that there are a lot of folks out there telling filmmakers how to do things but they haven’t done the hard yards or tried out the systems they’re promoting themselves.  They’re just regurgitating what others have said works for them.

So what I talk about in this episode is all based on the experience I've had posting content to YouTube since 2010.  

Please send me your questions, DM @MoonshineCommunicationsAcademy on Insta or send me an email to support@moonshinecommunicationsacademy.com 


How to write an effective YouTube video description https://www.buzzsprout.com/846682/4857530

📩 Want to stay up to date with the latest? Head to www.thedocumentaryfilmmaker.com to join our weekly newsletter and get all resources to make you the best impact filmmaker in the business. 

Find & Follow The Documentary Filmmaker on social:
Website: www.thedocumentaryfilmmaker.com
Facebook:
Instagram: @TheDocumentaryFilmmakerPodcast
LinkedIn: Sue Collins [Host] || The Documentary Filmmaker [ Company Page]

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, welcome back, fellow creatives. It is great to be here with you this week. I am mainly going to be talking about video descriptions for things like YouTube and how AI is helping us with all of that and the pros and cons. It's very, very busy time of the year. I'm sure many of you are experiencing the same. We've had some exciting things happen this week. We have recorded the narration for conquering cervical cancer in the USA. So that was really fun. I haven't done that for quite some time. All that wind up to the end of the year, and of course, you're trying to get everything wound up so you can go on your seasonal break. Well, here in Australia anyway, we're all off for a couple of weeks, which is going to be really good. The weather has finally heated up, which is fantastic. So filming for us has really started to slow down. Just got a couple more shoots before the end of the year, and then we're going to go and do our team Christmas party. And this year, can you believe everyone's chosen that they want to do recreational axe throwing? I did not even know that was the thing. And yes, I did say recreational axe throwing. So I will let you know how that goes in uh future podcasts. But that's what we're up to next week to celebrate our year of impact filmmaking. Welcome to the Moonshine Moonshot Podcast. I'm your host, Sue Collins, and if you've landed here, it means you're wanting to find out more about how to make filmmaking a sustainable career. And you're also curious about how to make meaningful work that fills your cup. You're ready to learn how to make movies that matter, build a sustainable career, and have a positive impact on your audiences so you are in the right place. Filmmaking has so many parts, and I'm sharing what I've learned over the past 15 years producing impact films that reach their intended audience and support real-world change. So let's get started. Today's podcast, as I said, let's jump in. I originally did a podcast on this topic way back in 2020, and it's been one of the most downloaded. And it doesn't surprise me, because it also makes sense because once you produce a video and you put it up on YouTube, well you kind of expect the views to just start rolling in, and it's pretty disheartening to find out that the views are not clocking up. So I'm talking about descriptions, YouTube descriptions, AI, and how that can impact on how your video gets found. So what can you do to improve the chance of your video being found and importantly watched? There's quite a bit to this. So this is actually going to be a two-part podcast. And part one, which is the what you're listening to right now, is all about the video description and the text that sits around the video on usually YouTube, but you could use these same principles for Vimeo. And it's about how you can optimize the text around the video to make it more discoverable. And then part two, which I'll release next week, is going to be all about the other ways you can promote your film or your short video to make sure people can find it, i.e., marketing, networking, and PR. So I always try to talk about things that I've actually done myself or that my team have done so that I can speak with genuine experience on the topics that I'm sharing with you. Because I really do worry that there is a lot of people out there telling filmmakers how to do things that they haven't actually done the hard yards on themselves and they haven't tried it out. And the systems that they're promoting, well, they're just regurgitating what other people have said works for them. From my perspective, I've been putting content on YouTube since 2010 with all sorts of results. I have had some huge hits, viral videos, and some really big misses with only a few views. So I've I've seen full spectrum what's working and what's not working. So I can tell you what I've been doing, what I've used and what worked, what used to work and what's working now, and what I'm experimenting with. And you might be thinking, don't you just make long-form content like feature docs? Why are you just spending time on YouTube? And that's a really good question. And the answer is because all the films that I produce also have short form versions that support the feature film, and that content lives on YouTube. And one of the primary ways that we grow our audiences for our projects is by first leading up to the release of the film, we do a lot of short form content which lives on YouTube, helps us build interest and an audience, and that ultimately pushes people to the long-form feature film. So short form YouTube videos are really important to the success of the films that I produce. One of the very first projects I ever produced was called Life Before Death. And it's still going 12 years after release. And I just checked the YouTube platform where it lives on the Life Before Death channel, and it's already clocked up over 3 million views. So I think there's about 55 videos on the channel, and amongst them 3 million views. 8,000 of those views were just from last month. And we also gained an extra 32 subscribers just last month. And I want to point out I have never spent any money on advertising for this project. So this is 100% organic, and the views are continuing to climb. I haven't done any kind of active promotion on this project in over eight years. So if you ever hear me talking about long tail with our projects and impact films, this is what I'm talking about. A project released between 2010 and 2012, 55 short films, over 3 million views, no spend on advertising, and it continues to be viewed and watched now. And why is that? Well, at the time when we put those videos up on YouTube, we put a lot of work into the descriptions and the titles to make them discoverable. And we did a lot of promotion through our networks. And I'll go into the second part of that that I just mentioned, which is promotion through networks during next week's episode. Today I'm just focusing on the YouTube title and description and AI. So the project that I just mentioned went out, as I said, between 2010 and 2012. So that's a really long time ago. That's 12 years, 12 to 14 years ago. And things have definitely progressed with how YouTube works, how SEO works, and of course the introduction of AI tools like ChatGPT. So one of our more recent projects, and by our I mean the Moonshine Agency team, we produced a film called Live the Life You Please. And we started posting videos to that channel, Live the Life You Please, back in late 2022, so just over a year ago. And we did work on the descriptions, but mainly our focus was on the titles. And this project was about palliative care and access to palliative care in Australia. So it's a tough topic and somewhat niche, and we didn't have big expectations about how the short films would perform. We created them for people who specifically wanted to explore the topic. So it was definitely not for, you know, the broad general audience, although the feature version of the film we produced did go out theatrically in cinemas, and that was for a much broader audience. But the YouTube videos were for a much smaller audience. In other words, we were really clear on who the films would be for. And to our surprise, one of the films, one of the first ones we released, it was a very moving story, but a very tough story, and it went viral within a week of release. It had clocked up almost 300,000 views. The film was called Choosing to Die at Home. Now the views have slowed dramatically since that first week, but again, we did not advertise this film. It was found through search and through our sharing. From what I am telling you, you're likely realizing that a YouTube video description is far more than just a brief summary of your video's content. It is a powerful tool for engaging your audience, improving search rankings, and encouraging viewer interaction. It was viewer interaction that fanned the flames of the short film that I just mentioned called Choosing to Die at Home with over 400 comments and over 4,500 likes. So I know you're dying to know the big secret to achieving views on YouTube. And look, there isn't a quick right answer. It's a combination of a number of things. As I said, this app I'm going to give you the list on YouTube descriptions, and then next week I'm going to dig into the marketing and networking side of promoting your film. The first thing you need to do is actually the title for your video. So you need to try and find a search term. What might someone search for if they're trying to answer a question or are interested in something? You could try looking at there's a site called answer thepublic.com. I'm pretty sure it's answer thepublic.com, but just Google answer the public and you should find the site. And it's fantastic. You just put in your idea of what a search term might be, and it will generate a massive amount of data, all types of different search terms people are using related to that topic. So that can be a really, really helpful start to think of what type of title you need for your short film. And you've got to remember, short films that are SEO and search term suitable are not going to have that creative flair or nuance that you might be able to use for a feature film because they need to be really functional in that way. However, the thumbnail that you create to sit around or on top of your video, which is what people will click on, it doesn't have to have the same title as your film. So you can play around with different thumbnails if you're not getting click-throughs when you first post your video. And I'm pretty sure you can also update the title of your film. So you're not married to these two things. You can change the title of your film on the thumbnail and in the description if you need to. But obviously, that's a little bit hard once you've mastered the film. If you've got a title embedded within the film, that's a whole different conversation. But so far as the thumbnail goes, you can pretty much call your film anything you want to try it out, and you can always change it later. So have a play around with that. And the way I like to choose titles, I I do it, so I spend a lot of time choosing titles, is I just do a total brain dump. I just put down 25 to 30 of every title that I can research or think of or crowdsource or that's related to my topic, and then I choose the top five, and then I whittle it down from there. So the first thing to do, I think, when you're choosing a title is the research, and then just put down a whole ton of options and then figure it out from there because something in all of that will end up being the golden title that you will choose. And as I said, you're not married to it, you can change it later. So, alright, let's get into it. These are the things you've been waiting for. What do I do? How do I write my title? Alright, I'm finally getting to it. After you've chosen the name for your video, you need to, one first step, you've got to start your text, your opening text, with compelling copy. And what does that mean? Means your description should kick off with a hook to capture your audience's attention. It could be a question, it could be a fact, or a compelling statement related to your video's content. Like anything to do with content, it needs to generate interest to encourage your viewers or potential viewers to keep reading or click on the video. So if I'm sticking with the example I gave before of the video called Choosing to Die at Home, the opening sentence in the description was When facing the last chapter of life, the power of choice is not one to be undervalued. So when you're writing your description, it's really important that it is true to the content of your video or your film. Do not go for clickbait with your title or your description because if people start watching, sure, you might get the clicks, but if they start watching and it's not what they expect, they'll just click away and that tells YouTube that your video isn't being well received and they will stop serving it up. Because remember, if someone's got to watch for 30 seconds before it's considered a view on YouTube. So if you can get someone to click and they just watch five, 10 seconds and go, oh, this is not what I thought it was, and click away, you're not going to win. You're not winning anything. So just make sure the description is engaging. You want your first sentence to inspire curiosity for the topic of your video. Oh, I was just looking for a place where I could learn everything I need to know to make an amazing film that changes the world. It's such a shame that that place doesn't exist. Oh what? Hang on. It does. Oh, if you're looking for inspiration, ideas, tools, and ways to learn how to make movies that matter, head to Moonshine Communications Academy over at Instagram and all your problems will be solved. Warning, results may vary depending on the questions, and success is not guaranteed. Always read the label. Second, include relevant keywords. Okay, so as I mentioned with the title, you need to think about the words and phrases someone might use when they're searching for content like yours. And as I said, answer the public is a really good starting point for this research. So then you're going to take those keywords and you're going to pepper them into your description to improve your search engine optimization, which is also usually called SEO. And that will increase your chances of your video being discovered because that copy is part of what YouTube reads to figure out what your video is about to know who to serve it up to. So a word of warning with this is that you do not want to do the old keyword stuffing and compromise the readability of your descriptions. If you use too many phrases and jam them in, it's going to be clunky to read, it's not going to make a lot of sense, and people just won't read it. It's that simple and it's not going to help you. So I would research your keywords and key phrases and then pepper them through the text that you write, which needs to relate very closely to what your video is about. Number three, provide context and information. So what do I mean by that? You need to give your audience some context about the video. What should they expect if they try and watch it? Share any important details, background information, or relevant links. It really helps viewers understand the content better and it also adds value to your description. So think of it like the blurb on a book cover. Does it make you want to read the book or in this case watch the video? Number four, timestamps for easy navigation. Now, if your video covers lots of different topics and has lots of different sections, so if it's longer than say two or three minutes, you might want to consider adding some timestamps because this allows viewers to click through your description to the parts of the video that they want to watch, which is going to make it more user-friendly and it's going to increase your engagement. Now, if you're not sure how to add timestamps, then there are loads of tutorial videos already on YouTube. And as YouTube changes how you do stuff all the time, you'd be better off Googling how to do this as of the time you're trying to achieve it, rather than me telling you something here and it being out of date in you know a month or two when you want to go and try it out. Number five, call to action or CTA. Okay, this is so critical. I am always banging on about call to action. It's because when you make an impact film, it is about getting people to do something once they have watched your film. So it is integral to the work that I do. And if you want to know more about calls to action, you can head back to the Moonshine Moonshot episode 31 in season two, because I did one back then on everything you need to know about calls to action, and it's quite comprehensive. So please head over to episode 31 and you can find out loads more information. But in a nutshell, you want to encourage your viewers to take an action, whether it's subscribing to your channel, liking the video, or leaving a comment, you've got to include a clear call to action. You have to tell people what you want them to do. Don't assume that they will just do it because if you don't say, hey, subscribe to my channel, they're not going to think to do it. They're going to click away and you've lost them. So you need to tell people and tell just give them one thing. Just choose one thing. If you tell people to do, hey, can you like my video? Leave a comment and make sure you subscribe to my channel. You've already lost them. You've given them three things to do. They don't know which one to do first. They're confused and they are gone. So give them a good, strong, singular call to action. This is not only going to engage your audience, but also signals positive interaction to YouTube's algorithm. Big tick for you if you can get it to do that. So more comments, likes, and shares, the more YouTube is likely to add your video to the suggested videos section, which means more people are likely to discover it. Very important. Number six, social media and external links. Do you have other social media profiles? Do you have a website or relevant external links? Include them in your description because this helps cross-promotion and it directs traffic to your other platforms. And this is pretty self-explanatory and doesn't need much more from me. Number seven, updates and additional information. So look, this is a great way to keep your audience informed about any updates, future content, or relevant events. So for example, when we released Live the Life You Please, which is about palliative care in Australia, I went back to the original platform for the film we produced called Life Before Death, which was about palliative care globally. And in any of the films that related to the Australian audience, I put, hey, we've just released a new project called Live the Life You Please. Head over to our channel there with a link if you want to see more up-to-date videos. And it was a way to cross-promote. There you go. You can do that too if you've got multiple channels. And this also builds a sense of community and it helps keep viewers engaged beyond just the current video. Number eight, hashtags. Hashtags within descriptions help YouTube to identify and categorize your videos while attracting the right audience. So use relevant hashtags to increase discoverability of your content. However, I do advise you use them sparingly and choose ones that really do relate to your video because remember you want people who are really interested in your video to watch, otherwise, they're going to click away, and that's bad for your video's performance within the algorithm. Okay, polish with formatting. This is really just the basics you learned in school about how to write anything from an essay to a letter to an email. You need to break up your description into paragraphs so it's easy to read. You know, you can employ techniques like using bullet points or numbering for lists and consider bolding or italicizing important information. This is just basic writing skills, and hopefully this is not complicated for you. Number 10, edit and review. This is so important. Before hitting publish, take a moment to review your description, check for typos, ensure that all the links are working, and confirm that the information is accurate. This should be a fundamental 101, but you would be surprised, especially with people who use AI to generate written content. So there you go. They're my top 10 tips for a YouTube description. And now I want to just have a quick word about AI. Because I have used AI many times in the last year, and I think it is a huge benefit for video creators and filmmakers, because the best of our time should be spent going into making amazing videos and films, because that's what we do. We didn't start out making films so that we can write copy. But AI is a tool, and like any tool, you have to use it in the right way to get good results. So sometimes I use AI to create a first draft. If I am time poor and I might just put a detailed draft Into say something like chat GPT, something like a YouTube description. So I might type in, write me a YouTube description for a video about a young woman choosing to care for her aging father at home during his serious illness. It's then going to churn out some generic and impersonal text, but it provides a good starting point to edit from. It will usually have the basic structure correct with a beginning, a middle, and an end paragraphs set out, and you know, some fundamental copy in there. And then I copy edit it from there and make sure it is actually true to the film and that it reads well. So it's an easy way to speed up the process to get that initial first draft out of an AI, but I strongly recommend you only use it as a starting point, not as a copy and paste, as it's most likely going to sound very robotic. It's going to be filled with words like whilst and though, and other words that frankly nobody uses in real life. So just please, if you use AI to generate copy, just make sure you do the copy edit on it and make it your own. Just use it as a base, as a starting point, and then make it your own. That's so much information. And I'm gonna leave it there for today because it is just gonna overwhelm you if I go into the next section of what we're gonna talk about. So today's episode on crafting an effective YouTube video description. Well, remember a well-crafted description is a key element, maximize the discoverability of your content. So thank you for tuning in this week to the Moonshine Moonshot Podcast. If you found it helpful, don't forget to subscribe. And next week, I'm gonna be going over this. So the next week's gonna be part two, which is about marketing and networking to maximize your videos' ability to be discovered. And I'll cover some of the ways we get our videos out into the world. So you will not want to miss part two because these two things together, what I've talked about today, the description and all the nuts and bolts of that, along with the marketing and networking, are what's going to get your video really out into the world and have you getting lots of happy eyeballs watching your content. So next week I'll be back. Till then, happy creating. Thank you for joining me today and every week here on the Moonshine Moonshot Podcast. If you're wanting a deeper dive into the topics being discussed on the show, then I would encourage you to head over to Moonshine Communications Academy.com and sign up for the weekly drop of moonshine via your email. Being on our newsletter community means we can support your filmmaking journey in a more tailored way as well as keeping you up to date with the resources we share on how to make movies that matter, and so much more that we deliver inside your inbox every single week. So head over to Moonshine CommunicationsAcademy.com and at the bottom of the homepage you'll see a little box to add your email address, and as a thank you for signing up, we'll also send you a bonus ebook to support your messaging. So voila, you'll be on the way to receive all the best content weekly.