Expand Your YouTube Following Through Twitter and FacebookGrowing your YouTube audience isn't as hard as you think -- here's how you can generate video views and increase viewer loyalty with help from other social media channels.

The following excerpt is from Jason R. Rich's bookUltimate Guide to YouTube for Business.Buy it now fromAmazon|Barnes & Noble|iBooks|IndieBound

Twitter is an extremely powerful tool for developing an audience because it allows you to communicate with all your followers regularly, informally and simultaneously. As you do this, be sure to incorporate topic and keyword hashtags into your tweets. Doing this makes it easier forTwitterusers who aren't following you to still find and read your tweets, via a keyword search.

Anytime you're posting a tweet announcing that you've published a new video onYouTube, in addition to providing a direct link, include a brief, detailed preview of what people can expect and include several hashtag topics (#topic) at the end of the tweet. For example, the tweet could say:

Discover tips for growing roses in Main Street Florist's new video. Visit www.[video URL].com #roses #garden #flowers #plants

Anyone using Twitter and searching for roses, garden, flowers, or plants will quickly find your tweet and see a link to your video. Then you can encourage people to tweet their gardening questions to you and you can answer those questions by directing people to your videos.

You can also perform your own search on Twitter using keywords or search phrases that relate to your channel's content--you'll be able to view all the tweets from other users that include those terms. You can then follow those people, which will encourage them to follow your Twitter feed.

It's also possible to contact each directly via Twitter, by addressing them personally. They'll then see your tweets that promote your videos and have the opportunity to view them. For example, if you notice a Twitter user is actively discussing her interest in rose gardening on Twitter, you can post a message that says something like:

@flowergrower Please check out Main Street Florist's latest video about how to grow roses. [Insert Link].

When you interact with strangers directly (in an unsolicited manner) via Twitter, Facebook or email, make sure your solicitations aren't perceived as blatant advertisements or spam. This could result in your account getting locked.

You can take this strategy a step further and use specialized Windows or Mac OS-based software, calledTweetAdder, to find followers based on keywords that are relevant to what you're trying to promote. TweetAdder offers an easy way to build and manage your Twitter account, expand your following, and interact with your followers using an automated process.

Using the TweetAdder software, which is priced between $55 and $188 (depending on how many Twitter accounts you want it to support), you can easily add dozens or even hundreds of new Twitter followers every day (there's no recurring fee for using TweetAdder). Then use the tweets you post to promote your YouTube videos.

Build an Audience for Your Videos on Facebook

It's easy to promote YouTube videos by embedding them directly on yourFacebookpage and including links to the videos in your Facebook status updates. You can also publish stills from your videos in Facebook's online photo albums and include detailed captions and tags.

If you haven't already created a Facebook page for your company, product, group or organization, go to the Facebook site, and click on the "Create a Page" link that's displayed along the bottom of the screen. From the "Create a Page" menu, choose the type of page you want to create in order to better communicate with your audience or customers. Your options include:

• Local business or place
• Company, organization, or institution
• Brand or product
• Artist, band, or public figure
• Entertainment
• Cause or community

You'll probably want to choose the "Local Business or Place," or the "Company, Organization or Institution" type of Facebook page. However, if the page you're creating is specifically to promote a product or brand, select the "Brand or Product" option. Choose the option that's most relevant based on who you are trying to establish yourself as in terms of an online entity and what you're trying to accomplish.

Once you click on the type of Facebook page you want to establish, use the pull-down menus and fields to define the purpose of your page, its subject matter and, if applicable, its location. Each category offers a different selection of relevant pull-down menus and fields to fill in. Next, click on the "Get Started" button.

When prompted, create a Facebook account or, if you already have one, click on the "I Already Have A Facebook Account" option. Follow the on-screen prompts to establish a new Facebook page. Next, as you begin posting content to the page, embed your individual YouTube videos as posts. This can be done from Facebook or while managing your YouTube Channel account.

Based on how you set up your Facebook page, not only can you promote your online presence yourself, but Facebook users will be able to find your page based on keywords and tags you incorporate into the title, description and other relevant fields when creating the page. Then, in addition to serving as a platform for showcasing your videos, you can use the Facebook page to further promote your company, product or service. It can also be used to directly communicate with your fans, followers, subscribers and viewers.