Get More Youtube Views From External Sources

Depending entirely on YouTube’s algorithm to get your videos in front of people is a bit limiting. It’s easy to forget how many ways there are to get your work noticed outside of YouTube itself. Posting a link in a relevant Reddit thread, joining a Facebook group where people actually care about your topic, getting a mention in a newsletter or a podcast, or reaching out to someone who writes a blog about your niche – these are all ways to help more of the right people find what you’re doing. It’s a lot more practical than waiting and hoping the algorithm does you a favor, and instead puts you in a position to share your videos with people who already have an interest.

If you start building some of that outside traffic, you’ll probably notice that YouTube pays attention, too – when viewers come from different sources and actually stick around to watch, the platform seems more likely to show your video to even more people.

And search engines like Google are pulling in YouTube videos more often now, so there’s a chance someone who’s never on YouTube could still run into your work. If you’re focused on growing your channel and haven’t tried using a few of these outside platforms or communities, there’s a lot of potential you might not be seeing yet.

There are so many people who would probably connect with what you’re making, if only the right path led them there; sometimes it just takes a little creativity to build your YouTube audience in ways you hadn’t considered before.

For a long time, I thought the key to growing on YouTube was figuring out exactly what the algorithm wanted. I’d spend hours reading tips, worrying about every new trend, tweaking things that probably didn’t matter much. What actually made a difference was when I started thinking about how people really find videos. The more I paid attention, the more I noticed that YouTube tends to pick up on what people already care about. If someone shares your video in a Facebook group that’s into your topic, or includes it in a newsletter that their readers trust, YouTube recognizes that and starts to give your video more reach.

Those outside mentions seem to act like quiet recommendations – social proof for both the platform and new viewers, and over time they can even enhance your channel credibility. I’ve seen plenty of creators pour energy into search tricks or eye-catching thumbnails, but those things don’t do much unless there’s an actual group of people who want to watch. When your link ends up in a blog post, or gets discussed in a subreddit where people know what you’re talking about, or you appear on a podcast that’s listened to by people in your field, those views come from real interest. They’re not just numbers ticking up.

They’re people who might stick around or share your work with someone else. Usually, when someone asks about getting more views from outside YouTube, I end up talking about finding the spaces where your audience already spends time. The folks who do well tend to pay attention and actually reach out, rather than hoping there’s some secret trick hidden in the algorithm settings.

Having a vision is one thing, but nothing really moves without a plan. If you want more people to find your YouTube videos from outside the platform, just hoping for a lucky break doesn’t count for much. It’s useful to spend some time figuring out where your potential viewers actually hang out online when they’re not on YouTube – places like certain forums, Discord groups, smaller blogs about your topic, or even Slack channels. Once you have a rough idea of these spots, it helps to keep a simple checklist for each new video. Maybe you’ll end up posting a short clip in a subreddit that fits, or you might contact someone who runs a newsletter your audience likes, or send your video to a community admin with a brief note about why it might help their group.

After a while, you’ll notice which places actually bring in viewers who stick around, instead of just dropping in for a few seconds. This routine removes a lot of guesswork, and sometimes just one good mention can keep bringing in views long after you’ve posted. You start to notice little changes – an uptick in engagement or an affordable YouTube likes boost here and there – that show you where your efforts land. If you want your channel to keep growing, even as the algorithm or trends shift, keeping these habits seems to matter more than chasing after quick bursts of traffic. Using a spreadsheet or a reminder app keeps things from getting scattered, so you’re not scrambling each time you upload. It’s not about pushing your video everywhere – just paying attention to where you share, watching what happens, and making small changes as you go

When advice starts to feel more like rules you have to follow, something’s off. If you’ve looked up ways to get more YouTube views, you’ve probably come across the same tips again and again: post at a certain time, use specific thumbnails, avoid sharing links in certain places. These suggestions tend to get repeated without much thought about whether they actually fit your channel or your viewers.

If you just go along with everything you read, your channel can end up looking like everyone else’s, and promoting your videos can start to feel like a chore. You end up second-guessing yourself, worried about breaking some unwritten rule. It’s easy to forget that there are a lot of different ways people try to maximize video performance, and not all of them will matter for you. It probably makes more sense to treat advice as something to try out, not something you have to stick to. You can test things based on what you know about your own audience. For instance, people say Reddit doesn’t like self-promotion, but there are subreddits with threads for sharing videos, and some groups are actually pretty open.

If you skip those, you might miss a chance to connect with people who care. Or you might find that just building a relationship with one blog in your niche helps more than spreading your links everywhere. Really, you figure out what works by trying things and paying attention to your own results, not by following every popular bit of advice. So when you come across the same recommendations again, it’s probably worth pausing to see if they actually make sense for you, or if they’re just adding more noise.