Youtube Tips to help you attract viewers and grow your audience

1. Channel Identity and Branding

• Unique Theme: Since your channel is focused on folktales, give it a strong identity. Ensure that your logo, banner, and profile picture reflect traditional African or global folklore elements.
  
• Channel Tagline: Create a catchy and memorable tagline that represents the essence of your content. For example, “Bringing timeless African folktales to life.”
  
• Consistent Thumbnails: Design custom thumbnails with similar fonts, colors, and visual elements to make your videos easily recognizable. Include engaging images and large, readable text on each thumbnail.
  

2. Content Strategy

• Upload Schedule: Consistency is key. Stick to a regular upload schedule, whether it's weekly or biweekly, so viewers know when to expect new stories.
  
• Video Length: Since your content involves storytelling, experiment with different video lengths. You might have shorter stories for younger audiences (3-5 minutes) and longer ones for more immersive experiences (8-10 minutes or more).
  
• Diverse Stories: Include a variety of folktales from different African cultures, as well as folktales from other continents to attract a wider audience. You can categorize them by region (West African folktales, East African folktales, etc.).
  

3. Engage Your Audience

• Call to Action (CTA): At the end of each video, encourage viewers to subscribe, like, and comment on your videos. Ask questions like “Which folktale would you like to hear next?” to engage them.
  
• Community Tab: Use the community tab to create polls, share behind-the-scenes content, or ask for feedback. This interaction helps build a strong community.
  
• Comments: Reply to comments on your videos to build a relationship with your viewers. This personal touch will make your subscribers feel valued.
  

4. Optimize for Search (SEO)

• Titles: Include keywords like “African Folktales,” “Children’s Stories,” and “Traditional Myths” in your video titles. Make sure they are both descriptive and intriguing, e.g., “The Wise Tortoise: An Ancient African Folktale for Kids.”
  
• Descriptions: Write detailed video descriptions that summarize the story and include relevant keywords. Mention the culture or country the story comes from to attract people interested in African heritage.
  
• Tags: Use a mix of broad and specific tags, like “folktales,” “African stories,” “moral stories,” “Nigerian folktales,” etc., to help your videos appear in relevant search results.
  

5. Create Playlists

• Organize your videos into playlists based on themes or regions (e.g., “Tales of Wisdom,” “Folktales from East Africa”). This helps keep your channel organized and encourages binge-watching, as viewers can enjoy similar content back-to-back.
  

6. Storytelling Techniques

• Narration Style: Your narration should be lively and engaging. Vary your tone, pace, and pitch to keep listeners hooked. Since you’re catering to a wide age group, ensure your language is simple yet vivid.
  
• Visuals: Use animated visuals, illustrations, or even simple text overlays to make the storytelling more dynamic. Even minimal animation, like moving clouds or simple transitions, can enhance the viewing experience.
  
• Background Music and Sound Effects: Use background music that matches the tone of your story. Sound effects can help emphasize key moments, making the tales more immersive.
  

7. Collaborations and Networking

• Collaborate: Partner with other YouTubers who focus on African culture, history, or storytelling. You can narrate each other’s stories or cross-promote your channels.
  
• Guest Narrators: Invite guest narrators or voice actors to add variety to your content. It could be fun for your audience to hear stories told in different voices.
  

8. Promote on Social Media

• Share your videos across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Since African folktales resonate with many, you can join storytelling groups or cultural communities to promote your channel.
  
• Create short, engaging clips from your videos to post as teasers on platforms like TikTok and Instagram to drive traffic to your full YouTube videos.
  

9. Monitor Analytics

• Use YouTube Studio to track the performance of your videos. See which types of stories are most popular and adapt your content strategy accordingly.
  
• Pay attention to audience retention, watch time, and click-through rate (CTR) to understand what works and where you can improve.
  

10. Consider Special Series

• Folktale Challenges: Start a series where you narrate the most famous folktales from each African country, or compare similar folktales from different regions.
  
• Moral of the Story: At the end of each folktale, have a segment that explains the moral or lessons from the story. This will help your audience connect more deeply with the tale.