Did you know that total there are a total of 300 hours worth of videos uploaded on YouTube every minute?
There are more and more content creators on the video sharing site every day, and why wouldn’t they flock to YouTube? After all, with more than a billion users, almost everyone is bound to find an audience of some size.
With plenty of other users and companies uploading their videos on YouTube, how do you beat out the competition? The perfect way to start would be to purchase some YouTube Views. Not only does this increase your viewership, but this also boosts your search rankings.
Another way to attract more viewers is quite simple: include faces in your videos. Sounds obvious enough, right? However, if you delve deeper, you’ll find that there are some fundamental human factors that come into play.
1. Humans are Programmed to Look at Faces
Regardless of how flashy or catchy information is presented, it’s much easier to absorb and retain if it’s coming out of a face or is associated with one. This is because humans are wired to pay attention to faces. In fact, our brains are designed to distinguish and remember distinct faces, even down to the level of the neuron.
Image credit: Vulture
In 2005, neuroscientists from UCLA and Caltech showed pictures of Jennifer Aniston to epilepsy patients while in surgery. The electrodes were implanted in a part of the brain associated with visual memory and recognition.
Whenever pictures of Aniston appeared, particular brain cells lit up that wouldn’t fire for other people. These became colloquially known as “Jennifer Aniston neurons,” but the real takeaway here is that our brains are incredibly sensitive to faces, and we recognize them more quickly than most other things we see.
What this shows is that human beings are naturally drawn to other human beings. So pair that with great content and a relatable personality, and you can definitely do no wrong when it comes to getting popular on YouTube.
2. Bond with Viewers and Subscribers
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There is a strange trend in South Korea where people just record themselves eating food. There’s no particular commentary, no background music, no special effects, just individuals eating. And oddly enough, tons of people tune in. This strange phenomenon is called Mukbang.
One of the reasons this weird trend became so popular is because it allows viewers to not feel lonely while eating, even if they’re eating alone. Many people eat while they watch Mukbang videos. It might sound strange, but the need for community is a powerful emotion and many people are ready to respond to it.
More than anything, it’s that social connection that resonates with viewers. Interestingly, but not surprisingly, the Mukbang stars that are most successful are the ones that talk to their audience while they’re eating. Even if you wouldn’t want to listen to people talk with their mouth’s full, talking actually strengthens the social connection and draws in more viewers.
3. Faces Make You More Relatable And Build Trust
Faces make your brand more relatable for a number of reasons. People’s affinity for faces goes beyond marketing, and that’s why they are so powerful. Even in regular situations, people gauge their impression of a person by looking at their face.
A study published in the journal Psychological Science revealed that people don’t just judge a person’s attractiveness through their faces, they also measure that person’s trustworthiness. That’s because one’s facial features and expressions play a major factor in social perception, and we get an initial idea of a person’s character simply by looking at them.
This initial judgment also applies to images on social media and YouTube videos. This can manifest in several ways, but whether they watch most of your video or not can be a good indicator, along with any comments you get.
4. Humanizes Your Videos
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Have you ever come across one of those videos with commentary by an automated voice? Do you ever finish watching them or do you just click to the next video? You’ve most likely done the latter and settled for something less robotic.
Can you even watch the whole thing? That reaction just proves again that people intrinsically crave human connection. However, putting a human face on your videos is just the first step.
In order to really establish a connection, your videos need to invoke a certain emotion. Your content will be more relatable and engaging, and this is the winning formula to connecting with your audience.
If you want to make your videos extra attractive, don’t hire those really attractive models to star in your videos. Instead, go for the regular looking people so that viewers could more easily see themselves in those people.
5. Builds A Stronger Relationship with Viewers
Basically, including faces in your videos puts a human element in them. Apart from actually meeting them in person, putting a human face in your videos is about as close to face-to-face communication as you will ever get with most of your audience, especially when some of them are halfway across the globe.
A perfect example of this would be Pewdiepie. Apart from producing a variety of content, Pewdiepie is praised for reaching out to his viewers, even to the point of reading some of the mean comments for his videos.
His followers also appreciate the fact that he doesn’t filter his opinions, which gives the impression that he’s just being himself. He ends up being very controversial sometimes, but nobody can say that he’s not being authentic. Because of that, he’s established a rather close relationship with and among his viewers.
The lesson here is to always dedicate some portion of time in your videos to directly addressing your audience through the camera. This way you can foster better a relationship with them, one video at a time.
Add Faces, But This Is Just One Strategy
Including faces in your videos is basically just the first step. You still need to craft informative, thought-provoking, and engaging content in order to attract and retain the attention of your viewers.
Faces alone won’t do it, but in order to increase your views on YouTube there are simple tactics to implement. For example, to get the ball rolling, it’s a great idea to buy a large set of initial YouTube Views for your videos. The higher the number of Views a video has, the better the chances of attracting more organic viewers.
Of course, there are many strategies to increase your viewership, such as posting timely content, switching up the format every now and then, and collaborating with other content creators. The point is figuring out which tried and tested methods will best capture the attention of your target audience.
Image credit: WeHeartIt
Date: November 9, 2017 / Categories: Tips, / Author: Alex
