Being a successful YouTuber also means utilizing social media to engage with your audience. For many creators, social media is a great outlet to engage with their audience and for some, it’s a necessary evil.
Regardless, social media engagement is a must for YouTubers. Almost all popular YouTubers use some sort of social media to engage with their audiences. We will highlight five of the biggest YouTubers to show you how you can engage with your audience and grow your online presence through social media.
1. PewDiePie
For the most part, PewDiePie, whose real name is Felix Kjellberg, steers clear from a lot of social media. He recently deleted his Twitter and occasionally posts on Instagram. Usually, the posts are sponsored or merch-related. Still, PewDiePie, even through business-related posts, engages with his audience personally. He has created a community that is full of lore and inside jokes. He’s able to make sponsored posts into part of his content because he includes channel references that his community loves to see and engage with.
Additionally, his Reddit, r/PewdiepieSubmissions, is one of the most popular subreddit on the entire platform. The subreddit allows PewDiePie to review fan-made memes and engage with his audience every week, something he’s continually said he’s thankful for. Even though PewDiePie has stayed away from a lot of social media, his online presence hasn’t been bigger because no matter what he posts, people feel it’s genuine to him, his channel and his brand.
2. Dude Perfect
There aren’t many other channels out there that can drive up as much hype and excitement as Dude Perfect. The dudes of Dude Perfect use their social media platforms to promote upcoming video drops and usually share an interesting and eye-catching snippet or picture related to the new video. They also share short TikTok videos of them making crazy trick shots on their socials. Everything Dude Perfect shares are intended to excite their audience and hype them up. At this point, they’re masters at that. For every video release or sponsored message posted, Dude Perfect uses excitement to increase their audience’s engagement with what they’re posting.
3. Markiplier
Mark Fischbach, aka Markiplier, does use his social media to promote a few things, like the release of major projects or merch. However, more often than not, Markiplier uses his social media as we all do: to make jokes and interact on a personal level. Markiplier has the reputation of being one of the most honest and wholesome YouTubers on the platform. That’s because he looks to make people laugh and lets them into his personal life. Whenever he posts images of him making funny poses or cute photos of his dog, Chica, people feel a part of his community.
Also, Markiplier doesn’t often post the same things on all his social media accounts, meaning there’s unique content on every platform. In turn, his support online has allowed him to try experimental projects like Unus Annus and A Heist with Markiplier and receive the support he needs to keep experimenting with his creative endeavors.
4. Zoella
Zoe Sugg, the founder of YouTube channel and brand Zoella, uses her social media accounts to connect with her audience on a very personal level, even on her business accounts for the brand Zoella. She does this by talking about topics many other people and brands wouldn’t talk about. Sugg rose to popularity when she started her blog, Zoella, where she talked about things that weren’t normally discussed. She focused on things that concerned her in her day to day life — things like anxiety, beauty products and videos of dogs. Viewing her content makes viewers feel they are coming along the journey with her.
Essentially, she made herself her brand. This in turn allows her viewers to feel like they’re coming along the journey with her. Her close connection with her community has allowed her to grow her Zoella into a multimillion-dollar brand that dives into numerous markets related to things that are important to her and her audience.
5. Lele Pons
Last but not least, Lele Pons has been able to use her popularity online to increase her opportunities in real life. Due to her popularity on her social media accounts, she’s been able to act in film, television, music videos and even release her own music. Pons started out posting on Vine. At the time, she was just making fun videos with friends. People who saw the videos thought they were funny and wanted her to keep posting. By consistently making people laugh, she quickly rose to online stardom. She then was able to use her popularity to land many opportunities that allowed her to expand her brand and her presence online. The projects she was able to work on expanding her brand to new markets and audiences outside short-form videos.
Use social media to grow your online presence
After taking a look at these five YouTubers, we can see that social media can be used in various ways to increase engagement. The way you use your social media will depend greatly on your brand, the kind of content you make, and how you want to present yourself to your audience. Some YouTubers post about everything happening in their lives while some are more reserved and only post to promote. Social media is a tool and you can use that tool to build whatever kind of presence you want.