What are YouTube Annotations?

Introduction

YouTube annotations are a great way of boosting your YouTube videos. Just like you need a good marketing strategy, you need to have a good strategy for placing annotations in your videos. They can help you get more audience engagement, more views, more subscribers and, thus, become more popular. Annotations help make your videos interactive and increase the interest of the viewers. In this article, we will discuss what are YouTube annotations and their types.

What are YouTube Annotations?

You might have come across certain images or texts that you can click on in YouTube videos. These are called YouTube annotations. They prompt the viewers to participate and take action when these annotations show up in the video. They might contain links that will take you to another video or a website.

What are the types of annotations?

There are many kinds of YouTube annotations that you can add to your videos. If you wish to add an annotation, then you first need to identify what type is suitable for your video and will engage the audience the most. Here are some common types of annotations you may have come across yourself:

• Speech Bubble: The speech bubble is quite common in videos. It adds a fun element to the video and appears as a bubble. It may indicate an unspoken thought or some information that the YouTuber wants to tell the audience without using words.
• Notes: A classic way of adding annotations is by using notes. This type of annotation is displayed as text on top of some background with color. Clicking on these notes can redirect you to another video, website or any other page.
• Title: Title annotations are useful since they give the viewer some idea of what the video is about. You cannot link a title to other content on YouTube but it is still very useful.
• Spotlight: Spotlight annotations are displayed when the viewers take their mouse over a certain place and then a message is displayed.
• Label: Label annotations are like spotlights. They also display a message when the viewer takes their mouse over a certain area. The difference is that labels are displayed below the frame that is defined and are different in terms of configuration.

Why do YouTubers use annotations?

YouTube annotations are simply a means of increasing your audience engagement. Annotations enable you to add links to a website where the viewers can check out products, merchandise, services or other content. You can also use them to attach links to videos that are related to the video’s topic and will help give the viewers a deeper understanding of the content.

YouTubers tend to place annotations in such a way that the audience will want to click on them. These include certain prompts like “visit our website”, “get free merchandise”, “watch related videos”, “explore other videos” etc. It is all about making a good strategy for your annotations and making them sound inviting enough.

After reading this article, we hope that now you know what are YouTube annotations and how to use them effectively in your videos.