Learn how to use these YouTube hacks—from simple tricks to advanced features—to wow your viewers, save time, and grow your audience.
The right YouTube hack can be the difference between spending all afternoon or 15 minutes to complete a task.
But these tips optimize more than just your time—they optimize your YouTube marketing efforts, too. From subscriber-boosting features to video-making tools, these hacks are engineered to help you get the most out of the platform.
Bonus: Download the free 30-day plan to grow your YouTube following fast, a daily workbook of challenges that will help you kickstart your Youtube channel growth and track your success. Get real results after one month.
Memorize these keyboard shortcuts to maneuver YouTube with ease and impress your coworkers.
| Spacebar | Play or pause a video |
| k | Play or pause a video in player |
| m | Mute or unmute a video |
| Left and right arrow | Jump backward or forward 5 seconds |
| j | Jump backward 10 seconds |
| l | Jump forward 10 seconds |
| , | When video is paused, skip to next frame |
| Up and down arrow | Increase and decrease volume |
| > | Speed up video playback rate. |
| < | Slow down video playback rate. |
| 1—9 | Jump to the 10% to 90% of the video mark. |
| 0 | Go to the beginning of the video |
| / | Go to the search box |
| f | Activate full screen |
| c | Activate closed captions |
There are occasions when it’s necessary to skip an intro, preamble, or just jump to a relevant clip. When you’d like to share a link to a video that starts at a specific time, try this YouTube hack.
How to do it:
Tip: If you can, put the time a second or two before the actual start time. That way people won’t miss a thing.
Need the thumbnail of a YouTube video for a newsletter or social post? Don’t take a low-res screen capture. This workaround lets you save the thumbnail in high-res.
How to do it:
Here’s how to add a custom video thumbnail to your videos:
Do one better than an image with a GIF. GIFs get a lot of action on social media. You can use them to promote your YouTube channel or to deliver on-brand replies.
How to create a GIF from a YouTube video:
YouTube automatically creates transcripts for every video created on its platform. Not only does this feature make videos more accessible, it also makes pulling quotes and copy a lot easier.
How to see the transcript of a YouTube video:
If you don’t see it, the creator likely decided to hide the transcript. Keep in mind that many video creators don’t edit their transcripts so it might not be perfect.
Ditch the unmemorable string of letters and numbers and add polish to your YouTube channel with a branded URL.
There are a few prerequisites. To be able to create a custom slug, your channel needs to have at least 100 subscribers, a channel icon, and channel art. It also has to be more than 30 days old.
Once you’ve ticked those boxes, here’s how to do it:
Starting from scratch? Learn how to create a YouTube channel for your brand.
Do you have YouTube buttons or subscribe call-to-actions on your channels? If you do, chances are they link to your YouTube channel. That’s great, but you can do one better.
Follow these steps to create a link that opens with an automatic subscribe prompt:
Here’s what it looks like when someone clicks on the link:
Here’s how to get free YouTube subscribers—the real way.
Closed captions or subtitles make your content available to a larger audience. That includes viewers that are deaf or hard of hearing, or people watching the video with sound off. As a bonus, this also improves the search engine optimization ranking for your video.
There are two ways to go about this. You can either create subtitles or closed captions on YouTube, or upload a transcript file. We recommend that latter because you can save the file as you go and store it as a backup in case the video gets deleted by mistake.
Here’s how to create subtitles or closed captions:
Here’s how to upload a transcript:
If you go this route, you’ll need to save your captions as a plain text file (.txt) to upload it to YouTube. Here are a few formatting tips, recommended by YouTube:
Chances are your audience consists of viewers that speak multiple languages. It may not be possible to translate all of your content, but translated titles and descriptions make your video more discoverable in a second language. Plus, the small gesture can go a long way to show that you care.
You may already be able to guess your audience’s predominant languages. Or you may have no idea. In any case, you can double check with YouTube Analytics. Look under Top subtitle/cc languages report to learn what languages rank highest.
Here’s how to add the translations to your YouTube videos:
Cards can make your video more engaging and cross-promote other content. You can create cards with polls, or cards that link to other channels, videos or playlists, and other destinations.
Cards work best when they appear with calls to action. For example, if you mention your newsletter in the script, consider adding a card at that moment.
How to add cards to your YouTube videos:
Tip: YouTube recommends video cards are placed within the last 20% of a video. That’s when viewers are likely looking for what to watch next.
Leave some time at the end of your YouTube video for an end screen call-to-action.
End screens appear in the last 5-20 seconds of a video, and direct viewers to different destinations of your choice. You can use them to encourage viewers to subscribe to your channel, watch another video or playlist, visit another channel, or an approved website.
How to do it:
Note: End screens and cards are not eligible on videos made for kids. Linking to approved websites is currently only available to members of the YouTube Partner Program.
Want to grow channel subscriptions? A subscribe button, also known as branding watermark, is a slick YouTube subscribers hack. With the button, desktop viewers can directly subscribe to your channel, even if they’re in full-screen.
Before you add a button, you’ll need to create it. The square image must be in PNG or GIF format, with a minimum of 150 X 150 pixels and maximum size of 1MB. YouTube recommends using one or two colours only, and a transparent background.
How to do it:
If you haven’t discovered YouTube’s Audio Library yet, you’re in for a treat.
The music library includes songs in just about every genre and mood. Among the sound effects you’ll find everything from laugh tracks to an old engine sputter.
How to do it:
YouTube creator, Mystery Guitar Man (aka Joe Penna), offers some best practices for adding music.
Need to cover up a logo or add an artistic effect? This secret YouTube feature lets you add a blur, whether the figure is static or moving.
How to do it:
Here’s how to blur faces:
Playlists allow viewers to have what YouTube describes as a “lean-back” experience. They take the guesswork out of video watching by automatically queuing a series of related videos into one solid list. And they make it easier for viewers to linger longer with your content.
As an added bonus, playlists also help to sort content. Group videos by category, topic, theme, product, etc.
How to create a playlist:
If you’re looking to grow your presence on YouTube, playlists can be a collaborative tool, too. Show some love to other creators by adding videos from another channel to your list. Or invite users to collaborate on the playlist.
How to add collaborators to a playlist:
Here are a bunch of different ways to promote your YouTube channel.
There are many reasons you may want to pin a comment—or a viewer’s comment—to the top of your feed. Maybe you want to boost engagement with a question or call-to-action. If a lot of commenters are asking the same question, you may want to pin your response. If someone leaves a witty response or winning testimonial, show them some love with the pin treatment.
Here’s how to pin a comment to the top of your feed:
As YouTube says, not all comments will be high quality. One feature you can use to ensure inappropriate language does not appear on your feed is a blocked words list.
Add words or phrases that you do not want associated with your page, whether vulgar, controversial—or simply off topic.
How to create a blocked words list for YouTube comments:
Comments that include blocked language will be held for review before they are shown publicly.
If you have a busy content calendar, or simply don’t want to bombard subscribers with a series of videos, consider scheduling your posts in advance.
You can upload and schedule videos directly from the Hootsuite dashboard. Once you’ve added the video file and copy, it’s as simple as setting a date and time. And you can edit your video up until the last minute.
Here’s how to schedule YouTube videos from Hootsuite (and YouTube).
Looking for a little keyword or content inspiration? Try Google Trends.
Visit Google Trends and add a search word. Once you have your results, click the dropdown menu that says WebSearch and select YouTube Search.
From there you can filter results by time frame, geography, and subregion. Take a look at related topics and related queries to see similar searches people are making. This is a good way to find relevant keywords to improve organic search results and rank with YouTube’s algorithm.
Want to create a trending tutorial? If you run a food business, search “how to bake.” Under related queries you’ll find people are searching how to bake plain cake, pre-cooked ham, sourdough bread among other things. Search “interior design” and you’ll see that farmhouse and minimalism are trending.
There are instances where you’ll need to make the same change to multiple videos. For example, maybe you’d like to add a specific tag that’s suddenly trending. Or, maybe your account is being spammed and you’d like to hold potentially inappropriate comments for review.
Whatever the reason, YouTube allows creators to make bulk edits on videos. Here’s how to do it:
YouTube live is a great way to stage a virtual event. But live streams can also entail bloopers and gaffs—or just not allow for the level of edited and production you’re after.
Luckily, this YouTube hack provides a high-production workaround. YouTube Premieres let you schedule a video so an audience can watch it at the same time. Even live chat is available. But unlike a live stream, content can be pre-recorded and edited as you see fit.
How to do it:
Once you’ve set up your Premiere, a public watch page is created. As you stir up buzz promoting the premiere, share the link and encourage viewers to set a reminder.
Ready for action? Here’s how to go live on YouTube.
Save time and manage your YouTube presence with Hootsuite. From one dashboard you can schedule videos, moderate comments, and measure performance—alongside all your other social channels. Try it today.
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