Promote your talks

Once your event is over, you’ll want to make sure your “ideas worth spreading” actually spread! You can help your TEDx community share these ideas with the world through promoting your talks uploaded to YouTube.

Optimize your views

Once the videos of your speakers’ talks are edited, you should upload your talks to the TEDx YouTube channel. When you do, here are some tips to help optimize your views:

Write creative headlines

Every talk should have a headline that expresses its deeply complicated ideas in a simple way. Here are a few ways to get the most out of your title:

  • Be specific. For example, “The power of song”? No. “A song that flies you to Machu Pichu, 1496”? Yes!
  • Use words that someone looking for a talk on the topic would enter in their search engine.
  • Choose short words over long ones.
  • Use strong, interesting verbs (visualize, learn), not forms of "be" (is, am, were).
  • Avoid generic adjectives (ex. awesome, great), but if there's a focused and interesting adjective (scary, slimy), use it!
  • Wit is welcome (when appropriate).
  • Simply ask yourself, “What title would make me want to click on this?"

Write detailed descriptions

In the description field, start with 2-3 sentences that detail the content of the talk. Some things to be aware of:

  • Don’t give everything away – just enough to intrigue the viewer.
  • Your first sentence should “hook” the viewer. Statistics, facts, and questions work well.
  • If the talk is full of charts and graphs, say that.
  • If it's full of beautiful photos, say that.
  • If it has graphic images, say that.
  • If it's emotional, say that.
  • If it's a personal story, say that.
  • If there's a surprising ending, say that (but not what it is!)

Write good bios

Below the description of the talk, include a short 4-7 sentence biography of the speaker. Answer the question that the viewer may be asking themselves, “Why should I trust this person?"

Promote your talks

After you’ve uploaded your talks to YouTube, you’ll put them out into the world. Here are some ways to promote your videos:

Get personal

Write personal messages to everyone in your network challenging them to bring in views. Provide a few simple and clear steps. Ask them to "like," to tweet or retweet, or to forward to friends via email. Some speakers have attracted hundreds of thousands of views simply by writing to people in their networks. We recommend just doing this for the talks that you truly love – you want to make sure to balance your “asks.”

Target your audience

There are several ways to target the right people who will spread the word, but here are a few to get you started.

  • Email bloggers and other online influencers who write about related topics, and have featured similar content before.
  • Post the video onto a content sharing platform that might be interested in the talk, like a subreddit on Reddit.com.
  • Email other TEDx fans and supporters. If they love TEDx, they’ll be more inclined to share your talk.

Time your promotions

Here at TED, our analysts have done extensive research into when people love to watch TED and TEDx Talks. Here are some findings to use when thinking about timing your promotions:

  • People like to watch talks at work during lunch and in the evenings – not on the weekends.
  • Release your talks on a Monday or Tuesday and send your promotions out at the time of day you think that more people will open them. If you’re unsure, experiment with times and see what works!
  • If a talk has content that relates to a holiday or a certain time of year, give it a good push when the time comes.

Flip your videos

The TED-Ed platform lets you "flip" your talks – that is, take any video and contextualize it with questions, additional resources, and discussions. It’s incredibly easy to use and a creative way to make a talk more than just a video. For some talks, you may even want to collaborate with your speakers on these “flips,” and promote the videos primarily in this context.

It’s also a neat tool for teachers in your community to use – so when you build a lesson, be sure to send it to any educators you know who might be interested.

Next section: Audience + experience