20 Best Sites to Promote YouTube Videos in 2026 (Free and Paid)

20 Best Sites to Promote YouTube Videos in 2026 (Free and Paid)

You've published your YouTube video — now comes the harder part: getting people to actually watch it. YouTube's algorithm reaches existing subscribers, but breaking through to new audiences requires active promotion across the right external platforms. The problem is that not all promotion sites are created equal. Some deliver real, engaged viewers while others waste your time on empty impressions.

In this guide, you'll discover the 20 best sites to promote YouTube videos in 2026 — 12 free platforms and 8 paid options — with specific tactics for making each one work. You'll also learn how to build a promotion schedule that drives consistent external traffic without burning out.

Whether you're a new creator trying to break through or an established YouTuber looking to expand your reach, promoting on the right external sites can double or triple your view count from day one — and the compounding traffic from multiple channels creates algorithmic momentum that YouTube's recommendation engine amplifies further. According to YouTube's official Creator Academy, videos with strong early engagement signals (including external traffic) receive broader distribution on the platform.

Why External Promotion Matters for YouTube Growth

YouTube's algorithm prioritizes videos that receive strong engagement signals in the first 24–48 hours after upload. External promotion from the right sites achieves two things simultaneously: it brings in real viewers who watch and engage, and it signals to YouTube that this video has demand worth amplifying.

The key distinction is traffic quality. Viewers from niche communities (Reddit, Discord, Facebook Groups) who are genuinely interested in your topic generate high average view duration, high engagement rates, and high subscriber conversion — all of which tell YouTube's algorithm that your video deserves broader distribution. This is why promoting to the right sites matters far more than promoting to the most sites.

Before diving into the list, check out our related guides on YouTube organic promotion strategies and how the YouTube algorithm works in 2026 so you understand why each promotion site on this list drives results.

Free Sites to Promote YouTube Videos

1. Reddit

Reddit is arguably the single highest-quality free promotion site for YouTube videos — when used correctly. With over 100,000 active subreddits covering every conceivable topic, Reddit has a highly engaged community for virtually any niche: gaming, personal finance, cooking, fitness, music production, programming, and thousands more.

How to use it: Identify the top 3–5 subreddits for your niche (search Reddit for your keywords). Spend at least 2–4 weeks contributing value — answering questions, commenting thoughtfully — before sharing your own videos. When you do share, only post videos that genuinely answer a question the community is asking. Your post title should frame the video as a resource, not a promotion ("Here's how I solved [problem] — full walkthrough in video").

Results potential: A single post in the right subreddit can drive 5,000–50,000+ views in 24 hours if it goes viral. Even moderate posts routinely drive 500–2,000 targeted views. Read our complete guide to promoting YouTube videos on Reddit for the full strategy.

2. Quora

Quora is a Q&A platform where people ask specific questions about every topic imaginable. Because Quora answers frequently rank in Google search results, a well-written answer with your YouTube video embedded can drive traffic for months or years — long after the initial post.

How to use it: Search for questions directly related to your video's topic. Write a comprehensive, high-quality answer (400–600 words) that stands alone as useful content, then embed or link to your YouTube video as additional context or a deeper dive. Don't just post a link — the answer must provide standalone value. Quora answers with embedded videos get significantly more upvotes and shares than text-only answers on visual topics.

Results potential: 100–1,000 views per answer in the first week, compounding as the answer ranks in Google. Some Quora answers continue driving traffic for 2–3 years after the original post.

3. Facebook Groups

Facebook Groups represent one of the largest untapped promotion opportunities for YouTube creators. There are active Facebook Groups for virtually every niche, many with tens of thousands to millions of members who are deeply engaged with the topic.

How to use it: Search Facebook for groups related to your niche. Join 5–10 active groups (check post frequency and engagement before joining). Spend 2–4 weeks engaging — commenting, answering questions — before sharing videos. When you share, frame your video as a resource for a specific question or problem the group regularly discusses. Some groups have dedicated days for creator content sharing ("Video Wednesday"), which provides a legitimate promotion opportunity. For a complete platform strategy, read our guide on how to promote your YouTube channel on Facebook.

4. Pinterest

Pinterest is dramatically underutilized by YouTube creators despite being one of the most effective evergreen promotion platforms. Pinterest pins have a remarkably long shelf-life — active traffic typically lasts 6–12 months per pin, compared to 24–48 hours on most social platforms.

How to use it: Create a Pinterest board for your YouTube niche. For each video, create 2–3 vertical image pins (use Canva or similar tools) with keyword-rich descriptions and a link to your YouTube video. Focus on tutorial, how-to, and list-format content — these perform best on Pinterest. Create pins that look like they belong on Pinterest (not YouTube thumbnails), using the platform's aesthetic preferences. Use Pinterest's keyword research tool to find terms your audience is searching for.

Results potential: Consistent pinning over 3–6 months can generate 1,000–10,000+ monthly Pinterest-referred YouTube views from compounding traffic across dozens of pins.

5. Twitter/X

Twitter/X provides excellent reach for creators in news-adjacent, tech, finance, and culture niches. The platform's engagement culture rewards creators who are genuinely interesting and helpful in their tweets — not just promotional.

How to use it: Share key insights from your video as a Twitter thread (5–10 tweets), with the YouTube link in the final tweet. Native video clips (30–90 seconds uploaded directly to Twitter) get significantly more algorithmic reach than external links — so share a compelling clip natively, then mention the full video is on YouTube. Engage with comments on your threads to boost algorithmic distribution. Reply to relevant conversations in your niche even when not promoting your own content.

6. LinkedIn

For professional and B2B content creators, LinkedIn offers exceptional organic reach that outperforms most other social platforms. LinkedIn's algorithm actively promotes content that generates substantive professional discussion — making it ideal for business, marketing, finance, career, and professional development YouTube channels.

How to use it: Write a LinkedIn post (300–500 words) that delivers real professional insight based on your video's topic. Share your key takeaways as a text-first post, then mention the full video in the comments. LinkedIn's algorithm penalizes external links in main post bodies — always put your YouTube link in the first comment. Use relevant hashtags (3–5 maximum). For a complete cross-platform strategy, read our LinkedIn YouTube promotion guide.

7. Discord Servers

Discord has become the primary community hub for gaming, crypto, creator economy, tech, and countless other communities. Many Discord servers have dedicated #videos or #content-sharing channels where members actively seek new content from creators in their community.

How to use it: Find Discord servers in your niche (Disboard.org is a good discovery tool). Invest time building genuine relationships in the community before sharing your content. Many servers have specific rules about self-promotion — read and follow them carefully. When sharing, provide context about why this specific video is relevant to the community, not just a raw link drop.

8. Tumblr

Tumblr remains highly active in entertainment, art, fandom, and lifestyle niches. Its reblog mechanic creates viral distribution potential within community networks. For the right niches, a single well-received Tumblr post can reach tens of thousands of users through reblogging chains.

How to use it: Create posts that embed your YouTube video with relevant commentary or creative presentation. Tumblr rewards posts that fit the platform's aesthetic and cultural norms — study popular content in your niche before posting. Use relevant tags (up to 20 per post) for searchability within Tumblr's internal discovery system.

9. Mix (Content Curation)

Mix (formerly StumbleUpon) is a content curation and discovery platform where users bookmark and share interesting content organized by topic. Submitting your YouTube video to Mix gives it exposure to users actively exploring your content category.

How to use it: Create a Mix profile focused on your niche. Submit your YouTube videos as content collections. Engage with other creators' content in your niche — Mix's algorithm promotes profiles that are active curators, not just self-promoters. The key advantage of Mix is that it exposes your content to people in an active "content discovery" mindset.

10. Medium

Medium is a publishing platform reaching 170M+ monthly readers. Articles that embed YouTube videos create a dual-platform presence — readers who find your Medium article through Google search or Medium's internal discovery then watch your YouTube video through the embedded player.

How to use it: Write long-form articles (1,500–2,500 words) on topics related to your YouTube content. Embed your YouTube videos at relevant points in the article. Medium articles that are accepted into "publications" (curated topic collections) receive dramatically more distribution. Submit your articles to relevant publications in your niche. Cross-link between your Medium articles and YouTube videos to create a content ecosystem.

11. Your Own Blog or Website

Having your own website or blog where you embed all your YouTube videos creates permanent, indexable content that drives Google search traffic to your videos indefinitely. A blog post about your video's topic that embeds the video captures viewers who found you via Google but might not have discovered you on YouTube directly.

How to use it: Create a written version of each YouTube video's content as a blog post (1,000–1,500 words), embed the YouTube video, and publish on your site. Optimize the blog post for SEO with your target keywords. This creates two discovery paths — YouTube search and Google search — for every piece of content you create.

12. Niche Online Forums

Every niche has dedicated forums where enthusiasts congregate for deep discussion. Unlike mainstream social media, forum users are typically highly knowledgeable and engaged in their specific topic — making them extremely valuable viewers who provide quality watch time, thoughtful comments, and high subscriber conversion.

How to use it: Find the top 2–3 forums in your niche (examples: r/personalfinance, GameFAQs for gaming, Quora for various topics, forums.thefastlaneforum.com for business). Become a genuine contributor for at least a month before promoting your content. Share videos only when they directly address a question being asked in the thread — never as standalone promotional posts.

Paid Sites to Promote YouTube Videos

13. VidOrange — Professional YouTube Promotion

VidOrange is a professional YouTube promotion service specifically designed to deliver real, niche-targeted viewers to your videos. Unlike general advertising platforms, VidOrange specializes exclusively in YouTube promotion with genuine traffic sources — meaning the views you receive come from real people who are interested in your content category.

Why it works: Targeted promotion drives viewers who are genuinely interested in your niche, resulting in high watch time, authentic engagement, and real subscriber conversion. This combination improves your video's algorithmic signals, triggering YouTube's own recommendation engine to distribute your content further. Our YouTube channel promotion service and video promotion service are designed for sustainable, real growth.

14. Google Ads (YouTube Ads)

YouTube Ads run directly within YouTube's platform, making them the most precise way to reach YouTube users. YouTube's advertising system offers multiple ad formats — skippable in-stream, non-skippable, bumper ads, discovery ads — each suited to different promotion goals.

Best for: Creators with consistent monthly budgets ($300+/month) and videos that benefit from broad discovery. YouTube Ads provide excellent targeting by demographics, interests, keywords, and even specific channels or videos. Read our complete guide on how much YouTube ads cost in 2026 before launching your first campaign.

15. Facebook Ads

Facebook Ads reach 3B+ users with some of the most sophisticated interest and behavioral targeting available. While Facebook promotes native video content preferentially, you can drive traffic to YouTube videos through targeted campaigns reaching users most likely to be interested in your content topic.

Best for: Creators in niches with strong Facebook demographics (35+ audience, local business, community topics). Facebook Ads Manager's detailed targeting allows extremely precise audience definition by interests, behaviors, demographics, and custom audiences.

16. TikTok Ads

TikTok Ads reach a predominantly younger audience (18–34) with high engagement rates. While TikTok prioritizes its own platform's content, promoting awareness of your YouTube channel through TikTok Ads can effectively drive YouTube subscriptions from younger demographics who may not yet be regular YouTube users.

Best for: Entertainment, lifestyle, gaming, and trend-based channels targeting Gen Z and younger Millennial audiences. Use short video clips as ad creative highlighting the best moments from your YouTube content.

17. Outbrain / Taboola (Native Content Networks)

Native content recommendation networks place your content recommendations ("You might also like...") on premium news and entertainment websites. When a reader finishes an article on a major news site, they see a panel of recommended content — your YouTube video can appear in that panel to a highly engaged audience.

Best for: Evergreen educational, news-adjacent, or general interest content. Native network traffic tends to be high-quality since users are already in an active content-consumption mindset when they see your recommendation.

18. Newsletter Sponsorships

Email newsletters have some of the highest engagement rates of any content format — open rates of 20–50% are common for niche newsletters, compared to 1–3% reach on social media. Securing a sponsored mention in a newsletter read by your target audience delivers your YouTube video to highly receptive viewers.

Best for: Niche-specific content targeting engaged professional or hobbyist audiences. Find newsletters at Sponsy.co or Newsletter Spy. Sponsorship costs range from $50 for small niche newsletters to $5,000+ for large general newsletters, but the quality of traffic typically justifies the cost for targeted niche content.

19. Podcast Advertising

Podcast listeners are among the most engaged media consumers, with high trust in hosts and high conversion rates on recommendations. A host-read ad mentioning your YouTube channel in a relevant podcast can drive hundreds or thousands of new subscribers from an audience already deeply interested in your topic.

Best for: Channels where the podcast audience and YouTube audience overlap perfectly (e.g., a fitness YouTube channel advertising on a fitness podcast). Host-read ads significantly outperform pre-recorded ads for YouTube channel promotion because of the personal recommendation dynamic.

20. Influencer and Creator Shoutouts

When a trusted creator in your niche endorses your YouTube channel to their audience, the social proof drives subscriber conversion rates that no ad platform can match. Even a small shoutout from a creator with a highly engaged community can bring in hundreds of quality subscribers in a single day.

Best for: Any niche where you can identify creators with audiences that precisely match your target viewer. Use platforms like Grapevine Village, Channel Pages, or direct outreach to find shoutout opportunities. Ensure the creator's audience genuinely matches yours — a shoutout to the wrong audience produces poor results regardless of the audience size.

Building Your Multi-Platform Promotion Schedule

The most successful YouTube creators don't try to be everywhere at once. They master a small set of platforms that consistently deliver their target audience, then systematically expand. Here's a practical approach:

Weeks 1–4: Foundation Platforms

Choose 2–3 platforms where your audience is most concentrated. For most creators, this is Reddit (niche subreddits) + one social platform (Facebook Groups or LinkedIn depending on niche). Spend 80% of your promotion time on these platforms, building genuine community presence before sharing videos.

Months 2–3: Content Ecosystem

Add Medium or your own blog to create Google-indexed content that drives ongoing search traffic to your videos. Start building a Pinterest presence for evergreen content. These platforms require upfront investment but create passive, compounding traffic over time.

Month 3+: Paid Amplification

Once you have proven organic performance on a video or channel, consider targeted promotion services to amplify that success. Promotion works best when your content is already performing well organically — promotion accelerates the trajectory, it doesn't replace quality content.

Track all external traffic sources in YouTube Analytics (Traffic Source: External) to see which platforms actually drive views, watch time, and subscriber conversion. Many creators are surprised to find that one or two specific communities drive the majority of their external traffic — once you identify those, double down there.

For a comprehensive view of YouTube growth strategies beyond just promotion, read our guides on YouTube SEO keyword research and the YouTube analytics metrics that actually matter.

Frequently Asked Questions About Sites to Promote YouTube Videos