You’ve defined your IP. You’ve created your content. Now, how do you get it noticed on YouTube? Kidscreen spoke with experts at Banijay Kids & Family and Little Dot Studios—who are behind top-performing kids & family channels for brands like Totally Spies!, Dr. Seuss and Mr. Bean—to deliver six strategic insights for attracting new viewers and keeping them engaged.

NAILING THUMBNAILS

The thumbnail is an invitation to watch a video, so it needs to grab attention at a glance. Thumbnails should feature bold colors, expressive faces (of easily identifiable characters) and a bare minimum of clearly readable text.

An example from Banijay Kids & Family’s stable is the Totally Spies! channel (pictured below). The team makes sure that every thumbnail shows at least one of the series’ spies (and all three are better). Thumbnail text should also include the logo and words like “Full Episode” so fans instantly know what they’re looking at, adds Dan Lewsey, global head of digital.

BITE-SIZED TITLES

Titles should be pithy, too. Keep them short, informative and accurate— the fastest way to lose fans is by misleading or tricking them. “For example, ‘Buzzing With Fun: Bee Facts For Kids!’ performs better than longer, descriptive titles,” says James Loveridge, co-MD of Little Dot Studios (which manages the Dr. Seuss channel). “We treat thumbnails as mini-movie posters. They need to tell a story at a glance.”

MIX IT UP

Content variety is key, and it means going beyond just having a mix of shorts and longer-form videos. Full episodes can introduce new viewers to an IP, grow the audience and sustain loyalty, while “extras” like exclusive previews, standalone clips of fan-favorite moments and playlists focusing on particular characters are great ways to engage superfans.

FORMAT FORMULA

Mixing horizontal videos into a lineup with vertical ones is a good way to reach the growing number of viewers who are watching YouTube on their smart TVs. For example, if Banijay is releasing five videos in a week, three will be horizontal—including full episodes and long-form videos—to reach tablet, computer and connected-TV viewers. The other two will be vertical to appeal to phone watchers and to function as promotional pieces on social media.

TREND-SPOTTING

Building an engaging channel means keeping an eye on YouTube’s priorities. For example, the platform announced an increased educational focus just ahead of the summer, says Banijay’s Lewsey. And this opened up an opportunity to repackage episodes of Numberjacks, Mister Maker and Maddie’s Do You Know? with a math or literacy focus to fit the educational content algorithm.

THE NEW TUBE

YouTube is becoming the next-gen TV-watching platform, providing an ever-growing space for longer-form live-action and animated content. As a result, families are now expecting the same level of high-quality content that used to go to broadcasters first, notes Loveridge. “For creators and brands, the ability to blend short-form discovery, long-form loyalty and live experiences—all in one ecosystem— is unprecedented.”

This story originally appeared in Kidscreen‘s Q4 2025 magazine issue.