Being a new video creator is just like being the new kid at school — you'll want to make a few friends and then branch out from there. Or maybe your style is beating up a bully, in order to win some allies (this is just a metaphor, don't think about it too hard).

Ultimately, you're probably going to want a larger audience and more participation. The key is generating interest and engaging viewers and fellow creators.

There are a lot of ways to start a conversation with a fellow video blogger, the simplest being a comment on a video post — just make sure you include a link back to your video blog (there is often a specific space for this).

You can also create a video in response to another video blogger's post. There are a few ways to do this, one being to post a video response in your own blog and then leave a comment under the original video with a link back to your response. Some video services allow you to specifically post video responses as comments.

Send Viewers Away for More Traffic

Sharing and recommending good things (videos, websites, whatever) keeps people coming back for more; it also has the possible side effect of generating mutual traffic between websites or video creators.

It might seem like sending viewers away from your site (to a potential competitor) is a bad idea, but in reality, it's a common mechanism for bubbling the best of the web up to the top.

Most blogs and video services have the ability to give and receive comments. One nice thing about blogs in particular is the ability to give and receive pings.

A ping is created when someone else creates a blog post that links to one of your blog posts. This is a great way to know when people are talking about your work — you can see who said what, and respond in their comments.