YouTube
YouTube is an under appreciated brand resource in many ways, considering how popular it is with users. So you should have a YouTube presence to build and promote your company.
YouTube Statistics:
- YouTube has over a billion users
- On average, each month 80% of 18-49 year olds watch YouTube
- It’s the second largest search engine after Google
- Third most visited site after Google and Facebook
- The most watched branded advertisements were 30 seconds to a minute long
- Searches for ‘how to’ videos are growing by 70% each year
However, on YouTube, you have to be careful. If your content is boring, no one will watch it. It doesn’t even always have to 100% go back precisely to your brand. Just start by engaging the viewer.
Youtube Tips
Tell a story with your videos. Encourage certain emotions that are related to your brand before using a call to action. The content doesn’t need to always reflect your brand specifically, it can relate to values promoted by your brand instead.
Remember that if someone is looking something up on YouTube, they are probably just at the shopping around stage. You want them interested in your company so that their ultimate decision is more likely to be to choose your company.
Use keywords well: if the viewers aren’t looking for something related to your company, they won’t be interested in it.
Use videos as a lead towards your website. You want them to end up on your website rather than not feeling the need to keep going. Leave them hanging just enough that they’re interested enough to go looking around.
Make sure you create calls to action at the end of your videos!
Encourage viewers of your YouTube channel to check out your other media such as websites, Facebook pages, Twitter profiles, etc.
Make sure that your imagery reflects your brand. Profile images and other images on your channel page are important to encouraging others to look into your brand
Create a trailer for your channel. You know how movies have a trailer that they play that shows a short blurb about the movie’s story? Well that’s what you need to do for your YouTube channel. This will engage new, unsubscribed users.
Most studies have shown that users decide within the first 15 seconds of a video whether to finish watching it. Make the initial content engaging and important.
Marketing on Youtube is different from other Social Media: you have to tell a story. Check out this article about content marketing.
Make sure your title is engaging. Keep important keywords to the beginning and brand it near the end. However, don’t trick visitors into watching videos, this lowers your engagement and rankings in search.
Put call to action in the description. Links to your site, to your other social media, to purchasing, etc. All of that goes in the description.
Make sure your tags are accurate and descriptive. They are used to find your videos.
Once you’ve had an account for 30 days that’s in good standing, you can upload custom thumbnails to your videos. These can very easily be used to draw people in.
Annotations are text overlays that can be placed over your videos. These can also be used for calls to action. Just be careful, too many will turn off viewers.
Engage with your community! Just because this is different content doesn’t mean that users don’t want to feel like the company cares. React to commenters and other members of the community.
Cross Promote. You can work with other channels to create content for both of you.
Promote outside of YouTube. Post your videos on social media, embed them in blog posts, anywhere. Many people find videos outside of YouTube itself.
Videos are the simplest way to tell an engaging story with your brand.
Remember, all social media promotion takes time and consistent effort. You may not get instant results but persistence pays off!