Jay LeonardIn the early years of YouTube, users enjoyed funny content, great music and news features from celebrity updates to sports reels. But as YouTube exploded into the super power it is today, businesses realized it’s an avenue of marketing that could both promote content and gain new audiences. Here are seven ways that YouTube, the easiest video tool to use, can promote a business without any heavy lifting.
1. Know Your Audience
As with any marketing concept, knowing your audience is the key to reaching the right people and giving them information they want to know. Business Insider describes YouTube audiences as having a short attention span, which means promoted content cannot be presented in full. YouTube viewers want quick videos that will not lose their attention and businesses want that interest turning into a desire for more information. A business only needs to plant a seed with an interesting YouTube video.
If advertisements get people into stores than YouTube videos for businesses should get them to the website. This can be a little more difficult on YouTube, where putting links directly into videos sometimes annoys viewers. If doing so, businesses need to make sure the links are unobtrusive and look clean-cut and professional. The best way to get user to find the website is through the channel name and descriptions of the video. A great example is Rackspace Hosting, which includes a description about the company with a clear website link and logo. While their main domain name, Rackspace.com, is separate from their YouTube channel name, RackspaceHosting, both domains take users to the website. Businesses always need to make sure that if their YouTube channel name is used as a domain it will go to their website.
Just like blogging, YouTube offers viewers the ability to follow a channel. When a business keeps a clean and easy to navigate YouTube channel they make it easier on users to track down what videos they want to watch. Cluttered channels and poorly labeled videos will make this more difficult.
4. YouTube Gold
Some businesses can strike gold when using a particularly funny clip or well-designed promotion of content. Even users not generally interested in what the business is offering might watch a great video. This means that fewer but better quality videos are more valuable than numerous but poorly made ones. While some viewers might not have an interest in what a business is offering, they will still add to the YouTube view count, increase popularity, and increase traffic that attracts real customers.
5. Keywords
Just like a business’s website, the SEO tactics of the YouTube video and channel page are crucial. Descriptions, titles and tags need to be riddled (but not overwhelmed) with appropriate SEO keywords. A business want users to find their content easily and having a video appear on YouTube’s sidebar suggestions can help bring in new viewers.
6. Feedback and Commentary
One of the more underrated advantages to using YouTube is that businesses can present a new avenue for users to provide feedback. It offers a way to easily engage with an audience and show a company’s customer service. Additionally, conversations between YouTube users can offer insight to a business about customers thoughts, what they like or dislike and what information they might not know.
7. Embedded Shares
Embedded YouTube videos are the equivalent of free marketing. Robin Good of Master New Media points out the marketing value of YouTube videos:
“Every time someone chooses to embed these videos in their own blog or website, they in turn point their own site visitors in the direction of Master New Media. Everyone’s a winner.”
Every business needs to utilize every avenue of reaching a customer base. From social media tools and blogs to YouTube, every opportunity can bring in new viewers that drive up traffic and propel a business to the forefront of search engines.
This article was written for Business 2 Community by Jay Leonard.
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I agree Youtube is an excellent platform for business promotion, but it really needs to be used to its full potential. It amazes me how many businesses upload videos to Youtube but fail to include a proper optimised title, description and website URL.
What I particularly like about the Youtube channel is that you can brand your channel with your own logo, create social sharing tabs to Facebook and Google+ and even create anchor text links to your website. A good example of a finely tuned Youtube video channel is ReelSeo. Their channel ticks all the right boxes because they have taken the time to provide all the necessary information about their business in a clear and concise way. This will create a good first impression and will definitely help attract potential channel subscribers.