Small businesses today should take advantage of the power of YouTube for their marketing and branding campaigns. YouTube has truly revolutionized visual media today, consumers no longer need to depend only on traditional TV media for visual entertainment and information.
Moreover, the cost of uploading a video on YouTube is zero and the audience reach on YouTube can be many times more than that of traditional media. Hence, it makes more business sense for companies to do more YouTube videos.
Below are 7 tips for small businesses in creating successful YouTube videos.
1. Provide Value in Your Video
What kind of value do you exactly want the consumer to take it away from your video? To get informed about your brand? To see how your product can better their lifestyle? Or to gain more knowledge?
The value of your YouTube video is what you want your business to be perceived in the eyes (minds) of your consumers.
2. Educate People on Your Expertise
Educate your consumers, create how-to videos tutorials; educate them on your current industry trends and show them the benefits of using your products and services. If you are a golf coach, show people simple swinging techniques on YouTube; if you are a website designer, teach people how to create a quality website and so on.
The more your business teaches, the more people will then perceive you as the expert or the market leader in your industry; and consumers will be more confident of your brand, making your products and services easier to sell.
3. Entertaining? It really depends
True enough, entertaining and funny videos on YouTube are the most viral of all. However, it does that mean that your business need to make more entertaining videos. It really depends on the nature of your business. Say if you are a lawyer or an accountant, doing entertaining video may not be wise enough as it may make some of your consumers think that you are childish and unprofessional.
So, before you make that entertaining video, think about what are the possible effect for your business; is it good or bad? Think of whether more people will feel that your brand looks plain silly or will your business increase in potential customers as a result?
4. No Offensive Stuff Please
Profanity, negative and sensitive videos will make your business look bad and non-credible, so try to refrain from all these. Do not use YouTube as a platform to bring down or insult your competitors. Play fair.
5. Keep it Short & Make Your Meaning Clear
People’s attention level are pretty short nowadays due to the massive readily information available to us on the internet. Hence, try to make all your videos as short as possible; rule of the thumb, keep them within 2.5 minutes. Capture their attention with the first ten seconds of your video.
6. Hard Selling Ads is not good
Treat YouTube as a visual communication channel to inform, to teach and to entertain your consumers on the internet. Advertisement videos may give people the impression that your business is too hard sell, thus making them to shun away from your business.
7. Share it on Social Media
Once you have uploaded your video on YouTube, quickly share it to your social media audience. Social media gives your consumers convenient channels to share your videos in a viral manner, thus channeling more traffic to your business website or YouTube channel.
And Don’t Worry About the Numbers
Quality and customer’s conversion matter more than the numbers. It is okay if your video is not as viral as Gangnam style or a Justin Bieber video. more importantly of all, your video needs to provide value to your consumers, making them to see your business as a reputable brand in your industry.