Did you know that YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world? Consequently, YouTube happens to be the social media platform that enjoys the most Google organic visibility. If you’re not marketing your YouTube channel you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to reach your desired audience.
So how do you build your YouTube presence to create awareness around your brand and ultimately drive traffic back to your website? There are a number of tactics, tools and options at your disposal. But first, let’s look at a few things to keep in mind as you begin marketing your video content on YouTube.
Focus on Quality!
Before you attempt to market your videos, ask yourself some of these questions: Are they any good? Do people find them interesting? Do they bring anything new to the table?
The production values must equally match the level of enthusiasm that you share in marketing your videos. Whether these videos are music videos, tutorials, documentaries, or even movies, it’s important that they appear unique.
Whenever you are planning to create and market a product, quality and demand come first. Brush up your skills and come up with your own style, then start selling.
Marketers everywhere are turning to videos to reach their audiences. Hubspot found that 72 percent of people have watched videos to learn about products or companies. If you want people to find, watch, and share your videos then you have to first focus on quality content.
And it’s not really about the production costs or using expensive software. It’s about your unique selling point. These are a few of my favorite video examples.
- Is It Better to Walk Or Run In the Rain? By MinutePhysics: Not actually done in a minute, these videos typically last under four and usually are closer to two. They take complex concepts in science, mostly physics related. They break it down into easy to digest videos that are highly informative while being entertaining. On top of all, back when they started, this format was absolutely new and fresh which is why they did so well.
- A – Z of Dance by iD and Diesel: A project by iD and Diesel, the A – Z of Dance goes through a different style for each letter and shows how it is done by an expert with a couple of seconds per dance. It is interesting and beautifully made. It shows how you are able to use a short video to hold an entire project concept without needing a second video or series to do it. Unlike the previous example, it does seem to have very professional production, but that’s not the point. The point is that the idea behind the video is absolutely genius which is why it got so many views.
Whether you are planning a micro-video content strategy, a series of interviews or roundups, content quality (and mostly its originality) comes first, and this is no different when working with videos. Once that is handled, 80 percent of your job is done. The rest is easier.
Think About SEO
Now that you have your content angle identified and started working on the actual content, let’s take care of the boring, i.e. SEO.
Don’t get me wrong: I love SEO and to me it’s quite exciting but I can imagine that video creators may find this step quite tedious.
The thing is, Youtube videos get solid organic search visibility (Google loves serving their users all kinds of rich content including videos and images). And following basic SEO practices can get you ranked, sending you steady views and engagements.
To help you out, here’s a quick checklist for you to take care of the most important video context:
If you find it hard to come up with long video descriptions and hashtags, use Text Optimizer which is a semantic search analysis tool that helps you write content that includes related terms and concepts.
Click any of the above terms and Text Optimizer will even help build sentences. It’s a great time-saver, and it also helps rank your content (including video content) higher in search. It’s also a good idea to add a clickable table of contents to your videos using YouTube timestamps.
Work on Your YouTube Channel Layout
Anyone who makes an account and uploads a video or two will have a channel. But if it isn’t fully customized, you are missing out on a great branding opportunity. YouTube is a social media site and so your channel should reflect the look and feel of your other social media sites. Obviously, your channel title and URL should be associated with your brand, you should have a nice layout, provide a decent description, link it to all websites and profiles and keep active. But there’s more that you can do than just the basics.
There’s a sea of YouTube Channels. Stand out by creating a customized channel. This is a great way to make sure people know where to find your videos in the future. It will also encourage subscribers, which you should always be pushing for.
To customize your YouTube channel, go “My channel” -> “Customize channel” -> “Channel settings” and there “Customize the layout of your channel”
- Add a channel trailer,
- Suggest content for your subscribers
- Organize all your videos and playlists into sections
Use The Right Tools When Promoting YouTube Videos
You’ve created content, uploaded it, optimized it for SEO, and customized your channel, but you won’t get the traffic you desire unless you promote it. The two most obvious promotion tools come from YouTube itself. The first are simple buttons that will link to your account and direct people to your channel. Add these buttons to your website, your email marketing efforts, and other social media channels.
Next, make sure to pay special attention to the Subscribe button. Subscribers see your videos first on their YouTube home pages. You should do everything you can to direct people to that, such as with a call to action in the video itself, a reminder in the description and maybe even an arrow pointing from the video to the subscribe button above it. Remind people that it is the best way to get new content as it is uploaded.
Plugins and addons can also help you. My favorite is the Video Gallery. It allows you to select which videos from your channel you want to display in a slideshow for your blog posts. Here are also lots of great themes allowing you to promote your video content on your blog.
Whenever you are using your website to promote your videos, set up some advanced tracking to analyze whether your audience is engaging with your videos. Finteza is a great tool for that and you don’t have to know coding to set it up:
Here’s how you can set up ad zones on your site using Finteza. You can use these ad zones to schedule promotions for your videos too!
Create Eye-Catching Video Thumbnails
Video thumbnails work great for enticing clicks from related and suggested videos. Thumbnails also show up in Google’s video carousels.
You can use the free tier of Canva to create your video creatives. It’s full of nice templates. You can use any of the free photo sites (like this one) to edit images in Canva. Just make sure to keep your images consistent to make your style recognizable over time.
If you could use a recognizable branding for your videos (and different sections), this could improve click-through. It can be as easy as adding a watermark to your video thumbnail. Whatever you decide, consistency is key!
Are you marketing your video content on YouTube? Please share your tips and tricks that you’ve learned.
The original version of this article was first published on V3Broadsuite.
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