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In a few short years YouTube has gone from being an entertaining
curiosity filled with funny videos to the world’s second largest search
engine. During that span the company (along with Google) managed to
harness its initial popularity to create an increasingly lucrative
marketing hub as more viewers and advertisers migrated from television
to the Internet.
No longer strictly the domain of film geeks and funny video
aficionados, the network, which boasts more than 2 billion video
views monetized per week, can also provide a low-cost to no-cost way to
create a social marketing channel for your business.
If you aren’t effectively leveraging the network, you’re missing the
viral video boat. However, as with most things in life, success isn’t
often attained with a haphazard, slapdash effort. Being successful on
YouTube takes planning.
These 10 easy steps are a good place to start.
1. Know what “success” means.
What are you trying to achieve?
- Video views – Do you just want a lot of people to see your video?
- Conversions – Do you need people to click to another website and take an action?
- Deeper engagement with your brand – Do you need to use video give your potential customers more interaction with your brand?
2. Research keywords.
To be discovered on the second largest search engine, you will need to know what people are looking for. Use YouTube’s Keyword Tool to find popular searches within your space.
3. Know your competition.
Search on YouTube to find other videos that rank well for the
keywords that you would like to rank for. See what it is that you are
up against and seek out strategies to out-do them.This phase should
also help you in your keyword research. Find opportunities: are there
some high traffic keywords that seem like they may be easier to rank
for than others?
4. Create a kick-ass video.
You don’t just create viral content
because you want to. Viral content – unless it happens by chance – must
be well though-out and gripping! No one is going to pass on a video to
their friend(s) if they don’t really care for it themselves.
5. Fill-out your video details.
Put important keywords at the front of your video titles, include
them in your description, and tags. Do not over-do it, just put
keywords that are relevant and are based on your keyword research.
Allow your videos to be embedded. Otherwise, viewers will only be able
to see your videos on YouTube.
6. Use the “Featured Videos” section.
If you are certain that your video will be a major hit, then use
YouTube’s paid “Featured Videos” service to get your video seen by many
people in a short amount of time. Once the video takes off, your
organic traffic will usually out-do your paid traffic.
7. Insert links in your videos.
Use annotations to insert links to other videos to maximize every
viewer. Do not over-do this either. Make sure that annotations do not
impede the viewing experience.
8. Interact with high value users.
Find users on YouTube who are active and add value through their participation in the social network.
Get your video in front of them – without spamming so that they can do
part of the work for you. Your video will also benefit with more
traffic thanks to increased comments. YouTube will be soon be
implementing new features to increase the amount of social interaction
on the website (for example by making it easier to find your friends).
9. Use social media.
With built-up and relevant social media accounts, get your video
seen by more people. By “relevant” I mean that your friends and your
user history should be somehow related to the topic of your video for
it to get more qualified traffic. My favorite sites for video sharing
are Digg, Twitter, and StumbleUpon.
10. Rinse, wash, repeat.
Go back and start over. Look at what you can improve about your
video(s) and continue to keep your video channel page fresh with more
videos!
