With more than 50 million content creators on YouTube showcasing their videos it is imperative that you make your content stand out. In addition you need to think carefully about how you are going to raise awareness about your brand as many YouTube viewers are not huge fans of advertising. Therefore, you need to ensure that your viewers are entertained and that your marketing message is clear, on-point and engaging. This all might appear a challenge but with a targeted approach, it’s achievable and with our 10-step guide to YouTube marketing we’ll help to get you there!

Create your YouTube channel for business

Firstly open your brand account on google. When you create your YouTube channel using a regular Google account, only one person—the Google Account holder—can log into that channel. By creating your YouTube channel using a Brand Account, multiple authorised Google Accounts can log in simultaneously.

Take inspiration from your favourite channels

When you are browsing You Tube videos ask yourself what is it about this particular video that holds your attention? By paying attention to your own viewing patterns and the videos that receive the most engagement you’ll acquire the techniques and best practices to drive viewers to your own videos.

Audience Research

Your YouTube channel for business gives you access to the Analytics tab, which contains a range of stats including quantitative insights on your channel and your audiences behaviour including view counts, average watch time, revenue generated and video interaction rates. In addition you can find valuable data on your subscriber demographics. The demographics tab gives you valuable information on the age and gender of your audience and where your videos are being viewed. Beyond quantitative metrics, you can also gain qualitative information from the comments on your videos that will help to inform part of your marketing strategy.

Furthermore, the YouTube Community Page is an underrated space for finding out about your audience. Located under the Community tab on your profile, you can interact with your subscribers directly, post questions or create a poll to gain a greater understanding of how your audience thinks.

Research your competition

Competitive analysis is essential if you want to get ahead of your competitors on YouTube. If you browse your competitors’ YouTube channels and get insight into which videos got the most and least views you’ll get an understanding on what kind of content your audience likes to watch and use that to inform your own content strategy.

Furthermore, make sure you read competing video descriptions to see what keywords they’re using in their YouTube search optimisation. Use similar ones to boost your ranking in YouTube’s search pages and recommended video feeds.

Optimize your videos for SEO

If you want to get the most value from your You Tube videos you need to optimise them for search. Firstly, it’s imperative that you pick the right title with the right key words and ensure that the title is relevant to the video topic. In addition, include exact keywords matching common search terms as it will get you more clicks. If you’re looking for inspiration checkout Google Ads keyword planner as it’s an excellent tool for this.

Furthermore, when you upload your video make your own customised thumbnail as this will help your content stand out. Your video description should contain a concise explanation of your video topic as well as links to your website and social media accounts. In addition add hashtags to make your content more searchable and ensure that your video ends with a verbal call to action such as a like, share or subscribe.

Upload and schedule your videos

Once your optimised videos have been created it's important that you schedule them. If you treat YouTube like TV you can’t go wrong! Think about viewing habits and regular scheduling to encourage your viewers to come back for more content. You can upload and schedule your videos in advance with tools like Hootsuite which allow you to cross promote your video releases with posts on other social channels all from the same dashboard.

Optimise your channel - attract more followers

Providing a consistent experience across your channel will enable you to bring in more views and convert those views into regular subscribers. Therefore, it’s imperative that you fill out as many relevant details on your profile as possible including an eye catching banner image, a keyword rich biography, location and contact information and links to your website and social media profiles. In addition you can also add a list of Featured channels to your YouTube profile which will give your subscribers easy access to other YouTube resources that they might be interested in.

Create playlists

When your YouTube videos are organised into playlists, they’ll auto-play until the playlist ends, keeping viewers on your channel for longer.

Make sure that there is a logical progression from one video to the next as this will reduce the amount of people clicking away to another channel.

You can build playlists entirely using your own videos but why not include partner videos, that way they may share your videos which will create greater awareness of your product or brand.

Translation

As more than 60% of a YouTube channel’s views originate outside the creators own country it is important that you expand your reach by adding subtitles to your YouTube videos. To get you started you can crowd-source free translations from your fan base! To do this you need to turn on community contributions for videos. This feature is also available on a per video basis which you might want to start with if you’re trying it out for the first time. However, crowdsourced content isn’t fool proof and won’t always give you the best quality but it is worth implementing it as part of your initial internationalisation policy.

YouTube advertising

With YouTube advertising the critical component is to produce relevant and engaging content that makes the viewer forget that they are watching an advert. In addition it is worthwhile checking out the variations of YouTube adverts as they come in different varieties including skippable video ads, nonskippable video ads, Bumper ads, Overlay ads, Display ads and sponsored cards.

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing has become more prevalent in the last couple of years and one of the best ways to showcase your product or brand is to work with an influencer on YouTube. According to a recent survey by Google 60% of YouTube subscribers trust the opinions of their favourite influencers. Linking in with an influencer’s tuned-in audience can result in dramatic returns, however it is imperative that you do your research beforehand as its been proven that people claiming to be influencers with a large amount of followers are not receiving the engagement that they claim to have.

Analyse

You’ve built your YouTube channel, increasing your content and creating partnerships with influencers but you haven’t finished yet! It’s important that you constantly monitor and review your channel whenever you publish a new video for new or changing demographics, changes in subscriber count, locations and traffic sources and device reports. In addition make sure to read the comments to get an even greater insight into what your audience thinks!

 

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