Friday, March 7, 2014

YouTube Advanced Techniques









A few weeks ago, we took a look at YouTube - the most popular video posting and sharing social platform on the market today. We discussed how to sign up, creating and testing videos and touched briefly on content optimization. Today, we’ll dive deeper into that topic and other advanced techniques.



Optimizing your YouTube content
There are a few steps that you can take to optimize your content that will really have an impact on the number of people that see it:

Include keywords in the video title. To optimize the title for Google search, keep your title under 66 characters. Use the same keyword research you probably did for your website in the video titles. Make sure you include the word “video” in the title. Finally, if you include the name of your company, make sure it’s last.

Write a description full of keywords - but make sure it sounds natural. There’s no worse video description than one that’s packed full of keywords for search optimization that make absolutely no sense. Layer in the same keywords that you considered for your title throughout a short description, but keep it natural sounding. When in doubt, nix the keyword in question in favor of correct grammar and keeping with your brand voice.

Transcribe your videos. Including a script of your video within the description (or even an abbreviated one) will help users that are searching the YouTube platform find your content. And, it’s becoming increasingly popular that users want to see a transcription to know what they’re watching before they dive in.



Other ways to get the most out of YouTube

1. Cross-promote your content everywhere. And I mean everywhere. With YouTube, this is extremely easy to do - when you post a new video on your channel, also post it on Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, wherever you have a presence. Driving traffic between your social media sites will help potential customers learn about and eventually trust your brand.

2. Partner with an established YouTuber. This is one of my favorite ways to market, whatever the social site. Find a YouTube users that shines in your business area or in a complementary one. In fact, find at least ten of these desired partners, because the first one almost never says yes.

Don’t just ask for them to promote your business; create a lite co-marketing agreement where you’ll repost a certain amount of their videos, comment, promote their content on other sites and more. In return, the established YouTube user will promote your content, activating their audience and placing eyeballs on your channel or website.

3. Direct traffic to your website. At the end of the day, you use social media to build your brand, interact with current and potential customers, gain trust and drive traffic to your website. This is something that marketers sometimes forget. Don’t get too caught up in being a thought leader that you don’t take advantage of the 10-20% of the time that you can and should be talking about yourself on social media.

It doesn’t have to be overly pushy or blatant advertising. Doing things like placing your website at the end of your YouTube video, pointing viewers to related content that’s housed on your site and other soft techniques can boost your web traffic, leading to brand awareness and ultimately sales.

Are you currently using YouTube for business? I’d love to hear about the challenges you’re facing and successes you’ve achieved. Leave a comment below or shoot me a note at jackie@jackiesteinmetz.com.