How to use YouTube

Next, let’s have a look at YouTube – the world’s most popular video streaming platform! It has more than two billion users, with about one billion hours of video watched every day.

But YouTube is not just a video streaming service – it’s also a social media platform thanks to its various social functionalities like commenting on creators’ videos and replying to fellow users’ comments, which allows them to freely communicate and feel connected with each other.

YouTube’s global advertising revenues in 2021 were estimated to be around $28.84 billion. This means that YouTube is a fantastic platform to advertise your brand, engage new users and turn them into customers.

Top tips

To be successful in leveraging the power of YouTube, it’s essential to follow the following points:

• Personalise your YouTube channel and answer your potential customers’ questions. You could do this in the comments, or even through posting Q&A and “AMA” (Ask Me Anything) videos where you answer people’s questions and bring a fresh perspective to the table.
• Keep a consistent publishing schedule. Make sure you post quality videos on a regular basis.
• Interact with others in your field. Collaborate with them, interview them, subscribe to their channels – this is a great way to network and reach new audiences!
• Optimise for search results. Remind people to subscribe to your channel, and like and comment on your videos. This will recommend your videos to more people, and your videos will show up in the top search results.

  Tags: In addition to categories, you can also add tags to your videos to give YouTube more context about your content. You can use quite a few tags, so add as many as you can think of. Mention keywords in your video.

  Transcription: Do you have the original script you used to make your video, or do you have a few minutes to transcribe it? Adding a transcription to your video can give it a boost in search and cater to visitors who prefer reading over watching.
• Write engaging titles. The catchier the title, the more users will click on your video! Customising your video thumbnails will also help grab people’s attention.
• Engage with your community! Like and respond to their comments as fast as feasible. This will help you form a better connection with your subscribers.
• Run contests and giveaways. This will make people talk about your product and might entice even people unfamiliar with your business to join the giveaway and potentially become a customer. Look at subscriber engagement numbers to make sure people don’t subscribe to you just because they want a free prize.
• Embed YouTube videos on your website’s product page. You can then promote your videos on other social channels. Video content has been proven to improve conversion rates, so make sure to make the most of YouTube.
• Have a look at the trending hashtags. This can be found on the Explore section of the platform. This way you can identify what type of videos are popular on YouTube.
• YouTube is one of the most popular platforms for influencer marketing. Search for popular and respected influencers in your industry and send them a product sample for them to review or pay them to use your product in their videos. Influencers can also run contests where they can entice participants to subscribe to your website’s newsletter, or subscribe to your YouTube channel, or follow your other social media profiles, and the giveaway prize is your product. This means that your brand will reach a lot of new audiences, some of which may become customers.
• Check YouTube Analytics. The Analytics tab of the YouTube Studio offers data about how your videos and channel are performing. This way you can make informed decisions about what types of videos work best for your target audience.

Content type

As mentioned in previous lessons – it’s important to know your target audience! You’ll want to know which segment of YouTube’s huge audience with mixed demographics you want to market to before producing videos.

There are many types of content that can be posted on YouTube to increase the awareness of your brand. For example, product-based educational videos can increase your audience’s understanding of your product and help them trust your brand. Or you can choose to post challenge videos where members of your team take on a trending challenge to stay relevant and show the human side of your business. 96% of potential buyers have watched explainer videos to learn about a product or service, making it a good investment for you as well: in a catchy video, introduce the problem that your product can solve and the solution it creates. This will help potential buyers understand whether your product suits their needs.

You can also follow up with product demo videos – use characters in your videos that fit the demographics and characteristics of your target audience, let them tell their story, the problems they are having, and the solution in the form of your product or service. Build hype around your new product or anticipated feature launch by creating a product launch YouTube video. Keep it simple so that viewers remember the key feature and message of your product. After the launch of a product, you can also upload business results videos. This kind of video is great for wrapping your quarter or year — showcasing your results to impress your audience, investors and potential employees.

Depending on your type of business, reaction videos could also fit your needs! They provide entertainment value and are very popular on the platform. For example, you could react to other viral videos related to your industry. Think about what works best for your brand image and strategy.

YouTube Shorts

There is another service on YouTube called YouTube Shorts which may help you reach your advertising goals and become viral. YouTube Shorts rivals TikTok and Instagram Reels as it offers a similar service: seconds-long vertical videos with musical overlays aimed to get viral! YouTube’s advantage is that because its content is so vast, it attracts users of many different age groups and from many different industries. Therefore, if you want to attract older generations than Gen Z, which is TikTok’s main demographic, then YouTube Shorts is a great option to advertise your brand. Unlike Instagram Stories and Reels, YouTube Shorts content doesn’t disappear after 24 hours, which can help grow long-term brand awareness.

Algorithm

YouTube’s algorithm has two questions in mind when recommending videos to users on their homepage: would the user be interested in this video and will the user be engaged by the content? This means that it’s not enough for users to click on your videos (although still helpful) – the longer they watch your videos without clicking away and the more they like your videos, the more YouTube will keep recommending your videos and your view count will increase.

Ads

• If you don’t have the time or the means to invest in creating regular video content for YouTube, you can still leverage the platform’s paid ad campaigns!
• You can use display ads that appear on the right-hand sidebar on videos – these are not available on mobile phones.
• You can use sponsored cards that appear as popups within videos and are related to the video content, encouraging viewers to click on them, generally leading them to the brand’s website.
• You can use overlay ads that are semi-transparent popups displayed at the bottom part of a video – these are not available on mobile phones.
• Video ads can be skippable or non-skippable and they show up before, during or after a video. This is a highly targeted and cost-effective way to market your products.
• Bumper ads are non-skippable, short video ads that must be watched before a video. This way you can engage your target audience with bite-sized, memorable messages.

You can also consider ad readouts. In this case, influencers will dedicate a few seconds or minutes of their videos to talk about your brand.