Time to trounce that time-honored misconception that You Tube can actually harm your business? In certain cases yes, however with the right strategy You Tube can be a real value-add to your sales and marketing objectives. Some of the most highly viewed and engaging videos are low budget (or no budget!) authentic videos shot by the community, for the community.
Here are some top tips to get you started:
No Need to Reinvent the Wheel
Generally, the videos that do well are entertaining or informative. Spend some time on the site itself to see what works. Find out what videos in your market have the most views, high ratings, most comments or most subscribers. Repeat and iterate
Plant your Best Performing Keywords in the Right spot
Use the Google Keyword Tool to find variations of the keyword for useful suggestions to your title, description and title fields. These will also feature in suggestions next to popular videos
Example Keyword: “How to optimise your social media campaign”
Title — How to optimise your social media campaign
Description — http://www.YourSite.com/blog – Do you want to know how to optimize your social media campaign?
Watch this tutorial NOW!!
Tags — social media campaign, social media campaigns, how to optimize your social media campaign, optimize your social media campaigns
Customize Your Channel
Before uploading your videos, customize your channel (profile), be sure to check sizing dimensions (which are frequently updated, much to the annoyance of your designer!) Include some info about you and a link to your site.
CTAs, get creative
Here are a handful of winners:
- Please rate this video.
- Follow me on Twitter.
- Find me on Facebook.
- Subscribe to my videos.
- Visit my blog for more great videos.
- Embed this on your site.
- Please post your comments.
- Send this video to your friends.
- Check out my channel.
Additionally include overlay text in your videos, and use some of the above messages where appropriate.
Video Responses
Look for videos related to yours and whenever it’s appropriate post your videos as video responses to them (don’t spam). This is an excellent traffic driving strategy.
Create Playlists
Playlists are a great way to get your videos watched and drive traffic, simply by tagging and categorizing the most relevant videos for your playlist and naming it wisely.
Add Your URL to the Description
Add the “http://” version of your URL to the beginning of your video description so people can click and visit your site directly.
Socialize the Experience
You Tube is a social network, with the functionality to add friends, message them, join groups, create your own group and use the bulletin board to interact with the YouTube community. Go for it
Photo source here.
