This is a guest blog post from Graeme Thomas, a new media specialist at Igloo Media
.
If you have decided to use YouTube as a tool for your business, you may be starting to think about what kind of content will engage your existing customers and attract new ones.
Video is the best medium for product demonstrations, comparisons, instructional footage, customer testimonials and staff stories. With high definition video cameras now available on most devices and the rise of affordable editing software, it’s easier than ever for you to produce good quality video content.
Before you get started, it’s worth knowing there are over one billion unique users watching six billion hours of video on YouTube every month. The flip side is the staggering amount of content that is being posted on YouTube. Best estimates are about 52 million hours per year and this amount is growing at an accelerating rate.
So in these vast oceans of video content on YouTube how is an audience going to find you and your stories? The answer is they won’t. Not unless you have a clear content distribution strategy. Audience development is just as important as video production and success on YouTube is impossible without it.
These are my tips for setting up your YouTube channel for success from the very start:
1. Understand your audience
Who is your audience and why will they want to watch your video? In my view this is the most important question you need to ask yourself and the first step in any successful new media journey.
Before you produce your content think about who your audience is likely to be. If you don’t know then make some assumptions based on who your current customers are. I always write down a description of my target audience that includes whether they’re male or female, where they live, how old they are, what they like to do and why they might be interested in seeing my video stories.
When you’ve personalised your audience and made some assumptions about the sort of people they are, then think about what they need to know before they would buy your product or service. Then think about how YouTube and video can help them buy from you.
I recently saw some research that indicated that more than 40% of my client’s customers didn’t like going into stores and asking sales people for a product demonstration.
So we used YouTube to take the product to the customer. For the first time people could watch a demonstration of the product in the privacy of their own homes whenever they wanted to. Look for similar insights in your business. Ask yourself how a direct one to one video relationship can improve your customer’s experience.
2. Use metrics to manage success
One of the great things about the YouTube platform is that it tells you (amongst other things) how many people watch your video. Think like a television programmer and use this view count to measure the success of each video you publish and continuously improve your channel.
My advice is: before you invest time and money in video production, have it clear in your head how much you think an online video view is worth to your business and use that figure to measure success, improve your story telling and measure your return on investment.
One of the organisations I work with values each online video view at $3.00 and uses this simple metric to manage all costs associated with the video production. They put a value against their management time and external production costs and calculate a return on investment.
Another company I know stopped printing product brochures and used the money they saved to equip their sales people with online video demonstrations. The rationale being that video is a better medium for demonstrating product than print and the demonstrations can be shared online, in showrooms and via other stakeholders without any incremental costs.
Have a clear picture of what online video success looks like and a metric to measure it. Armed with an understanding of your audience and a clear metric you now need to build your channel.
3. Partnerships and social media
Most people make a video, post it on YouTube, get less than 20 views and are disappointed. The same thing may happen to you unless you build your channel.
Ask yourself how you can actively take your content to an audience? Who do you know that would share your content on their assets such as websites, emails, blogs and other large social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram?
If you have an email database then you can send a link to your video via email. Making your content interesting and visual (pictures instead of text) will usually get you higher email open rates and video views.
Partnerships can be really important in content marketing and to be successful you need to proactively foster them. I always advise clients to write a list of all their sponsorships, key suppliers, business partnerships, member organizations and any other commercial relationships they have.
Look at the names on your list and think about what digital assets you may be able to leverage and how to use online video on those platforms. Your aim should be to build a digital community where content is shared for mutual advantage. The strength of your digital community is going to be really important to your business over the next few years so my advice is to get started as soon as you can.
Now that you’ve understood your audience, established metrics and built a distribution channel you can start making your content.
4. Content strategy and regular updates
It’s important to post video content regularly and consistently. I advise clients to initially commit to producing and posting a new story each month.
Have a plan for your content and try to build out a story arc over time. It’s a bit like writing a book, each video is a new chapter in your business story. Measure response and feedback and continually refine your storytelling to improve views and reduce costs.
Now we need to help prospects actively searching to buy products you sell find your business. This is called Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).
5. Search and your business
You are given options to tag your videos when you post them on YouTube. Think about the tags and what people are likely to be typing into Google (YouTube) when they are looking for information about something.
My experience has been that ‘how to’ is always a good place to start, as people are actively searching YouTube for specific fact based content that they can apply to solve a problem. For example:
a vet might use the tag: ‘how to treat your cat for ticks’
your hardware store: ‘how to build a deck’
dental practice: ‘how to whiten your teeth’.
SEO is a huge part of any internet related activity; my advice is to not be afraid of it. The platform is very easy to use and getting more and more intuitive all the time – it will even help make suggestions for you. So jump in, give it a try, learn as you go and improve all the time.
6. Get help and get going
If there’s anything about YouTube or online video that you don’t understand there are several places you can find help and most of them are free:
search for ‘how to start a YouTube channel’ and you’ll find a multitude of online video forums that are about YouTube
join a group on LinkedIn and ask a question—for example, YouTube marketing professional
type your question on Google and see what comes up
ask a friend who works in marketing or IT
pay an expert to give you advice, set you up and get you going.