Upgrade Your Business Strategy By Using YouTube Marketing

In this article I will share with you how to use YouTube for your marketing and give you a few tips. I will also share some interesting facts about YouTube.

I believe we all know YouTube and we all spent time on it, watching cute animal videos or any other type of videos. YouTube is amazingly addictive for people and it's one of the best ways to increase your marketing plan strategy.

You probably remember the times when watching a video was only possible on VCR, DVD and Cable. Well, now we have YouTube for that and so many more ways of watching a video.

Did you know that almost half of all marketers (about 50%) plan to add YouTube to their marketing strategy over the course of the year?

In addition, almost a quarter of all online activity is spent watching videos and YouTube has more than a billion of active users.

YouTube was founded in February 14th, 2005 by three former PayPal employees — Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim.

In one way, it all started with Elon Musk, the man that was planning to send people to Mars and the same man who created the whole electric car company named Tesla.

After creating PayPal, he and his coworkers became interested in creating a dating website called “Tune In Hook Up”. A site where people could upload pictures of themselves in order to find dates. Later on, after failing with this site, they came up with the idea of YouTube. So, Tune In Hook Up was transformed into YouTube.

The YouTube community has only been around for 13 years and as we can all see, it already changed the world. Moreover, the platform is large enough to be accessed in 76 different languages, accounting for 95% of the world's population.

In terms of size on the web, YouTube is the third most visited website on the internet and the second largest search engine. There are basically more than 7 billion hours watched daily on YouTube. Not to mention it will probably take you about a week to watch all the amount of videos that are uploaded every 60 seconds.

Moreover, I'd like to point out that 80% of the views are actually outside of the USA.

The reason it's so popular is because, it is the world's largest internet video sharing website. On YouTube, videos are available to watch any time you want unlike TV.

You can use it to discover new videos, watch the ones you love and leave feedback. Or upload your own videos and choose to share them with the world, or just with friends and family, or keep them private. Upload videos, customize a channel, optimize videos for search, promote videos and more.

As you have probably noticed by now, as time goes by, getting your YouTube channel to really stand out is a real tough challenge. Mainly, because there are so many various types of videos online, it makes your job even harder.

However, there is still a way you could have success marketing with YouTube. What you need to do is get people's interest and curiosity in your content and ensure that your videos are one of a kind.

Here are some of the most popular categories for content creation on YouTube:

• Music
• Gaming
• Kid's Content
• People and personalities
• Comedy
• Beauty
• Technology and random/weird experiments

Before you go into it, there are some questions you need to ask yourself. Who? What? When? Why? Where? and How?

Who will watch your videos? How big is your potential audience? What type of content will you create? Why do I want this? Where do I want it to lead me?

Once you've got that figured out and know exactly what you want to achieve, you can finally start.

However, just like blogging, in order to succeed, you'll need to invest a lot of time and effort into it. It can be quite challenging and demanding, but if you invest an appropriate amount of time and energy into it, you'll be able to create engaging, shareable content for your growing audience.

In the beginning, in order to get started, you need set up your YouTube channel. Because Google owns YouTube, the process requires a gmail account as well.

However, the good news is, when you sign up for a Gmail account, you automatically have access to a YouTube account. I would strongly recommend that you link your business email to your YouTube channel if you want to have it easier.

It's basically a lot better because you don't have to struggle following multiple emails at a time and you can easily share access with team members or an agency partner.

Here you have to click on “More options”, then select “Create account”.

Once you've done so, it will get you to the page where you can start creating your account by entering the information requested. After filling in the information, click “Next step”.

After that, you will have to agree to Google's Privacy Policy and Terms of Service, then verify your account with a code sent via text or phone call.

Done! You're all set up with your account.

Before you go about setting up your channel, you need think of a name for your channel/brand account. This is one tough decision because it can't be any. It has to be a catchy name that holds a strong brand and identity, something that people will remember and be attracted to. 

Furthermore, you want to avoid long and complex titles that just irritate your potential audience. The good news is that you can always go back and edit the name. 

After you've chosen a name for your channel, you can go to YouTube.com. Here you will notice that you are already signed in with the account you've created and all that's left is to go to settings and click on “My Channel” in the menu that's on the left side.

Next, you'll see the option to create a channel. What's important here, for your company, is to click on “Use a business or other name” which shows right below.

Enter the brand account name you've chosen and click on “Create.” So here you have your YouTube channel.

The next step would be customizing your channel. In order to do that you have to click on “CUSTOMIZE CHANNEL”.

Here you can start by uploading a channel icon and channel art. This step is vital because it will be the first things viewers see when they visit your YouTube account, so you need to make sure you choose great images that are linked to your overall branding.

A channel icon should basically be the company's logo or if you don't have a business, a professional ID picture.

To get the channel icon uploaded, click on the default red profile picture in the top left corner and upload an image. The recommended size of the picture is 800 × 800 px square or round image. Please note, it may take a few minutes for your channel icon to appear after uploading.

Afterwards,to upload your channel art. click on the blue “Add channel art” button placed in the center of your channel. Again, the recommended size of the upload is a 2560 × 1440 px image that will show well on any device.

Later on, after completing the upload for your channel icon and art, you can continue to add in the “About” field, a channel description, a company email, and links to your company website and other social platforms. The description of the channel should contain vital information about your company and about what type of video content you are going to share.

Similar to blogging, the description is crucial because it determines the rank of your profile. So make sure you add relevant keywords in it.

YouTube has the option where you can customize the way your channel looks to subscribers and unsubscribed visitors. Furthermore, it allows you to set up a trailer for your channel which is the video version of your description and is shown to all your unsubscribed viewers. Your channel trailer should be short and nice (around 30 seconds to 1 minute).

In that trailer, you should concentrate on letting visitors know what your channel is about, what they can expect to see, and encourage them to subscribe to your channel.

To finally get started, make sure the channel customization is turned on. In order to do this, click on the gear icon next in the upper right corner of your channel.

Next, activate “Customize the layout of your channel” and click “Save.”

After setting up your channels customization, you can upload your trailer. To do that, click the upload icon in the top right corner and select the video file. Remember to add keywords to your trailer name and description. Once your video uploads, click on the “For new visitors” tab on your channel homepage.

Afterwards, click on “Channel trailer” and select your uploaded trailer, or enter a URL to a video you'd like to feature, and click “Save”.

From here on, you can continue uploading videos of course. An important aspect of having a YouTube channel is being consistent with your video uploads.

If you're a beginner and you don't exactly have any history online, it's vital to promote your YouTube channel and videos on other platforms. The bright side of this is that YouTube and other platforms make it effortless to share video content.

Here are some tips for how to best advertise your YouTube content on other platforms:

Email is one of the fastest ways you can advertise your YouTube videos. Not to mention it is also direct and guaranteed.

The reason it is so effective is because you can send an email with interesting information and content to your subscribers. Not only will this help you promote your videos, but also drive traffic to your website and keep your readers engaged.

Advertising your YouTube videos on social media is a great painless way to drive traffic to your video content and engage with viewers. In order to share a video, click the “Share” tab underneath the video and select to market the video. YouTube even provides a shortened URL to your video for convenient sharing.

Although this is great for your growth, only sharing the video on your timeline or feed is not enough. Make sure you create questions and answers videos as well and include relevant #hashtags where appropriate to ensure your video's promotion.

This is actually one of the effortless ways! To advertise through your blog and website, you simply have to embed the videos on your website or in your posts. Or, you can just as easily add an icon of YouTube on your site and blog.

Using this type of advertising will not only help you promote your YouTube channel and videos, but it will also get you traffic for your blog and website.

One of the most efficient ways to get your YouTube channel advertised, shared, and seen is by collaborating with other people.

Basically, if you collaborate with someone else who has a similar audience, they get exposure to your audience and you get exposure to theirs. So, it's a win-win situation.

Connecting with your audience can do miracles for you. It's important to reply to their comments, answer their questions, ask for their feedback, and thank them for subscribing and supporting you.

In conclusion, using YouTube as a marketing strategy for your business is a necessity. It's crucial to create content that shares an interesting idea and aids your viewers by receiving valuable information.

In the end, I wanted to let you know once again, that I look forward to hearing from you. Please share your thoughts and give me a feedback so I know where I have to improve. Thank you!