Have you thought about using YouTube as a means of marketing? We’ve put together a few tips on how to promote your business to billions…

YouTube is one of the best video sharing platforms in the realm of social media, and with over two billion active users, video creators and 500 hours of video uploaded every minute, it’s an indispensable advertising and marketing tool; because of this, marketers are ready to post their brands on YouTube as it can be a cost-effective way to enhance business and easily integrated into a marketing strategy. Not sure where to begin with creating and posting content? Here’s a few simple ideas that can help improve your small businesses’ visibility and credibility…

Promoting your business using YouTube

Customise your channel:

Your channel front is the first thing that your audience sees when they click on to your YouTube page. Hence, if your page looks professional, it will attract an audience. YouTube provides the opportunity for marketers to customise their page using colours, icons, channel arts, images links etc. and enable your channel to be identifiable with a growing audience. We recommend using your branding for the logo and apply this throughout your theming, and ensure that you enter your business’ information in the profile section to provide details to those searching. Play around with the settings and ensure that your following receive notifications when you upload new content.

Keyword research:

Using related keywords within your video content can help you to improve your ranking, and when viewers search those keywords, you will appear on SERP pages. By doing your keyword research and ensuring that you optimise uploads with keywords, you’ll attract an audience who is searching for your content. This can also be used within your content and tags. Make sure that keywords are relevant to your content and to your niche. Add the keywords in your video title, description, and tags

If you want high-quality keywords, look into using a keyword tool to obtain free keywords. Use Google Trends to reclaim YouTube search results with specific keywords, and set the location, target demographic to gain the most relevant results.

See also: 4 Ultimate SEO Tools for E-Commerce Startups

Optimise your channel:

The ultimate goal is to promote your business using a YouTube channel, so after you obtain your set of keywords, you will can then upload videos enhance your brand. To optimise your channel ensure that you look at the following:

Video titles: A title must be relevant to your content and easily attractable for a potential audience. The total length of the title must be less than 65 characters, so be sure to place keywords at the beginning of the title. 

Video Description: Write a video description that gives a brief overview of your content as YouTube needs as much information as possible to improve your rank while the audience searches. It should include several call to actions (CTAs) and  2-3 keywords in this section. Insert keywords that are naturally relatable and describe your content. In this sections, don’t be afraid to ask questions and encourage comments! 

Video Tags: Most videos improve their rankings with the help of video tags. Generally, you can add 5-8 keyword tags to a single video. It improves your video ranking, keeps an eye on your competitors and notes which keywords get more traffic to videos similar to yours! 

Promoting your business using YouTube

Make engaging content:

Making any old video for the sake of marketing is easy, but what makes yours unique? Your content represents a brand or business, so concentrate on your content quality to maximise your chances of audience engagement. Unique and precise content captures an audiences attention more easily, and once they like your content, chances are they will follow and frequently watch your videos. An audience gives authority and support to a growing channel; often leaving comments and likes on your videos, inviting more people to do the same. If you’re receiving positive comments, chances are you’ll encourage organic YouTube interactions. The better the content, the better your results. 

Connect your YouTube channel with social media

Now that you’ve created highly engaging content for your YouTube channel, you’ll need to deliver it to your audience and ensure that they subscribe! How can you help this process along? Social media is good place to start. Once you’ve published your videos, promote your channel with the likes of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. We wouldn’t suggest cross-promoting the same videos on all of your platforms, but instead build an audience in each network by publishing unique content across the board. Ensure that your business has an account on all platforms and share the URL, along with clips of your video content to each account. Keep in mind to add the CTA options in the description sections. 

See also: SEM vs SEO: How Search Marketing Can Help Your Business

Use paid advertising:

If you want to promote your content quickly, you’ll have to be prepared to spend some money. You can play around with YouTube’s advertising methods and see which one suits your budget and style of content. The three main methods are:

Skippable video ads: Skippable ads allow viewers to skip the ad after 5 seconds, these ad plays before, during, or at the end of the video. You only pay when the users select to keep watching for more than five seconds. This ad has a cap of 12 minutes.

Non-skippable video ads: These ads will play before, during, or end of the videos. There is no option to skip; you must watch the ad entirely. The time duration is 6- 15 seconds and you will pay for these ads per 1000 views. 

Video discovery ads: This ad format promotes your video on YouTube’s search results page, the related videos, and YouTube’s mobile homepage. The ad includes a thumbnail from the video along with a description and title. 

Final Words:

In a competitive world, the need to increase brand awareness and bring in high revenue is paramount. When use effectively, YouTube is a great platform to promote your business to a huge and varied audience. Simple tweaks can go a long way in promoting your business. 

See also: 9 Best Digital Marketing Tools in 2020