YouTube for Business

YouTube is the leading video sharing website and the world’s second largest search engine, a key platform for online video marketing and advertising. It allows users to conduct a keyword search to browse the video database on their website www.youtube.com. It also allows their registered users to easily upload and share video clips across the Internet through websites, mobile devices, blogs and email. People can see first-hand accounts of current events, find videos about their hobbies and interests and discover the quirky and unusual. As more people capture special moments on video, YouTube is empowering them to become the broadcasters of tomorrow. It has single highhandedly enabled the movement of user-generated content.

How to Use YouTube for Business

YouTube isn’t just for posting silly videos of sleepwalking dogs and other embarrassing moments. In today’s business world it is a highly effective business tool. You can use it to show off your expertise, share knowledge, market your products and connect with customers, colleagues and prospects. Here are the many ways in which you can use YouTube for your business:

• Show off your expertise and share your knowledge. YouTube offers businesses the opportunity to demonstrate knowledge in their specific area of expertise. If you are unsure of where to start from a video creation standpoint, talk about your knowledge in a given area, which may be useful to others.
• Market your products and services. As the second most used search engine in the world, and as the top video sharing site, YouTube is perhaps one of the most important marketing tools you have at your disposal to promote your products and services. Put together a creative video explaining your product or service and even show your product in action or the results of someone using your services.
• Provide enhanced customer support. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video must be worth at least a million. People love to see things in action, especially when it comes to videos on how you help them use your product or services. You can post solutions to common product or service problems, answer customer-specific questions and even create video product tutorials and walk throughs.

Now that we’ve outlined the various objectives marketers have for using YouTube, let’s discuss the considerations you need to make when using YouTube for your business.

Ensure You have a Branded YouTube Channel

While it sounds like an obvious first step, many businesses get caught up in the task of uploading videos and skip the very important step of setting up their own YouTube channel. Having a dedicated channel gets your business a lot of exposure and provides an innovative medium for you to keep your followers updated on any new videos you upload. YouTube offers a bare bones channel so make sure to customize it to reflect your brand and include information about your business to make it more engaging.

Organise Your Content

Make it easier on your viewers to find the videos they are looking for on your channel by organizing your content into playlists rather than just offering a linear stream of video uploads. Group relevant videos together, or lump older content into time-related (March 2010, Spring 2010, etc.) folders if that’s more relevant to your organisation.

Don’t Overlook Tags

As with other media-based sites (think Flickr, SlideShare), YouTube’s content is organised using a tag-word system that works on the logic of what search terms people will use to look for videos. The great thing about YouTube is that you are able to add as many tags as you want that accurately describe your video and that you think people would search for. It’s definitely worth taking the time to add the correct tags to your videos and a variety at that.

Promote Your Videos Elsewhere

YouTube has become one of the most popular search engines out there, but don’t assume viewers will come to you, or automatically think to look you up on YouTube. Every time you post a video that is for public viewing, be sure to help spread the word that it exists by blogging about it, tweeting it, sharing it on your Facebookor letting your connections know on LinkedIn. You will also want to ensure that you have a video section on your website to help. After all, the more views the better.

Use YouTube’s Analytics Tools

YouTube offers analytics data via the “Insight” button on every uploaded video. This free-to-view info should not be overlooked as it can offer you some valuable info on not only views, but demographics, community and the most useful “discovery” data, which provides information on how users came across your video. The information is there, so be sure to use it. You may be surprised to see what it says.

YouTube Best Practices Checklist

• Use keywords in your title.The title of your YouTube video becomes its meta tag and it is also the most important piece of information that search engines have about your video.
• Write your description with SEO in mind. Use keywords and descriptive phrases when you describe your video. After the title, it’s the most important information for search engines.
• Don’t forget to fill out the location for your videos. Part of YouTube’s analytics is geographic and you will get more information if your location is identified.
• Encourage embedding, don’t restrict it. When someone embeds your video on their site it counts as an inbound link and boosts that video’s rating in search engine results.
• Engage with the YouTube community. Look at content or channels that cover your local area, or that are for a good cause for you/your company to support.
• Encourage viewers to rate your videos. Higher ratings and more comments indicate that videos are better/more interesting. Use Facebookand Twitter to encourage your viewers to rate your videos and leave comments.

YouTube Tools and Resources

• YouTube Handbook: Everything you need to know about watching and producing videos for YouTube .
• CatchYouTube.com: Enter the URL of the video, select the format you want to save it in, and click the “Convert & Download” button –http://bit.ly/9MlUec
• YouTube Keyword Tool: If you need input on keywords, YouTube has a keyword suggestion tool that can help you identify the words YouTube viewers are searching on –http://bit.ly/fIuf8j
• TubePopper: Add word balloons, comments, or subtitles to a video and then embed it in your site with the new additions.
• VTubeTools: Add the video ID number and build a new player to use on your site with features like loop, custom skin, play in HQ and more –http://bit.ly/fAk7qV

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