What is YouTube? How to Use YouTube in Your Business
YouTube is the leading video sharing website that 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 handily enabled the movement of user-generated content.
How to Use YouTube in Your 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 walkthroughs.
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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 barebones channel so make sure to customise 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 2015, Spring 2018, 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 Facebook or 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.