As a start-up, it can be difficult to stand out online amongst all the competition. That’s why you need to leverage all of the different channels you have at your disposal -- especially when it comes to social media.
YouTube.
YouTube is one of the most popular websites in the world, with a huge worldwide audience so a good YouTube social media strategy can work wonders for your online success. And while YouTube marketing might have seemed unattainable for small businesses and start-ups a few years ago, now it’s more accessible than ever.
In this blog post, I’m going to share my top YouTube tips to help you promote your start-up:
Develop your YouTube content calendar.
It’s always good practice to plan your social media content ahead of time -- but with YouTube -- it’s a real necessity.
You’ll want to spend longer on content creation, and you'll want to be able to ensure you’re delivering new content consistently. The best way to achieve these master goals -- is by planning your calendar.
First steps:
Begin by deciding what you want to achieve with your company using your YouTube channel -- what are your exact objectives? You may not know or understand the significance concerning a YouTube for your company. Find someone who has the vision for whom you can ask questions -- and get and give ideas. Once you’re clear on your objectives, you can focus on coming up with content ideas that support these goals.
Before that -- establish the posting frequency on your channel. Okay -- you can only upload a vid once a week. Fine. Be consistent and never miss your once a week offering. Then -- do two YouTubes a week -- and so on. Ideally, your subscribers should know when to expect new content.
When you really get control over the YouTube concept and how to accomplish and present your YouTube -- you will notice that posting frequently will improve your results overall -- every time.
So, what kinds of videos can you actually create to promote your business? Here are a few ideas to get you started:
- Product videos: similar to ads in a way. These videos help promote your product by putting the spotlight on your product or service -- with real people.
- Tutorial videos: this is another type of product video, one that shows the user how to use the product or how to use certain features. To give you an example, Mailchimp uses their YouTube to channel to post tutorials like this one in the link. Please take a look -- it's great.
- Animated videos: use tools to create animated videos on any topic you can think of: educational, funny or cute, the history of (…), and so on.
- Listicles: create a “top 10/20/etc.” video, similar to listicle blog posts.
- Interviews: maybe use thought leaders and social influencers in your niche (but make sure to invest in great lighting and microphones for these types of videos). But frankly -- I've done lousy ones, and watched lousy YouTubes. You will still get an audience and they will still love it. You can also use these lousy ones for a before and after vid later.
- How-to’s/educational videos: just like with written blog posts, how-to and educational videos can be very popular on YouTube.
Use video marketing tools to create compelling videos, easily.
Creating great videos from scratch is not easy as a start-up. You will not only need the resources, but you also need the talent and creativity. Unless, of course, you are using talking interviews and other similar videos. You will want to branch out from these.
However, you now have access to all kinds of video marketing tools that can do the harder, more detailed work that you crave for your company. These tools can provide you with the tools and materials (video clips, music, and so on) to put together a great video all by yourself. You barely even need any design experience. Brush up on your experience with Internet tools and this is more than enough to get you started.
The exciting fact that videos are now so much easier to create means that you can create more videos in less time and for less money.
There are a lot of great video creation tools available, such as:
- Vyond and Powtoon are both great options for those who want to create animated videos, such as explainer and how-to videos, funny skits, and video listicles.
- Slidely and Wave allow you to create videos using stock video clips, music, and so on (as well as your own videos). These are very easy to create and the best part is -- you don’t need to film anything yourself. But filming becomes so fun after a while -- you won't be able to resist.
Generate more subscribers and more traffic with end screens.
The end screens will allow you to add a call to action at the end of your video. After all, if they stuck around until the end of the video, perhaps they might want to subscribe to your channel or view more videos of yours.
Those aren’t your only options. Your end screens not only promote your channel or your videos/playlists -- but also your website or app, or a different channel.
Setting up end screens if very easy. Just make sure your video has five seconds free at the end -- and follow the instructions from YouTube, here.
Perform keyword research to optimize your videos.
One of the most important aspects of a successful YouTube strategy is video optimization -- particularly, the keywords you use in your video headlines and descriptions.
They help tell YouTube what your video is about so that your videos can appear in the right search results. Naturally, if you’re ranking for some really great niche keywords, this can expose you to a very wide audience.
Use some keyword research to come up with other great video ideas that work -- that you feel your audience wants to see.
You can begin your research by entering a few keywords in the YouTube search engines. You will quickly be able to get a few ideas of what content to create and what long-tail keywords to use in you video headline/description.
You can also find several useful YouTube keyword tools to expand your search; Keyword Tool and Keyword Keg are both good options.
Make a list of the keywords you want to target and then use them as inspiration for your videos. Make sure, as I mentioned earlier that you use these keywords in your headline and video description, preferably closer to the beginning of the headline.
Be more social and use monitoring to find more opportunities.
To manage your channel, you can use a tool like Agorapulse. This will slowly, but surely, become a necessity as your account grows.
To improve your success as a business on YouTube, you need to stay on top of things. Here are a few more ideas.
- Respond to comments in a timely manner.
- Control and pre-moderate offensive comments.
- Keep track of your subscribers and YouTube leads..
- Monitor your brand name on YouTube to make sure you don’t miss any mentions, either in videos and in people’s comments.
Agorapulse is a social media management tool so it can help you manage your YouTube presence -- just like you would do with other social networks. You’ll be able to access of all your comments in one place, pre-moderate to decide whether to publish a comment or not, save replies to respond faster, and collaborate with a team to manage your comments.
Additionally, you can also use YouTube monitoring to monitor your brand name and the social CRM tool to keep track of fans and subscribers and your interactions with them over time.
Repurpose your YouTube videos to drive more results.
Video is very popular on most social networks and digital channels, so if you’re taking the time to create YouTube videos, why not repurpose them to keep driving results?
You can re-post vids (or edit them specifically) on:
- Your website and landing pages (for example, you can use product tutorials on your landing page to boost conversion rates)
- On your blog (this also works great the other way around: if you’ve written a very popular blog, see if you can turn it into a YouTube video too)
- In your marketing emails: videos can boost email open rates as well as conversion rates. Use product and brand videos to nurture your leads and turn them into customers
- On your other social channels to boost your social media marketing: optimize your videos for different social media platforms and share them. If they’re too long, cut them down into shorter clips and post them. This will help you boost engagement across your digital channels, without having to constantly create new content
Conclusion
YouTube can be a very powerful tool for start-ups and a great way to stand out. It’s very accessible and there aren’t nearly as many brands leveraging it as they are on other popular social networks.
Have you tried using YouTube to promote your startup? If you haven't -- please try it out now.