Since its establishment in 2005, YouTube has become more than a place to watch cat videos. Eight years later, it has transformed into second-largest search engine in the world and a good media for instant Internet fame. Although it is flooded with cat videos, YouTube has its sights on bigger, better ideas. Here are some key points:
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How YouTube is being used
Content is being uploaded and shared through YouTube at quick rates. Users can subscribe into multiple channels (which have gotten more sophisticated in term of design and functionality over the years), upload their videos, comment and discuss videos. With the ability to link directly to or embed videos, YouTube has become a primary source of video entertainment for users all over the web. Its ability to monetise through ads—both for itself and its users—adds a layer of financial sustainability.
Strategies and tactics for success in YouTube
1. Engage Yourself
The comments on YouTube are famous for being harsh. Many of them are meaningless and often from trolls. Many brands shut off their comments for good reason. You may choose to leave comments on, just to see what type of engagement you get, and that is okay too. What is not recommended, though, is to leave the comments on and ignore them.
In order to improve the commenting feature on YouTube, YouTube comments are now directly tied to G+ accounts. As a business, you’ll need to link your G+ brand page and your brand’s YouTube account. First, you need to make your YouTube account an administrator on your G+ page. Then make sure you’re logged into your YouTube account and then follow YouTube’s connect instructions. After everything’s connected, alerts for new comments on your YouTube videos will appear in your G+ notifications, and your YouTube videos will show up in a tab on your G+ brand page
2. Create Helpful Contents and Tutorials
For some kind of products, tutorials and how-tos are going to be invaluable. Help your audience learn how to better use your product. Help them learn how to do things that may not be directly related to your product, but are highly relevant to their interests. For example, a nail polish brand may occasionally highlight how-tos for special-event hair. This is incredibly relevant to their audience, but not directly related to their product.
3. Produce Exclusive Contents
This can take the form of early access to new products, special channel-specific promotional deals, or even insider company news. Giving these limited audiences exclusive access to different types of content will make them feel honored and “in-the-know.” Also, creating channel-specific content will give each individual a reason to follow you on more than one channel, increasing the depth of their relationship.
4. Invite Participation
Have your community create content and share it on your behalf across their networks. You then can curate based on hashtag or on a central repository (e.g. a blog post holding YouTube content), or find some other way to help draw attention to and connect the user stories. This activity can drive awareness of your presence and help engage the audience while cutting down on the amount of work required of you.
5. Measure Your Progress
Just like your other marketing efforts, it is imperative that you know what success looks like. Tailor your efforts (content, engagement, etc.) toward initiatives that help you move the needle and prove your success by measuring progress against your identified goals.
YouTube Etiquette Tips and Guidelines
1. Engage responsibly
If you have comments enabled on your videos, make sure you moderate them and stay engaged. YouTube comments are notorious to generate spammy comments than other platforms. You’ll want to make sure your channel continues to provide value. If you happen to find yourself in the presence of trolls, remember to stay cool. Always remember that you act on behalf of your brand in a public forum.
2. Comment wisely
Whether you have comments enabled on your videos or not, there are likely going to be times when you will need to comment on other threads and videos. The standard advice applies there, as well: don’t yell at people, check your spelling and grammar, use your brand voice, and definitely don’t leave spammy comments yourself.
3. Advertise safely
This isn’t a decision to take lightly. For high volume channels, it can be revenue-producing, but that needs to be weighed against the brand impact and the customers’ experience with your content.
4. Favoriting and subscribing
If you favorite a video, it also shows up on your profile page as a video you favorited, sharing it with your friends and subscribers. Subscribing to someone’s channel means that you’ll see all of their latest uploads and favorites in the feed on your page. This is similar to following someone on Twitter.
5. Uploading videos
Fortunately, YouTube takes about every video format available. Uploading the video is a piece of cake. However, filling out the information is the real work. You want to make sure that your description is optimised, that your title and keywords are on target, that your videos are properly categorised, and (if possible) that you provide a transcript of each video. Every bit of relevant information you can add to your YouTube upload gives you more opportunity for people to find your video and makes it accessible for all types of users and search engine robots.