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How to Use YouTube for Marketing

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YouTube is known as a video platform. It is certainly the free and easy place to house videos. However, it is increasingly gaining importance as a social network. Why? YouTube is the second–most-visited website and has the second highest volume of online searches. Those stats alone are worthy of the attention of any marketer.

YouTube has over 2 billion monthly active users. They watch a lot of content, and spend more time there than with video on other social channels.

Pew Research Center found that 73% of  U.S. adults say they use YouTube, 90% of 18- to 24-year olds. The only other social media platform that approaches YouTube in terms of its reach among Americans is Facebook, which was used by 69% of U.S. adults as of early 2019.

Google data shows that 68% of people use YouTube to answer questions.

Think Quality Over Quantity

YouTube is different from other social media platforms because it isn’t a content feed. As a content library, people are able to access information easily that was posted weeks, months or years ago.

Videos that offer valuable content have the opportunity to rank in search and be viewed for a much longer period that Facebook or Twitter. YouTube marketing requires a quality over quantity strategy. Create content that will be interesting for a longer period.

To post a video for sustained access:

  • Reduce the number of uploads into one or two high-quality videos
  • Use effective thumbnail images
  • Optimize content for search

Capitalize on Relationship Marketing

YouTube is a great place to build your brand – the look and feel, the tone and the voice. Users will be able to see the body of your work in one place. You have a great opportunity to establish a lasting impression.

Use videos to establish your subject matter expertise. Create value in your brand for your target market. Using a visual platform to accomplish these goals will increase brand recognition. Use the platform to build trust in your brand over time, and be less focused on short-term marketing metrics.

Focus on Your Niche

YouTube recommends additional videos to users based on what they watch. YouTube promotes videos to only some of your subscribers first, then to more of your subscribers, then to non-subscribers whom YouTube has identified as having similar viewing behavior as your subscribers.

If your market is clear, YouTube will do the work of finding new people for you. This won’t work if your messaging – and therefore your target viewer – is too broad or not clear.

Have a clear value proposition and consistently deliver on that. This doesn’t mean that you should never try something new or get stuck in a rut. The key is to have a focused message.

Monitor Metrics

YouTube Studio offers metrics that will help you gauge the impact of your effort there.

  • Click-Through Rate, how many people click to watch your video
  • View Velocity, how fast your video gets views once you make it public
  • Average View Duration, over 50% is ideal
  • Watch time, how much time people spend watching your videos overall

 

Effective Video Tips Gleaned from the Best

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Pew Research Center recently examined YouTube channels with at least 250,000 subscribers to gain insights. These popular channels alone posted nearly a quarter-million videos in the first seven days of 2019, totaling 48,486 hours of content.

YouTube is a global phenomenon. Just over half of these channels (56%) posted a video during the first week of 2019, and the majority of these active channels (72%) posted at least one video that was partially or completely in a language other than English.

Videos aimed at children were highly popular, as were those that featured children under the age of 13 – regardless of their intended audience. Videos featuring a child or children who appeared to be under the age of 13 – regardless of whether the video in question was aimed exclusively at children or not – received nearly three times as many views on average as other types of videos.

Content involving video games also popular. Content about video games was one of the most popular genres of content as measured by total views during the seven days of the study period, and these videos also tended to be much longer than other types of videos.

Certain video title keywords were associated with increased view counts. Videos mentioning words like “Fortnite,” “prank” or “worst” received more than five times as many views at the median as videos not mentioning those words. The word “Trump” in video titles was associated with a significant increase in median views among videos about American current events or politics.

Cross-promotion of videos with other social media channels increases views. Seven-in-ten of these videos mentioned other prominent social media platforms such as Instagram or Twitter in their description (either in links or in the text itself), and those that did received more views than videos that did not link to other platforms.

Read the complete analysis.

Americans Use YouTube – a Lot!

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Did you know that 73% of Americans report that they use YouTube? Pew Internet gathered that statistic and then did further research to find out exactly what people do on YouTube.

A Pew analysis of videos suggested by YouTube’s recommendation engine, finds that users are directed toward progressively longer and more popular content.

  • About half of YouTube users say the platform is very important for helping them figure out how to do things they’ve never done before.
  • One-in-five YouTube users (13% of the total US adult population!) say it is very important for helping them understand events that are happening in the world.
  • 81% of all parents with children age 11 or younger say they never let their child watch videos on YouTube.

The site’s recommendations play an important part in users’ watching habits. “Up next” videos are selected by the site’s algorithm and appear alongside or below the video viewers are currently watching. A whopping 81% of YouTube users say they at least occasionally watch the videos suggested by the platform’s recommendation algorithm.

As with other online algorithms, just how it works is not stated publicly. Assume that how you tag your video plays a role in how it comes up in the “up next” section.

The Pew study is a must read if you spend any time posting videos to YouTube.