YouTube is a terrific medium for small businesses trying to market using their video content because it has more than 2 billion users globally and receives more than 30 million daily visitors.
Video can be a powerful marketing approach for many different kinds of businesses. It offers a one-stop shop for members of your audience to see and interact with your videos, leading to more followers and more promotion for your business.
This post is for small businesses wishing to enhance their marketing approach by incorporating video content to increase audience interaction.
YouTube has played a major role in the trend of marketing shifting away from static information toward video. While simply visiting YouTube to watch videos is relatively straightforward, if you want to utilize it to sell and expand your business, things become more challenging. The following article contains some top tips on how you use YouTube for business.
Create a YouTube Channel
With YouTube, you can access content even if you don’t have an account. However, in order for your business to publish videos and interact with other users, you must have an account. The ability to view videos marked as adult content also requires membership.
To create a YouTube account for your company, follow these instructions:
- Log in to the Google account for your business. Use the same username and password for your YouTube account as you do for your business email if you use Gmail for that purpose. As an alternative, you might open a brand-new Google account that you would use just for your YouTube business.
- Visit the homepage of YouTube after logging in. Check again to be sure you’re logged into the proper corporate account and not your personal YouTube account.
- Select the avatar for your Google account. This is located in the upper right corner. It’s a tiny circle with your image inside of it (or, if you’ve put your company’s logo as your email address picture, with it).
- Then select “Your channel.” When you click your avatar, a dropdown menu will appear with this option.
- Select “use a business name or other name.” For a business YouTube account to be created, you must choose this option. Next, you can type in the name of your business.
- You now have a YouTube account for your company. Go back to the YouTube home page after completing these steps. An extensive dropdown menu is located in the page’s upper left corner. The homepage, popular videos, your library, and your subscriptions are all linked. You can organize the videos you’ve seen, liked, and saved in your library. You can view all the channels you are subscribed to under “Subscriptions” and sign up to receive notifications when they publish new content.
There are four buttons in the page’s upper right corner. You are directed to the page where you upload videos by selecting the icon of a video camera that is closest to the centre of the screen. YouTube apps are represented by the central icon, a square made up of nine smaller squares. The bubble icon is where you will find your messages. The bell icon alerts you to account activity, such as a new like or remark. You can access your account information by clicking on the symbol for your profile picture that is closest to the right side of the screen.
Creating a Personalized YouTube Profile
You can fill out your YouTube profile with information about your company once you’ve registered. Every user has a channel assigned to them based on their username, and you’ll be given a unique URL so people can directly link to your channel. However, to stand out from the crowd, you’ll need to go above and beyond the fundamentals.
Follow the instructions below to modify your channel:
- Create your channel art
YouTube channel art is similar to the Facebook or Twitter banner. The logo and tagline for your company should go in this header.
High-quality images should clearly represent your brand in both your channel art and profile photo, which is sometimes referred to as a channel icon. Without a photo or piece of art, YouTube will use stock photos. Your profile picture must be posted through Google and not YouTube because it is taken directly from your Google account. The process of syncing your YouTube account and Google profile photo will take a few minutes.
The best sizes for YouTube channel art files are as follows:
- 800 × 800 pixels for the channel icon (displays as 98 x 98)
- Channel banner: 2560 x 1440 pixels. However, the “safe” size for mobile and online use is 1546 x 423 pixels.
Use high-resolution graphics (preferably 300 dpi) for your channel icon and banner due to the size of these files. Spend some time playing with YouTube’s preview and cropping tools to determine whether your channel symbol and banner will look good on your page. Use this tool as many times as necessary to enhance your photographs. Visitors will be less likely to stick around to see your material if your page seems unappealing.
While you’re here…
As a business owner, you can also consider getting small business insurance. These provide a layer of protection for your business. You can get business insurance quotes here.
- Enter the details of your company.
It’s crucial to spread information about your company, its offerings, and so forth. This can be done by adding your website and your business’s tagline to the About section of your YouTube account.
Start with the channel description in your About section. You only need a brief mission statement with no more than three links and a call to action. Then, after scrolling down, enter the correct email address in the “email for business inquiries” field.
Your company website, your other social media profiles, and any other websites you want to send your audience to can all be included in the links section. Up to five links may be used, each with a customizable linked text of 30 characters. The more links you have, the more likely it is that people will visit your company website and watch your YouTube videos.
To make your channel more visible in YouTube searches, use keywords when writing the material for your channel description and links.
- Make a trailer for your channel.
Even though a channel trailer isn’t a prerequisite, a little movie that introduces viewers to the content they’ll discover on your YouTube channel is a great customizing choice to boost user engagement. When you post this trailer, it will show up on the account’s homepage for visitors, drawing them in and introducing them to your brand.
Some Key YouTube Vocabulary
Comments: You can sort comments by most recent or most popular. By answering viewers’ comments, you can increase the number of people who watch your movies.
Likes: This type of content interaction is more passive. These videos will, however, appear in the playlists part of your channel if you’ve opted to make your channel’s likes public.
Subscriptions: Users should subscribe in order to keep current on your brand’s content. A push notification is sent to your subscribers each time you submit a new video. You should consistently nudge people to subscribe to your channel because doing so boosts viewership and enhances engagement. Many well-known YouTubers start and/or end their videos with calls to action to subscribe.
Playlists: The website’s playlist feature allows you to group together related information. Your playlists will be displayed on your channel’s page beneath the submitted content if you decide to make them public. With a playlist, you may also arrange the content of other users. For example, if you manage a marketing firm, you could assemble all of your clients’ films into one long list. Otherwise, you can use this as another method of channel organization.
Sharing: Users can post videos on other social media sites, such as Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, Blogger, Reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest, and LinkedIn, via the social widget on the website.
Messages: You can use the messages function to send friends and contacts private videos and messages.
Key learnings: Maintaining activity and interacting with other users on the platform will help to increase engagement.