As I’ve shared with you in the past, there are quite a few video sharing platforms available to us these days. And yet, YouTube still remains the number one site since it has the largest community.
YouTube also has several free and easy to use tools which you can access right on your YouTube channel. This makes it easy for you to promote your business and increase your visibility online.
Here is a quick overview of 5 tools which should play a key part in your YouTube marketing strategy:
#1: Video Analytics
YouTube allows you to look at video analytics for your videos on their site and even to download more advanced reports that can be imported into Excel. You can view data for certain date ranges, world views from YouTube Insight, world referrers, and video demographics. It’s easy to figure out your viewers’ ages, gender, location and to determine how popular each of your videos are with this information. And guess what? It’s free!
Simply click on the little graph button next to the number of video views on any of your YouTube videos.
#2: Tagging
Tags – I like to think of them as keywords – are a vital part of optimizing your video for search engines. Pay close attention to the tags you use for each video and make sure your tags are relevant to your content.
A great way to come up with effective tags is to start a search within YouTube for your topic and see what terms pop up in the drop down box. Those terms which are popping up are ones that you know are already being searched within YouTube, so they are great to use as tags as well.
Take it a step further and select a few videos which are high in the rankings for the tags you want to use and see what additional tags they are using. If these keywords are appropriate for your topic also, use them!
Using keywords in your title is also VERY important for SEO purposes. Use those keywords in your title which you KNOW you audience is looking for.
#3: The Share Button
It may sound too simple, however, ALWAYS tell your viewers to click the share button and share your videos. YouTube allows viewers to share videos via embedding, tweeting, sharing on Facebook, or simply e-mailing the video link. Gmail users can even play YouTube videos right inside their e-mail. The Google Plus link allows you to watch videos with friends by using the hangout feature as well.
Even though all these feature are right there next to your video, you STILL have to encourage viewers to do the sharing. They are distracted and likely won’t think of doing it themselves.
#4: Upload a Transcript of your Video to YouTube
This is where you are going to be so happy you wrote a script!
As you know, the audio portion of your video cannot currently be indexed by Google or YouTube for SEO purposes. The technology simply doesn’t exist right now. I do however understand that that technology is being developed even as we speak.
In the meantime, here is a nifty trick you can use to increase your visibility.
You can upload a transcript along with your YouTube video. Google and YouTube will index everything within your transcript so make sure it is keyword rich.
#5: YouTube’s Promoted Videos
Google, one of the top online advertising platforms, has integrated its marketing platform with YouTube as well. Well, they own YouTube, so duh!
YouTube’s Promoted Videos feature helps you attract customers, viewers and subscribers to your business, organization, or video channel by displaying your video ad against relevant search results and related video content on YouTube.
This is a great way to catch the eye of potential customers who might be interested in your service or product. You’ll be most effective when you use attention-grabbing titles on your videos to attract the interest of potential customers.
YouTube alone can greatly influence the success of your social media marketing campaign; however it also works well with Facebook and Twitter. With the many great tools offered, if you aren’t using YouTube as part of your marketing, you are missing out on an incredible way to attract new customers. buy likes on youtube