10 Quick Fixes for Better Marketing With YouTube
You've read my posts about all the facts on why video is hot, hot, hot. You've heard it from other coaches and solopreneur leaders, marketing experts, and umpteen online courses or emails. So you have a YouTube channel and you're making some videos. Great! Now here are 10 easy ways to fix your YouTube marketing and make it work even harder and smarter for your solopreneur biz.
- Keep your video short.
People generally have small attention spans and the percentage of viewers that are going to stick around for your big finale – and link information – after even 5 minutes is pretty slim. Ty and keep your information brief and to the point. Use your YouTube channel as a method of enticing viewers to view your other content, and give them more information when they get to that point.
- Don’t forget about your mobile audience.
A growing number of people are using their phones to access YouTube and watch videos. Bear that in mind when you’re including text – it has to be easily viewable on a small screen.
- Watermark your content.
Keep your information secure and not easily reproduced by others by adding a watermark to your video. Just make sure it’s not so overpowering that it distracts from your content. Or, add your logo or URL to lower-thirds graphics that appear at key points during your video.
- Spread the word.
Having a consistent level of communication between your YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and other social media accounts will do wonders for your flow of traffic. As soon as you’ve produced a new video, get it out there and let everyone in your network know about it. It will automatically post to your Google+ account since you’ll already have your Google and YouTube accounts linked. Just like for all good marketing content – promotion or sharing is just as important as creating.
- Focus on SEO.
Add captions, tag your content, add a succinct description, think hard about your title and make sure your video file name is relevant, (dog-chases-car as opposed to 10-10-13), keep a list of relevant tags you should add to all your videos. These are all great methods of making sure your content gets viewed.
- Think about Audio.
You want to make sure your audience is engaged… but not overwhelmed. Good quality audio that is crisp and clear is maybe more important than the images and video itself! If they can't hear you, they're clicking away – quick! Use a decent mic please. If you have spoken audio, it’s also nice to include intro and outro music to the video. It helps set the tone and polishes it off. YouTube has some fantastic (free!) audio options to choose from.
- Prepare your videos.
Use the best quality video and audio equipment as you can afford right now. You can make a really nice video with the high-def camera in your smartphone – with a few extra tips. Get a mic, a tripod, and some even lighting and you're good to go. Keep shaky camera movements to a minimum and plan the video before you shoot it – think about writing a script and practice first!
- Link.
Make sure you take good advantage of the fact that someone is viewing your content – give them a link to the rest of your content or relevant content, and make it easily accessible in both the annotations and the video description.
- Do something different.
Never has ‘thinking outside of the box’ been so important. You’re up against a lot of competition and the more you stand out, the better. Here are at least 8 video ideas to help get your creative juices flowing.
- Go beyond YouTube.
Once you’ve created your video content there are plenty of other video sharing sites online where you can post it and increase your audience. Check out: Vimeo, DailyMotion, Vube, Twitch, or UStream.tv.
See, it's not that hard to get started on improving your use of video for marketing via the largest video site in the world.
