10 Simple Youtube Video Tips For Brands And Businesses
I’ve made a lot of videos over the last few years, well over 1000 at the last count and I thought it was about time that I started sharing some of that advice with you here on the blog so as I can pass on some of my knowledge. I would always suggest that you spread your videos around to as many platforms as possible but for today we are going to focus on Youtube as the big daddy of the online video world and as a great place for you to start your video work online. At it’s most basic level Youtube is incredibly easy to use but there are of course a whole host of extra features and handy tips that you could be using to get more out of the service and enhance your own experience and make sure that your videos have as good a chance of being seen by as many people as possible in their best possible light. So here are some of my handy Youtube hints for you….
Get Rid Of Related Videos
This is a really handy tip to remove all the related videos that appear at the end of any videos that you embed in to your site. Why would you want to do that? Well Youtube picks which videos are related to your own and they stay on the screen after your video finishes playing and sometimes this can be done with some unfortunate circumstances. Related videos can often feature competitors or inappropriate content that you don’t want views of your website to see. If you want to keep your website as professional as possible you might want to enable this feature. All you have to do is add ‘&rel=0? to the end of the URL part of the embed code and you will remove all related videos and vastly improve the look and feel of your website.
Share Videos As Unlisted
Have you ever had to send videos to other people before they get approved and added to Youtube? Sharing videos and getting them approved is a long and arduous process that takes time. Luckily Youtube recently added a feature that allows you to upload videos as unlisted which means that they won’t appear in the search results or anywhere on your own channel until you make them public. This means that you can go out and share that link directly with colleagues and friends but nobody without the direct URL will be able to find that video. A great way of keeping videos private until you actually want people to find them. Simply click in to My videos/Edit and you’ll be able to make the video unlisted.
Create A Branded Channel
This really isn’t very hard to do and is mostly just a case of uploading a background image and a decent profile picture to your channel. You can play around with the colors of the channel so as they match your own branding and generally give the channel the feel of something that is professional. This is something that doesn’t tale long to do yet I see countless brands and businesses who add their videos to Youtube yet don’t have a branded channel. Take 15 minutes of your day to set this up as it really is vitally important in terms of branding.
Build Your Subscriber Numbers
Most people I talk to want to have a viral video hit on Youtube and I usually cringe when I hear this sort of talk as “going viral” is so rare that it really is not worth having as your main goal. One easy way to make sure your video does get seen by a large audience is by getting as many subscribers as possible. Subscribers on Youtube are very much like any other type of subscribers in that they are people who are making a commitment to your content and saying they want to be updated as soon as more is released. Every time you post a new video your subscribers will be alerted with an email. What this means is that if your content is good enough the initial group of people who see it via subscribing will push it out to an even bigger audience. To get subscribers you can do lots of different things but a couple of simple ways to push your numbers up are 1.Give something away in your videos and ask users to subscribe to be in with a chance of winning. 2. Network within Youtube with people in your niche by commenting on their videos, friending them up and generally being active within the community.
Optimize Your Videos For Search
Video is very hard to search as Youtube converts it in to Flash which search engines can’t really search. Having said that Youtube is the second biggest search engine in the world (ahead of Bing, Yahoo etc) so it is vitally important that you optimize your videos on the platform. In order to do that you need to fill out the descriptions with great care, include plenty of tags and give the videos a good strong title. This is one area that I see brands and businesses fall down but just remember that you need to take a lot of time to give these videos the best chance of getting found not only within Youtube but also on other search engines themselves as Google especially gives Youtube videos a great ranking on it’s own search engines. Take your time and do this right and you will get more views!!
Promote Your Youtube Video Outside Of Youtube
Getting views on your video is tough and unless you actively go out there and promote the video the chances are that it is not going to get seen by many people. Luckily social media affords you a great chance to up the views and start getting some attention for the videos. For example simply sharing the video on your Facebook page will get you a couple of hundred views from your friends. If you have a blog or website make sure to embed it there if relevant and also pass it on through your Twitter feed or any other social media profiles that you might have. If it’s for business there is a good chance that your LInkedin contacts might find it interesting for example. Again of the content is good enough then people will like the video, pass it on to others and the views will start to increase organically.
Don’t Just Re-Purpose Your TV Advert
Sure you should be adding your TV adverts to Youtube as there are always people looking for them and it is criminal as a brand or business not to have them on Youtube but this should not be the entire extent of your content on Youtube. You need to think of this as a totally different channel than TV. The audience are different and more clued in and not looking for Ads. You might think that there isn’t anything that makes our company interesting or relevant to Youtube but I think every company has something to offer. You could do a daily CEO video blog, product demos, competitions, client testimonials or a million other things once you let you imagination run wild. You need to create content for Youtube itself and unlike the old days where video production was an expensive undertaking you can now have professional video online for a couple of hundred Euros and all in a couple of minutes. Get creative and find the story within your company.
Select The Best Possible Thumbnail
This is probably the easiest way that you can increase your video views. People click on stuff that is very visual and having a nice thumbnail can make all the difference. Youtube will automatically generate the thumbnail for you which is usually not the most flattering picture for your video but you can actually go in and select your own thumbnail. This is something that will literally take you 30 seconds and it could be the difference between people clicking in to your video or people skipping past. IF you are not happy with the thumbnails that Youtube generate for you from the video you can actually go ahead and upload your own thumbnail.
Post Video Responses
At the end of the day you want as many relevant people within your niche to see your video as possible. Adding videos as a response to other people’s videos is a great way of doing this. The key is relevancy. So lets say I did a video about social media and online PR i would make sue that I featured it alongside doing something in the same genre. You have to request that the video is added by the original owner of the video and they won’t always oblige but it is a great way of bumping up the views and spreading the word about your video. Be careful not to spam people with this technique though and only add the videos as responses where they are actually adding value to the original content.
Don’t Get Dragged Down In The Comments
People who comment on Youtube can be as nasty as they come. It’s not unusual to find racist, sexist and downright hurtful comments on your videos. It’s important not to get dragged down to that level. If people have some genuine problems with your content or adding to the discussion you should of course try and engage wherever possible but if people are just out to hurt or belittle then it’s best just to ignore. If you find the comments add nothing or are just distasteful then you can of course just delete them. Just bare in mind that unlike your blog or Facebook where people will usually be respectful Youtube is a different animal and you should be ready to have some seriously thick skin!
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