At first glance, YouTube might not be the platform that comes to mind when someone mentions using social media as a business tool. But consider this: every minute, 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube. YouTube gets over 30 million visitors per day. Almost 5 billion videos are watched on YouTube every single day — videos that can easily be shared via Facebook, Twitter, and other media.
Many companies now use YouTube to reach out to current and potential customers. All you need is a video camera and some creativity to build long-lasting relationships.
First Impressions Count
Creating a brand channel is an excellent way to build and engage a loyal audience of supporters. The site can be customized with banners and background images to reflect your company’s identity. You can also integrate links to your other social media channels to make the content easier to share.
Keep Content Consistent
Remember that building viewers takes time. The most popular YouTube channels are those that are consistently updated. So if you want to use web videos as a marketing tool, you will need to produce relatively frequent content. Be sure to upload new videos as often as your schedule and budget allow. Eventually the audience will follow.
Make Content Interesting
You don’t have to be an award-winning director to produce engaging video content for your business. You can post things such as company webcasts, webinars, product demonstrations or installations, or a virtual tour of a recently completed project. You might want to consider sharing a video of your company history or even interview longtime customers or employees.
Also keep in mind that a video doesn’t have go “viral” to be effective. However, there are some common elements that most viral videos share. Try to keep the video relatively short, upbeat, and engaging, plus make it timely. And most importantly, include a call-to-action.
Take Advantage of YouTube’s Tools
YouTube also has resources available to track your channel’s overall performance. From monitoring site traffic to breaking down visitor demographics, you can personalize reports to help you tailor your videos to your audience – current and potential customers.
