In the world of online video, YouTube reigns supreme. But its status is not just relegated to video, as the YouTube search engine is actually the second-most-used search engine on the web, with Google, its parent company, being the only search engine to outrank it.
With this in mind, it’s vital to have a YouTube marketing strategy in place to take advantage of the platform’s benefits and boost your business. Let’s take a look at YouTube’s history and ways you can use YouTube marketing moving forward.
The History
The first video to ever be uploaded to YouTube was on April 23, 2005 just a few short months after its launch by three former PayPal employees. That first video was published by one of the co-founders, Jawed Karim, and was entitled “Me at the Zoo.” The idea of posting videos about one’s life instantly became a trend and YouTube took off in a big way.
After a period of popularity, a little over a year later, the site was bought out on October 9, 2006 by its now parent company Google for a whopping $1.65 billion.
Their investment certainly paid off. Over 100 hours of video content are now uploaded every minute, making YouTube the fastest-growing video sharing website in the world.
In the years since, YouTube has averaged three billion searches a month, and has become well-known for its user friendliness, diverse content, and ability to propel users to stardom.
The Power of YouTube
YouTube has gained a lot of traction and is estimated to be bigger than Bing, Yahoo, Ask and AOL combined. On mobile devices alone, YouTube reaches more people 18 to 49 than broadcast and cable television networks.
The site also makes it extremely easy for users to navigate and this accessibility is certainly something to brag about. YouTube offers 76 different languages to utilize, which is the equivalent to 95% of the internet population.
How This Can Impact Your Business
By taking advantage of YouTube marketing and video content creation, companies can capture significantly more search traffic. Creating videos around various topics that people are searching for can help boost consumer interaction on your site, therefore benefitting you in the long run.
Keep in Mind…
If you decide to utilize YouTube for your business, there are some key factors that you must keep in mind to ensure you get the most out of the platform.
1. Relative and Consistent Content
Creating videos and developing a YouTube marketing strategy are both time consuming, but they have the potential to greatly affect your business. The most important aspect of each video is that the content is relevant to your business and the content is consistently uploaded to keep consumers engaged.
Coming up with a video topic should be relatively easy. To start, think of the factors that make your field or company unique and diverse. “How-To” videos are of particular value to businesses as that type is one of the most-searched categories on YouTube.
2. Engaging Titles
Users want to be interested in the content you are producing. To attract the highest number of users possible, it is imperative to catch their eye with a quick and simple, yet intriguing, title.
Utilizing keywords in the title, as well as in the video’s description, as you would for a webpage, is also worthwhile, as these can help external search engines like Google and Bing to easily find your videos as well.
3. Calls to Action
A call to action is a key feature in any video. By incorporating this, you are telling consumers ways that your company or business can help them even more.
For instance, if your latest video is a how-to, you could include a call to action expressing what your company can do to help specifically. Doing this should increase the number of conversions to your site, resulting in more leads.
4. Well-Explained Descriptions
Some users may be reluctant about sitting through an entire video. By giving a detailed description about a video, you’ll help users to easily identify if the video will cover what they are wondering about or are interested in.
5. Interactivity
Lastly, you should offer interactive tools after each video. Encouraging users to learn more through different tabs on your site is very important because it promotes your business and services even further.
Learn More
To learn more about YouTube, website development, and other digital marketing issues, head on over to the Sixth City Marketing blog!
