Companies have now realized that the Google video platform is a powerful promotional tool and therefore it becomes important to consider the idea of implementing a YouTube marketing strategy.
With over one billion users and two billion views a day, YouTube is second only to Google among search engines.
Like television (or even more), YouTube is able to influence perceptions, ideas and choices. Rewards irony, spontaneity, creativity, perseverance. In fact, compared to other media, the video has always been highly appreciated for the emotional impact it generates. YouTube is a container for videos of all kinds, allows sharing on social media and it is the second search engine in the world!
He has an eclectic and varied audience. In fact, a large and solid presence of young and very young people is accompanied by an increasingly wide range of adult audiences.
THE HISTORY AND DATA
The Youtube streaming channel was created by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim. They were three young employees of Paypal who in 2005 decided to launch a video sharing service by initially uploading a video of a few seconds, “Me at the zoo“, just to test the platform. The initial intent was creating a platform on which users could upload personal videos to show to friends and relatives. In November 2006 it was bought by Google for over 1.60 million dollars and today YouTube is also used for marketing purposes.
The growth of this channel has been exponential, despite its “young age”! In 2010, the threshold of 2 billion videos uploaded was exceeded and the first contract was signed with SIAE, a company that protects the copyright of music artists and publishers. In 2012 it broadcasted a debate between the presidential candidates of the United States of America in live streaming. In 2013 it exceeded the threshold of one billion monthly users.
In 2017 the new logo was presented and the number of users of this channel reached 1.3 billion. Within this platform, more than 200 hours of video per minute are uploaded and almost 5 billion videos are watched a day. 80% of the visualisations come from the United States and more than half of the videos uploaded come from mobile devices. From 2014 to 2019 mobile traffic grew by 20%, reaching 70%.
To date, YouTube is accessible in 80 languages and the number of channels that earn over $ 10,000 is increasing by 50% each year.
Thanks to the studies carried out, it was recorded that around 20% of people stop viewing the video after the first few seconds. For this reason, it becomes essential to produce short videos, with engaging and exciting intros, in order to keep the user’s attention alive.
YouTube among the most used social networks
As every year, Hootsuite and We are social issue important data on internet usage. In the image shown, it is highlighted that YouTube is the most used social network in 2019, surpassing, even though only slightly, Facebook and WhatsApp. This is the reason why this channel should be included in the social media marketing strategy.
HOW TO DEVELOP A YOUTUBE MARKETING STRATEGY?
Like any marketing strategy, YouTube’s must also be studied and planned. All actions must be established according to the objectives and the target.
- Set goals: first of all, ask yourself what are your business or personal goals, starting from these milestones it is possible to understand how to use YouTube. For example, you could use it to consolidate the brand image, increase customers or build a relationship with them. Whatever the objective is, the most important thing is that it is S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-based);
- Define the target: it is really important knowing the age or gender of your target audience, as well as, where they live, what are the websites they visit every day, what is their job, what their interests are. The better you know your potential customer, the more you can meet their expectations. In this regard, it is useful to outline a profile of the buyer personas;
- Elaborate the message: marketing does not mean simply dealing with sales, but also communicating the corporate image in a manner consistent with the set objectives;
- Define the advantages for your advertising on YouTube: you can choose your target audience by avoiding sending messages to an indistinct public that therefore is often not interested, as is the case with television advertising. And by the TrueView video ad format you only pay for the actual views and interactions;
- Establish KPIs and monitor them: unlike television, YouTube allows you to monitor different data and consequently also the performance of each funnel level.
HOW TO SET YOUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL AND SINGLE VIDEOS
The rules of the SEO also apply to the setting of your YouTube channel and the individual videos uploaded. Title, description, cover image, etc. These are all elements that must be treated because they affect the perception of your brand.
THE TITLE
The title of your YouTube channel must contain, as for every H1, the keyword for which you want to be indexed.
THE DESCRIPTION
Less is more or not? There is no information on how the YouTube algorithm works, but from the SEO point of view, too short captions should be avoided. At the same time, also those that are too long should be avoided, most are too boring for visitors! The description, as well as the title, must be optimized with the reference keywords. Also enter a call to action, inviting the user to visit for example your website or a landing page created specifically to sell certain services that you offer.
THE COVER
When the user does a search, YouTube provides video previews. Those previews are the videos’ covers. The choice of the cover must be made carefully, because a beautiful image could push the user to click on your video rather than on the competitor’ one. To create nice and effective Thumbnails you could use tools like Photoshop or Canva.
THE ERRORS TO BE AVOIDED
For a YouTube marketing strategy, it is not enough to post a funny or interesting video. Each video must be designed and developed to be in line with company objectives. Videos are a means to facilitate the achievement of those goals.
Focusing on the number of views obtained is useless: the views, in fact, represent a weak indicator. The data that must be observed is the quality of those views. Viewing time and interactions are key factors in the functioning of your strategy.
Keep in mind that all videos are most highlighted during the first 48 hours after uploading. Therefore, it is important to monitor the results especially in those 48 hours: if you do not achieve a good result in that period, it means that something does not worked well and you have to fix it.
Always remember that your purpose is to excite. Videos should not be focused only on promoting your product or service. Tell a story, be ironic, have fun and excite.
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