Seven Best Practices for YouTube Marketing
While uploading videos to YouTube may be easy, adding content to a channel doesn’t guarantee it will get viewed – there are far more factors at play.
Pixability’s new report, “Top 100 Global Brands: Key Lessons for Success on YouTube”, looks at the ways in which the world’s most successful brands use YouTube to their advantage. The report notes seven habits that are consistently employed by the top brands:
1. Creating lots of content. Pixability discovered that top-performing brands on YouTube publish 50% more videos than other brands, and that there is a direct correlation between the number of videos produced by a brand and the number of views received. To capitalize on these findings, brands need to consistently and frequently create content for their YouTube channels. This not only keeps consumers engaged, but it also increases viewership and reach.
2. Practicing good video SEO. The top brands use twice as many tags and playlists compared to those in the bottom quartile, which is a clear indication that brands need to be accurately and enthusiastically tagging their videos. Optimizing videos and using correct tags is also necessary to achieve a higher Google search rank.
3. Using different videos for multiple touch points. Adding different types of videos to your YouTube channel is necessary to reach different audiences and company goals. The report states:
“The audience journey on YouTube has multiple touch points, so make sure video content aligns with each one. Align your YouTube and video content portfolio with your customer’s journey and engagement to your brand. Understanding that long form content performs just as well as short videos as the audience becomes more intimate with your brand.”
4. Linking videos to marketing initiatives. While YouTube is an excellent video marketing channel, it can’t just stand alone. Pixability says that the best way to utilize YouTube is to integrate the channel with other campaigns and initiatives.
5. Ensuring all videos are branded. Top performing brands and companies consistently brand their video content. This is particularly important when videos are shared, embedded and viewed by others outside of YouTube, as it allows consumers to recognize the brand behind the content. Spending the extra time to personalize a brand’s YouTube channel can also pay dividends, and Pixability recommends all companies take this extra step.
6. Investing more in content and not in more channels. It seems that focusing on target market segmentation and developing content to suit your audience is more important than maintaining multiple channels. The report stresses that it is far better to maintain a few channels well than to have many channels that are poorly maintained, because inactive channels offer outdated information to consumers. In fact, of the top 100 global brands on YouTube, only 37% hadn’t updated content for the past 120 days.
7. Engaging consumers via social media. Top brands are heavy social media users. By promoting their YouTube videos on social media channels, they are able to increase video views, social sharing and engagement. Communicating with consumers on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest can increase viewer engagement by up to 330 times.
These brands also recognize that YouTube is no longer just a video platform, but a social platform as well. Instead of turning off the comments for their videos, they embrace the opportunity to connect with their viewers.