The Best Practices for YouTube Success

Boosting Your B2B’s Presence on YouTube

Did you know that almost one third of all people on the internet are YouTube users?¹ That means that even if you’re in the B2B world, there’s a good chance that potential clients are searching YouTube for some sort of content. This is beneficial information because 51.9% of marketing professionals worldwide name video as the type of content with the best ROI.² That means there is serious potential on YouTube if you know what you’re doing, but most people don’t. Luckily, this article is going to explain the best practices to achieving success on YouTube. 

The Hard Part

If you’ve already created videos then the hardest part is over. The next step is making sure the videos actually get seen.

What You Need to Know

YouTube behaves like a search engine, in fact, it’s commonly cited as being the second largest search engine in the world (Google, YouTube’s owner being the first). That means you need to optimize your content for YouTube just like you would optimize content for a search engine, although in a slightly different way. There are two things that need to be optimized on YouTube: your channel and your videos.

Channel Optimization

At default the layout for YouTube channels is pretty bland and not engaging at all. YouTube layouts can, fortunately, be customized. Check out how BuzzFeed has their layout structured.

The first thing you might notice is that unlike the default layout, BuzzFeed’s channel is visually striking and has a giant featured video that grabs the user’s attention and auto-plays. Their channel is also visually appealing because all of their videos all have custom thumbnails that relay some sort of information about the videos.

Also their home page is highly organized and displays a lot of content. Buzzfeed categorizes their channel into different segments they have. Another way to segment your channel would be by topics. Categorizing videos not only creates the illusion of more diversified content, but also assists users in finding the type of videos theyre looking for, and serves as an opportunity to present them with new content that they might not be aware you had created. These sections should be mirrored and expanded upon in the playlist tab.

Additionally, BuzzFeed has its other channels featured on the right side of its page. While you may not have multiple channels, this section can be used to promote channels that you may have partnerships with, or those channels who you feel offer relevant information. Contacting other users in the same industry and seeing if they will feature you on their page if you feature them is a great way to grow your fan base.

The least prominent but still highly important ways to optimize you page is by adding links to your other social media accounts in the header. YouTube users know to look here to see where else they can follow you, and cross promotion is always helpful. Related to that you should also be promoting your videos on your other social media channels if you arent already.

Video Optimization

The first step to optimizing your videos starts in the filming process. Verbal call-to-actions focused on increasing engagement and number of subscribers should be included near the end of the video. These verbal CTAs are things such as “If you enjoyed this video give it a thumbs up and subscribe, if you have any questions for me leave a comment below and I’ll answer.” Remember social media is social, that means responding to comments and engaging with users are key aspects to success.

The rest of the video optimizations happen post-production and are done both when editing the video and in the uploading process.

Titles

Titles are important, after all they are the first thing users see when searching for the video. As stated before YouTube works in a similar manner to a search engine, this means that titles need to not only be attention grabbing but also strategic and utilize keywords. Titles should be succinct and not exceed 70 characters in length.

Descriptions

Video titles are not the only things that lend themselves to keyword optimization, video descriptions also help increase your ranking on YouTube search result page. Simply stated including a description increases the chances of a video being found because there are more keywords. This can be done retroactively if you currently have videos uploaded without descriptions. Time stamps can also be added in the description that allow users to skip to specific parts of the video, so for example in a longer video you can segment it by topic or point and allow users to skip to the topic they want to hear about.

Transcripts

Another way to make the video more visible is by transcribing what is said in the video and then uploading this transcript along with the video. All the words that are in the transcript are considered keywords in the eyes of YouTube. This also allows people to read what is said in the video as an additional benefit. Although YouTube does auto-transcribe videos, a lot of the time these transcriptions are inaccurate.

Tags

The most obvious way to optimize your videos is by adding to tags to videos. One great thing about tags is that unlike other social media networks, tags on YouTube are hidden from users and there is no limit to the amount of tags you can add. That being said you want to make sure all tags are accurate and non-repetitive. YouTube flags inaccurately tagged content as spam and it will make organic discovery of your videos harder.

End Screens

YouTube also allows you to add what they call “end screens” at the end of videos, these can point users to other videos, playlist, call for subscription, or promote a website. This is a relatively new feature (meant to replace annotations, which are being phased out on May 2017), which means using them now could allow you to gain an edge over your competitors. These work on both mobile and desktop devices. Below is an example end screen from a BuzzFeed Video.

This end screen is great because it promotes both the subscription to the channel as well as two previous videos. It’s important to note that the “subscribe for more wonderful things” was done while the video was edited and not on YouTube.

Dig into Analytics

YouTube, like other social networks, has great analytics tools focused on improving your viewership and engagement rates. YouTube breaks down their analytics not only by demographics but also focuses on specific viewing times. It compares videos with each other, which should help to ascertain which types of video are working best for your channel. Compared to other social networks, YouTube’s analytic suite is quite advanced and the more time you have to explore the better understanding will be gained of viewers and subscribers. Remember analytics are important because they give you key insights to not only what is working, but also what your audience wants and responds to.

Use Your Employees

As a business, you have one advantage on social media that normal users do not have: employees. Encourage them to like and share your content. This is not limited to on just YouTube, have them share it on other social networks as well. The wider the social sharing the better. This will tap into their network and expand your audience to people that you might not have reached otherwise.

In Review

YouTube works like a search engine, meaning that all content needs to be optimized and uploaded strategically. Videos can and should be optimized a variety of ways. While optimizing your videos always keep engagement and audience in mind, and always be accurate and not misleading.

Content is not the only thing that needs to be optimized on YouTube, your channel is also highly important. Through configuring the layout properly and organizing content, channels can go from bland to brilliant easily and leave a better impression on users.

YouTube is a powerhouse when it comes to video marketing, and properly using the platform can be effective way to grow your network, build credibility, and even gain new leads. For more information on YouTube, as well as other social media networks, contact us.

 

 

Sources

1. https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-statistics-for-social-media-managers/

2. https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics