Contents
Will you become the next YouTube success story?
Examples of YouTube success stories are numerous. What you may first think of is the South Korean rapper PSY and his song Gangnam Style, which, in just six months managed to become the most viewed video ever with over a billion views. This just goes to show the immense power of YouTube.
Make sure your brand is consistent
One of the most important things for people to recognize and create a relationship with your brand is that it is related to your other “web properties”.
For example, if your Facebook or Twitter page has a different profile picture or that the usernames of the different services are spreading in all directions then people will have a hard time recognizing your brand and therefore brand building will be very difficult. Unfortunately, for many services, there are restrictions on the number of characters in the usernames, but as far as possible, try to be consistent.
Before creating a YouTube channel, make sure the channel name and URL matches your business name. The best thing is to do this in the same vein as you buy a domain for your website. In fact, today it is becoming increasingly common for companies to first check the availability of usernames before deciding on the name of their brand – so important is brand building online nowadays.
Once you have created the channel, you will then upload a profile picture (remember to use the same as on Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and fill in the title, description, and tags as best as possible. Also, upload your own nicely designed background image as this is the one that will be the landing page when you come to your channel. You never get a second chance at a first impression so this is really your chance to impress.
The quality of your videos is crucial
Build your brand with YouTubeWhen you upload a video, keep in mind that the quality of these will color off the brand. If your video is shaky, blurry and simply doesn’t look good, you risk losing the viewer in just a few seconds. And it is not just the visual that matters – that the sound is at least as important.
So keep in mind that you use good equipment when creating your products. Today it is possible to use an iPhone, for example, but you have to keep track of settings etc. for the result to be good. Also, the software you edit and render your videos with must be good. And there’s a plethora to choose from in the market – from simple Windows Media Player to Adobe’s advanced After Effects. Much of it is rubbish so be careful what you choose.
Stay short and concise
No one wants to watch feature films on YouTube, especially not ones that are unrelated. Your videos should, therefore, be short and simple, and also tell the viewer the purpose as early as possible to make it clear to the viewer what he or she has to expect. Avoid boring instructions and instead, go directly to the core and the points.
Short and concise videos more easily gain the “power” needed to capture first-time viewers’ attention because they can quickly convey the value of the video. Therefore, if you feel that you are having trouble keeping your viewers, I would advise you to start with short videos and then gradually expand the length as you build a larger and stronger crowd of subscribers.
Quality and video length in all honor, but the most important point if you are to create a strong brand online is that you deliver new videos regularly. Discipline is not only important, but it is also critical to your success. Therefore, my tip is that before you jump headlong into video marketing you ask yourself the following questions:
How often will you have the energy and time to create new content for your YouTube?
What is your niche?And how often does your niche require you to update? Every day, every week or is it enough every month?
What does your current schedule look like? Will you be able to upload two to three videos each week or will you invest in one per month?
What is your goal? Is it getting as many subscribers as possible, presenting detailed information about your products/services or would you like to build expert status in your industry? If your goal is to get subscribers, there are many different ways to achieve this.
The answers to these questions will give you a good idea of how fresh and up-to-date your YouTube channel will look.
If your goal is to get many subscribers, it’s a good idea to start off slowly and focus on creating value. If you deliver value, people will start subscribing to your channel no matter how often you make updates. But if your primary goal is to become an authority within a subject, time is a more sensitive parameter because you must constantly be on your toes when it comes to what is happening in your industry. In this case, your channel needs to be updated as often as possible, preferably several times a week.
Sometimes a word is worth more than a thousand videos
Another tip for building your brand on YouTube is to redirect your videos by posting text content on your channel. There are two reasons for this. First, search engines cannot read videos and therefore have no idea what a video is about as long as you have no description text around it.
Therefore, in order to drive traffic to your channel, you should have valuable and meaningful textual content on your channel. This may be in the form of metadata and comments from users, but a smarter way to create this is to write your own text posts.
Such text posts can create both greater engagement and increase interaction with users. For example, you can post an interesting link, a playlist, a video that complements what you talk about in your own videos or tips on good sites online. Using textual content in this way further strengthens your brand.
Show the best you have first
Once you’ve come a long way and uploaded a bunch of videos, it’s time to give your best videos a prominent placement in your channel so that they appear first. You do this by using YouTube’s Featured Video Clips feature.
