YouTube is one of the largest video-sharing platforms, now closely followed by TikTok. It, therefore, creates endless opportunities for businesses to reach and engage with their audiences.
To put things into perspective, one in every two Australians uses YouTube daily. In addition, the average Australian spends an average of 17.1 hours on YouTube every month. Moreover, the country receives over 2 billion dollars in ad revenue. These statistics show the potential of YouTube if used effectively as a marketing tool.
Here is an ultimate guide to YouTube marketing for beginners.
What is YouTube Marketing?
YouTube marketing is the process of using the platform to promote products, services, or your brand. You can apply different tactics for your YouTube marketing, such as displaying ads, working with YouTube influencers, or having a channel where you talk about your brand, services, or products.
Since YouTube is a search engine like Google, you will want to produce content that your target audience wants rather than what you think they want. Thus, you need to apply YouTube SEO tactics if you’re to have any chances of success with YouTube marketing.
How to Create a YouTube Channel
Step 1: Create a Google Account
If you already have a Gmail account, you already have access to YouTube, and you can go ahead and create your account.
However, you don’t want to avoid linking your personal Gmail account to your business Youtube channel. Having a separate email for your business comes in handy, especially when you need to grant access to other team members or agencies you want to work with.
Step 2: Create a YouTube Channel
After creating your Google account, you can now create your YouTube brand account. With a brand account, you can grant editing permissions to team members.
Go to your Google browser, and in the top right corner, where you see an avatar, there are 9 square-shaped dots. Click on them to see different applications offered by Google, including YouTube. First, sign in to your Google account, and without signing out, click on the YouTube icon.
Click ‘account module’ and then ‘your channel’ available on your drop-down menu. You will see two options for creating an account – using your name or a custom name. Use the custom name option.
You will receive a prompt to create your channel name. Don’t think so much about the name if you don’t have it already figured out – you can change the name later from your account settings.
Step 3: Customise your Brand Account
On the top right, click on the ‘customise channel’ button. Add your profile picture by clicking on the profile picture icon on the left-hand side of your account. When uploading images, ensure they align with your brand image and colours.
You also need to add your banner image and video watermark. Next, click the ‘basic info’ button and edit your channel description, add your company email, and links to your website or online store.
Step 4: Upload your first Video
To upload your first video, select ‘content’ on the left side menu, then click ‘upload videos’. Upload a video from your files, then follow the prompts to process, customise, and publish your video.
How to Optimize Your YouTube Videos for SEO
Creative and engaging content is great, but it is not the only factor determining your success with YouTube marketing. You need to optimise your video’s metadata, including the title, description, tags, subtitles, thumbnails, category, and captions.
Title
Titles are what viewers see even before they click on your videos and you want to make them compelling enough that your viewers can’t resist clicking on your video. You need to do some keyword research to know what phrases your target audiences are using to find videos like yours.
Use these keywords alongside descriptive words that explain what your video is about. You want to convince them that your video will offer the solution they are looking for. YouTube gives you 60 characters to use on your titles and you want to make use of these characters so that your titles don’t get cut off.
Description
YouTube will display about 100 characters of your description. You want to use as many keywords within this description as you can. You can also add a CTA or a link to videos. You can also add a transcription of your video under the description to maximise your use of keywords.
Title Tags
When posting any video, Google will ask you to select some title tags for categorisation purposes. Use your manin keywords for the tags and also do a mix of long-tail keywords to ensure that users find your content when they search your videos using these key phrases.
Category
Youtube allows you to indicate the category under which your content falls for easier grouping with other similar videos. The platform allows you to categorise your content into the following major categories:
- Film & Animation, Autos & Vehicles
- Music, Pets & Animals
- Sports
- Travel & Events
- Gaming, People & Blogs
- Comedy, Entertainment
- News & Politics
- How-to & Style
- Educations
- Science & Technology
- Nonprofits & Activism
Thumbnails
You also need to optimise your video thumbnails – these are the images viewers will see when scrolling past several videos on YouTube. Use high quality images and ensure they are 1280 x 720 pixels for consistency on viewers using different devices.
While YouTube auto-generates thumbnails, the most successful YouTubers use custom thumbnails. However, you need to verify your account before you can upload custom thumbnails which won’t take up most of your time. Visit youtube.com/verify and enter the code that you will receive on your mobile.
Subtitles and Closed Captions
Subtitles and closed captions give your viewers a better understanding of what your video is about. It is also a perfect opportunity for you to use keywords that will further enhance your rankings among many similar videos.
To add the subtitles and closed captions, go to your channel and click on subtitles. Click the video you want to add subtitles and captions to, choose a language, and confirm. Review the auto-generated transcript for any errors and edit accordingly.
Optimise Your Playlists
Under your videos, click on a video you want to add to a playlist and click +add to under the specific video. Click on create new playlist and write the name of the playlist then complete the action by selecting Create.
Optimising your playlists will make your content more discoverable and will also make your viewers want to view more similar content.
Include a Logo for Brand Awareness
One of the reasons you want to try YouTube marketing could be brand awareness. While optimising your channel you want to ensure that people watching your videos also learn about your brand. The best way to create brand awareness is to include a watermark of your brand logo on your videos.
YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google and the platform receives over 2 billion visitors each month. Brands can leverage these huge numbers of audiences to market their brands, products, or services.
The first step is creating a YouTube channel and then optimising it so that your videos are discoverable. Just like you use keywords for your websites, you also need to use keywords on your videos.
