How to leverage YouTube to promote your business

Video marketing is one of the most appealing marketing strategies to increase brand awareness in this digital era. But, if you are to make the most of it, you should aim at using a platform that has a huge following. As the second largest online search engine, YouTube provides such a platform to businesses.

Statistics show that YouTube boasts more than 2 billion subscribers . In addition, with mobile optimization, YouTube reaches more people as compared to television. This only goes to show that this is where the numbers are. Businesses that have managed to leverage these numbers are making it big. If you’re wondering how much money YouTubers make, they are producing millions of dollars out of it.

However, new content crops up every other minute. It can be easy for your videos to go unnoticed if you lack a good strategy. Here are some ways that you can utilize this powerful platform to move your business forward.

1. Define your goals

Leveraging YouTube to promote a business starts with creating video content. Knowing the type of content that you need will depend on what you want to achieve with your videos. Before anything else, define your goals. Do you want to enhance brand awareness, increase traffic to your business, or increase sales? Your exact goals will help you package your content in a way that will make it possible to achieve them.

For instance, if you want to improve brand awareness, pursue videos highlighting your business core values, engaging a thought leader in the industry, or educational videos. If you want to increase leads, testimonials, customer stories, and product videos are a good fit.

2. Capitalize in SEO

Promoting your business through YouTube goes beyond just uploading videos. You have to make deliberate efforts to make your video searchable on the platform. Besides, it would be a waste of time and effort if you were to upload a video on YouTube and not get any views. This is where SEO optimization comes in.

Research other videos in your niche to understand the most searched keywords. Use these keywords both in the videos’ headlines and descriptions. In addition, add tags that are relevant to your niche to increase visibility. You can also copy tags used in popular videos in your niche to increase the possibility of appearing under suggestions when those videos are played.

3. Use influencers

Influencer marketing isn’t only reserved for Facebook and Instagram. It’s possible to form partnerships to grow influencer marketing on YouTube as well. The best part: Using influencers to promote your business on YouTube brings together two of the best marketing tools – video and influencer marketing.

Start by identifying authoritative, but credible influencers in your niche. Have them create content around your business. Some of the popular videos by influencers are unboxing and unwrapping videos. You can also use your influencer to promote giveaways, discounts, product launches, or even use him or her as your brand ambassador. Just be sure that they are using keywords and tags that direct viewers back to your business.

4. Promote your channel in other platforms

If you want to drive more traffic to your videos, put in the necessary efforts to promote your YouTube channel across other platforms. There are several ways that you can do this. They include:

• Post the links to your videos on your social media pages
• Embed the videos on your blog
• Email the link to your friends and business-emailing list
• Write a blog about your videos
• Ask people to share the links

5. Create valuable content

You can have great content for your videos, but, it’s how you package them that will determine if they’ll appeal to your target audience. For starters, most people aren’t looking for a sales pitch. Instead, they want something engaging, educative, and entertaining. If you want to get their attention, you need to capitalize on these things.

In addition, viewers lose concentration after a few minutes of watching. This is especially if a video has a lot of fluff and non-valuable content. Make sure that you are sticking to content that adds value to the viewers. Even if you feel that the video is too short, don’t be tempted to prolong it with unreliable content.

Moving forward – Don’t be afraid to leverage YouTube

Promoting a business through video marketing appears to be overwhelming. That is why most businesses tend to shy away from using it, especially when they have to think about making videos. However, it is doable with the rights tools and strategy. Moreover, with YouTube at your disposal, the large numbers are yours to leverage.