Top 5 Best Practices for YouTube

Are you using YouTube for your business? If not, it is certainly something to consider. YouTube is a unique way to interact with and reach your audience. However, there are some do’s and don’ts when posting and sharing videos. Here are our tips to keep your audience engaged and entertained.

1. Be Entertaining

While this is an outlet to expand your brand and create more recognition, YouTube should not be used for just commercials. Be creative with the videos you upload; don’t just be informative. If you tell a story with characters and a plot rather than just two guys talking about your product, you’ll have much more views and shares. Another idea is to create a mini series that is relevant to your brand. If done right, your audience will keep coming back to watch the next episode!

2. Encourage Engagement

Closing your videos with “The End” gets the audience (and you) nowhere. Direct them to your site, to like you on Facebook, to follow you on Twitter, anything to prompt them to go beyond just watching your video then moving on to the next channel. If your brand allows, encourage your viewers to send their own video responses back. Ask what their opinion is.

3. Link Back to Your Website

Duh. The purpose of the videos is to get your audience to become followers of your brand. In the descriptions of every video, the very first line should be a link to your website. Often times (think about if you do this too), people will not click on the “show more” in the description. If your link is at the bottom, they will miss it. Also, at the end of your video, throw the URL to your website up there. Double exposure.

4. Tag, Tag, Tag!

The best way for people to find your videos is to use tags. When a person types a keyword into the search, YouTube will use the video tags to find videos that match the keywords. However, be sure to only use tags that are relevant to your brand and your video. If you have 30 tags at the bottom and only 3 pertain to your subject matter, it will look more like desperate spam and not a business sharing videos.

5. Stay Regular

Maintaining all of your social media outlets by regularly updating is becoming essential to the success of a brand. There is nothing more discouraging than coming upon a promising channel that hasn’t uploaded a new video in 6 months. Have a schedule for uploading videos that makes sense for you. Maybe once a month is enough or maybe you need a video every two weeks. Gage your audience and their wants. It is really all about them anyway.

When utilized correctly, YouTube can be a great way to expand your brand. Your videos may not go viral, but your audience will respond and appreciate videos that are entertaining and informative.

Categorized in: Articles, Marketing, Social Media