YouTube Marketing

YouTube has massive traffic and viewers, with over 1,325,000,000 people using YouTube. There are currently 300 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute of every day – 5 hours of video content every second! Which only validates the fact that video marketing is a growing trend – the numbers say it all.

In fact, in the last few years Cisco was scrambling to re-engineer its routers to deal with what they call the “video onslaught”. By 2017 at least 78% of all internet traffic was video. More than half of all web traffic after 5PM is ALREADY video traffic — YouTube, Netflix, and other companies serving as prime video platforms.

Video is where the web is going. The move toward video has reached critical mass, a tipping point where the momentum will swing and things will all start to speed up.

For online and offline Business owners and internet marketers, YouTube Marketing is an essential strategy to take advantage of the web’s massive shift toward video. That’s why it’s so important to learn and test some strategies and to get help from Digital Organics right now. It will give you a huge leg up on your competition, helping your business to move forward.

How to do YouTube marketing

Before you start filming video content, you’ll need to set up your YouTube channel. This can get a bit complicated. As you probably know, YouTube is owned by Google. As a result, when you sign up for a Gmail account, you’ll automatically have access to a YouTube account, a Google+ account, and much more. Depending on your business, you may not want to tie your email to your business’s YouTube channel, especially if you need to share access to the account with team members or an agency partner. We suggest that you create a common email account that can be used by multiple people.

To get started, visit Google.com and click “Sign in” in the upper right hand corner.

Next, click on “Create Next, click on “Create account” at the bottom of the page.

Enter your name, desired email and password, birthday, gender, phone number, current email, and country before clicking “Next step.” Please note, Google requires all users to be at least 13 years old.

Agree to Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service, then verify your account with a code sent via text or phone call.

Congrats! You’re now a proud owner of a Google account.

Setting Up a YouTube Brand Account

Okay, you now have a Google account, and you’re ready to publish some awesome video content, but we’re not done yet! You now need to set up a YouTube brand account. A brand account allows users to manage editing permissions and create a more holistic online presence.

To get started, visit YouTube.com. In the upper right-hand corner, you should notice that you’re probably already logged in. If this is not true, click on the blue “Sign in” button in the upper right-hand corner, and enter your Google account username and password.

Once you’ve signed in, click on “My channel” in the left-hand menu bar.

There, you’ll have the option to create a channel right away. Do not click on “Create Channel.” Click on “Use a business or other name” below.

Enter your brand account name and press “Create.” Note: You can update or change your channel name from your account settings later, so don’t worry if you need to revise your selected label.

Now that you have a Brand Account, let’s customize it. Click on “Edit Layout” to get started.

Start by adding a channel icon and channel art. These will be the first things users see when visiting your YouTube account so be sure to use images that are easily recognizable and consistent with your overall branding.

A channel icon is similar to a Facebook profile picture. This image will be used across all of your Google properties like Gmail and Google+. Consider using a company logo or, if you are a public figure, a professional headshot.

To add a channel icon, click on the default red profile picture in the upper left-hand corner of your channel. Then upload an image. Google recommends uploading an 800 x 800 px square or round image. Please note, it may take several minutes for your channel icon to appear after uploading.

Next, upload your channel art. Click on the blue “Add channel art” button in the center of your channel. Upload a 2560 x 1440 px image that will scale well — across desktop, tablet, mobile, and TV. Check out YouTube’s channel art templates for specific design guidance.

After you upload your channel icon and art, add a channel description, a company email, and links to your company website and other social platforms in the About section. Your description should provide more information on your company and explain what type of video content you plan on sharing. Search engines look at your description when determining how to rank your profile so incorporate relevant keywords in your overview. We’ll talk more about how to optimize your YouTube channel description below.

With the basic profile complete, it’s time to add a few finishing touches! Before we move on, it’s important to get one thing straight — you can customize the way your YouTube channel looks to subscribers and unsubscribed visitors. This means that unsubscribed viewers would see different featured content than dedicated, subscribed viewers. Pretty cool, right?

One of the main ways you can take advantage of this feature is by creating a channel trailer. A channel trailer is the video version of your description and is shown to all your unsubscribed viewers. Your trailer should be short and sweet (around 30 to 60 seconds). Focus on showing visitors what your channel is about, what they can expect to see, and encourage them to subscribe. Your trailer won’t be interrupted by ads, keeping the user focused on why they should watch more videos from your brand.

Ready to get started? First, make sure channel customization is turned on. To do this, click on the gear icon next to the subscribe button in the upper right-hand corner of your channel.

Next, switch “Customize the layout of your channel” to on and press “Save.”

Now that you’ve set up your channel for customization, upload your trailer. Click the arrow upload button in the upper right-hand corner and select your video file. Remember to add keywords to your trailer name and description. Once your video uploads, click on the “For new visitors” tab on your channel homepage.

Then click “Channel trailer.”

Finally, select your uploaded trailer, or enter a URL to a video you’d like to feature, and press “Save.”

Finally, your channel may be eligible for a custom URL if you have over 100 subscribers, a channel icon, channel art, and is more than 30 days old. To learn more about custom YouTube URLs click here.

Before you start implementing your YouTube marketing plan, you should decide who on your team will need access to the account. Granting access to team members will allow them to help manage the channel through their own Google accounts.

When you grant access to a Google account, there are three options for roles:

• Owner: Owners have full editing power over all company Google properties. They can add or remove managers, edit business information, respond to reviews, and more.
• Manager: Managers have the same editing powers as Owners, except they cannot add or remove page roles or remove listings. Anyone editing a YouTube channel must be a Manager or a Owner.
• Communications Manager: Communications Managers can respond to reviews and do several other actions but they cannot use YouTube’s video manager, upload content, or view analytics.

To add individuals to your account, click the gear icon in the upper right-hand corner of your YouTube channel. Go to “Overview” and click “Add or remove managers.”

Click “Manage Permissions.”

Then, select the people icon in the upper right-hand corner to invite new users.

To grant permission to a person, enter their Gmail address and indicate their role.