YouTube is a website that is designed to share videos. Beginning in 2005, the site has grown immensely since then. Every minute, people from all over the world upload more than 300 hours of video footage.
It is the second-largest search engine in the world behind Google, which incidentally owns YouTube. This means that people using YouTube are constantly searching for information and discovering videos.
YouTube’s traffic is so huge and is still growing exponentially. With over a billion videos viewed daily, its reach is a great avenue to push products and services in front of as many people as possible, without breaking the bank.
New brands and products are being discovered on YouTube daily. So if you’re using YouTube to promote your business, you’re in the right place.
1. Your audience comes first.
Who does not want traffic? But for any new YouTuber, it is of prime importance to build an audience first. And as you’re building that audience base, you also have to consider gaining trust and genuine relationships with your audience.
Make it a point to deliver good content and not insult your audience’s intelligence with clickbait. Make it common practice to produce solid, helpful, and valuable content that may be worthwhile for your audience to share.
There are numerous benefits to building a channel. Once you establish an active community, you will get better results for every video you put out. And your audience will come back ready to watch and share your content.
Knowing your target audience is important in business and marketing campaigns. When it comes to YouTube, it’s crucial.
2. Find your niche.
A channel with a singular and clear focus is easier to subscribe to than a channel that does different things. We understand that with a variety of content on YouTube, it is hard to stand out.
You have options to fill gaps in the market by creating content for underserved niche categories. Go into a popular niche and make something better than what is already out there, or make something different.
We are not going to lie, it is not easy finding a niche on YouTube and you won’t get it right the first time. It is going to take creativity, self-awareness, focused direction and thought. You would need to invest time and energy into this process.
To help you zero in on finding your niche, consider the following:
- What are you good at?
- What are you passionate about?
- Is there an audience for your potential niche?
- What will you do differently?
- Can you continuously generate content for this niche?
- Can you make money in this niche?
3. Watch lots of videos.
Business owners keep an eye on the market and their competitors for continuous research. So should YouTube content creators.
It is good practice to watch lots of videos to keep abreast of what’s happening. Also, to find out what other creators are doing that is working well. The intent should be not to copy, but to understand what works and what audiences enjoy watching.
Find successful creators in your chosen niche spend time watching on their channels and ask the following questions:
- What videos of theirs seem to get good views, likes, or comments?
- How do they respond to negative comments?
- How do they encourage subscriptions?
- What equipment do they use?
- What keywords do they use to describe their content?
- What tools or editing software do they use?
The answers you get should help you plan to create your content. From here, build off from ideas that work and eliminate those that don’t.
4. Establish a brand.
As we mentioned earlier, new brands and products are being discovered on YouTube daily. With a billion watch hours on YouTube every day, it’s foolish not to see the marketing potential of this medium.
If that is not enough to convince you, how about the fact that 90% have said they discovered brands and products on it? So much so that even YouTube provides tips on how to brand your channel.
Creating a distinctive brand helps a channel and its content sticks out among the choices viewers have on YouTube. A brand makes viewers become familiar with a channel and recognise it when it pops up in recommendations.
5. Be consistent.
Creating a successful YouTube channel takes time and effort. It’s not as simple as uploading one video, forget it completely and expect success. Viewers do expect consistency from the channels they subscribe to.
Stick to your channel’s central theme and avoid straying too far off the brand. This is so that you won’t confuse your subscribers and/or followers. For example, you can’t be a channel about cooking and then post content about cars the next.
YouTube’s channels shouldn’t be limited when it comes to creativity. But consistency will help build numbers up in the beginning.
It is important to maintain a consistent tone and style in making your content. Also, think of your channel like a regular TV show. Keep a set schedule to post content at the same time each day, week, or month. This is so that your viewers will know when to come back for more.
It also helps if you post often. YouTube’s search ranking algorithm gives priority to channels that post regularly. If you can, post at least three or more videos a week. To help you with scheduling, create a content calendar to ensure you have enough content each week.
With YouTube as the second most popular social media, it’s a no-brainer you should use it for your business. Even if you only produce one video a week, it can still have an impact and be useful and enable you to gain customers and subscribers.
YouTube’s social media is only one avenue where we can be of service to you. It is after all to build brand awareness and build trust for your customer base. Get in touch with our Social Media Marketing team to see how we can help.
