Youtube is one of the most popular platforms for video content. It has more than a billion users and takes up a third of all internet traffic. Youtube is also the second largest search engine in the world, after Google.
You may be wondering how to use Youtube as part of your overall social media marketing strategy. Here are some tips:
-Make sure to have links to your website, social media pages, and any other relevant information in your video description. This will help people find more information about you if they want it!
-Add annotations to your videos so that viewers can click on them and get more info on certain topics or products that you mention in your video. You can also use annotations for calls-to-action like asking viewers to subscribe or comment on what they think about something that was said or shown in the video itself!
Social Media Marketing Tools Youtube Videos
YouTube marketing can be an intimidating tool for brands. It combines a strategic principle — SEO — with one of the most resource-intensive forms of media — video. That’s why we’ve created this complete guide for YouTube pros and newcomers alike. Below we’ll walk through each step of marketing on YouTube — from how to create a YouTube channel and optimize videos for SEO to how to run a YouTube advertising campaign and interpret video analytics.
How to Create a YouTube Channel
So, you’ve decided to create a YouTube channel. Great! Now, you’ll need a YouTube Marketing strategy to help you identify goals, decide on video topics, and properly promote your brand on your new channel.
Before we dive in, it’s important to note that maintaining a YouTube channel takes a lot of time and planning. Are you ready for it?
Unlike other social networking platforms, YouTube exclusively hosts video content. You’ll need to set aside time to plan, film, edit, market, and analyze your content on a consistent basis. You’ll also need to define your brand’s goals and plan for how video can specifically help you achieve these. If you can devote an appropriate amount of time and energy to the platform, you’ll be able to create engaging, shareable content for your growing audience.
Creating a Google Account
Before you start filming video content, you’ll need to set up your YouTube channel. Because YouTube is owned by Google, when you sign up for a Gmail account, you automatically gain 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.
Step 1: Visit Google and click Sign in in the upper right-hand corner.
Step 2: Click on Create account at the bottom of the page.
Step 3: You’ll see an option pop up to create an account for yourself or to manage your business. Since your YouTube account will be for your business, choose To manage my business.
Step 4: To officially create your Google account, enter your name and desired email and password before clicking Next. Then, enter a recovery email and your birthday, gender, and phone number.
Note: Google requires all users to be at least 13 years old.
Step 5: Lastly, agree to Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service and verify your account with a code sent via text or phone call. Congrats! You’re now the proud owner of a Google account.
Creating a YouTube Account
Now that you have a Google account, you’re almost ready to publish some awesome video content.
But, we’re not done quite 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.
Step 1: Visit YouTube. In the upper right-hand corner, note that you’re probably already logged into your new Google account. (If you’re not, click Sign in and enter your new Google account username and password.)
Step 2: Once you’ve signed in, click your account module and click Your channel in the drop-down menu.
Step 3: You’ll see two options for creating your channel. Choose Use a custom name.
Step 4: Now, you should be prompted to create your channel name.
Note: You can always update or change your channel name from your account settings, so don’t worry if you aren’t 100% sure about your selected label.
Customizing Your YouTube Brand Account
Step 1: Click on Customize Channel to get started.
Step 2: Add a channel profile picture and channel art. These will be the first parts of your YouTube account that users see when visiting, so be sure to use images that are easily recognizable and consistent with your overall branding.
Step 3: To add a profile picture, click on the default profile picture in the upper left-hand corner of your channel to upload an image.
Note: It may take several minutes for your channel icon to appear after uploading.
Step 4: Next, upload your banner image and video watermark.
After you have customized the visual elements for your channel, click Basic info to add a channel description, a company email, and links to your company website and other social platforms.
With the basic profile complete, it’s time to add a few finishing touches! Before we move on, you should know that 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 adding a channel trailer for people who haven’t subscribed and adding a featured video for returning subscribers.
Adding a trailer or a featured video share the same process, so follow the steps below to do both.
Pro Tip: You’ll want to record two different videos if you plan to have separate content for each audience.
Step 1: Start by uploading your first video to youTube. Select Content in the menu on the left side. Then, click Upload Videos.
Step 2: Select a video file from your computer that you would like to appear as a trailer to people who aren’t yet subscribed to your channel.
Step 3: Follow the prompts on the screen to process, customize, and publish your video.
Now that your first YouTube video has been published, it’s time to add it as a trailer for potential subscribers to see when they visit your channel.
Step 4: Head back to Your channel and select Customize Channel.
Note: You should see the video you just uploaded on this screen now.
Step 5: Select Add Channel trailer for people who haven’t subscribed.
Step 6: Select your uploaded trailer from the library of videos you’ve uploaded.
Step 7: Click Publish to share the new trailer to your potential subscribers.
Setting Permissions for Your YouTube Brand Account
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 an 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.
Step 1: To add individuals to your account, tap your Google account icon in the upper right-hand corner to open the drop-down menu and go to Settings.
Step 2: Click Add or remove manager(s).
Step 3: Click Manage Permissions.
Step 4: 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.
How to Create a Second YouTube Channel
Looking to create another channel from the same Google account? Good news: YouTube lets you do this. Perhaps you want a separate channel for personal videos, or you’d like to start a second brand under the same business entity. Either way, the process is easy. Here’s how:
Step 1: Go to your Profile Picture and select Settings.
Step 3: Select Create A Channel
Step 4: Enter a Brand Account name for the new channel and select Create.
Step 5: Create and customize your new Brand Account (per our instructions above)
free social media traffic
- Optimize your social profiles
When people look to understand more about your brand, they turn to your profile or bio section. It should quickly communicate your brand value proposition while establishing your tone and style.
The more distinct your bio is – without sacrificing clarity – the more likely you can catch the attention of and resonate with your ideal audience.
Don’t make the mistake of writing your entire business story in your bio. Just a couple of lines will suffice. Then, connect the bio to your site with a call to action for your home or landing page.
- Use social proof
You can also use social credibility to enhance your site’s value. Just like any review or testimonial, social proof brings the human voice into your brand experience. Whenever someone is about to make a purchase or is shopping for something they want, they look for reviews, recommendations, referrals, and input from others who have used the product or service.
Incorporate reviews, social comments, feedback, etc. into your social media content and website. Your about-us page can work well for this. Make sure to only use social proof you have permission to repurpose. Don’t forget to include third-party media coverage of your brand too.
Include reviews, comments, feedback in your #social and about-us page #content, says @TopTierAgency via @CMIContent.CLICK TO TWEET
Look at Sprout Social’s company page on LinkedIn to see how they noted the quantity of customers (over 25,000) as social proof:
TIP: Be brief. Keep viewers curious to click on the “learn more” button.
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- Use less popular platforms too
If you want to fast-track your web traffic and social media focus, two actively growing social platforms could help depending on your audience and topics – Pinterest and Reddit.
Pinterest
Pinterest saw 478 million monthly users in the first quarter of 2021, a 30% year-over-year increase. For content marketers, Pinterest proves its power in consumer discovery of trends and community-based features. It’s also a good platform for brands targeting women as they represent six out of 10 Pinterest users.
Skyram Technologies generates traffic by pinning its blog posts to Pinterest. Given the visual orientation of the platform, the brand used their own images, including infographics, for some posts and stock photos for others.
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Reddit
Reddit and its 52 million daily active users represent another social opportunity. You can easily find subreddits (i.e., forums) in your niche. Engage in the conversations. Post your own queries, share long-form educational perspectives, and comment to cultivate connections. If people find your advice helpful, they will want to explore more and likely to turn to your site.
TIP: Don’t use Reddit for direct promotion and marketing. Provide value. No one wants to read a written advertorial with a self-serving purpose. That likely will yield negative comments in the forum.
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- Time it right
You can’t drive traffic to your site if you post social content when no one engages. Pick the most effective time for optimal views. Instead of using best practices for social post timing, look at your own data. See when your target audience is most responsive. You can use automatic schedulers like Tailwind to suggest optimal posting times based on your profile’s specific algorithm and analytics.
Use a scheduling tool such as @TailwindApp to suggest optimal posting times based on your profile’s algorithm and analytics, says @TopTierAgency via @CMIContent.CLICK TO TWEET
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- Make share buttons obvious
Let’s say a person came across your blog post and absolutely loved the content. They ponder sharing it, but glance and don’t see an easy way to do that. They leave.
To prevent that from happening – and encourage sharing of your content – embed sharing buttons close to your content. Show the number of shares to date as proof that others find it worth sharing too.
Include the ongoing count on share buttons as proof that others find the #content worth sharing, says @TopTierAgency via @CMIContent.CLICK TO TWEET
Look at the social share buttons and counts at the top of this article on Social Media Examiner:
- Promote your content
Often, content marketers don’t use social media enough to promote blog or other relevant content on their sites. You don’t want to tout your content all the time, but you should promote all high-quality blog posts to increase their visibility.
To drive traffic to your site, publish excerpts or teasers on social media along with a link. That can incentivize the viewer to go to your website to read more.
Social media also is a good place to promote older but still relevant content that will intrigue new followers.
TIP: Promote the same content multiple times to catch those who might not have seen or noticed it the first time.
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- Engage your audience
Make sure your social media content revolves around your target audience instead of you. Offer content that’s valuable to them. Engage and inspire them to help them achieve their objectives.
Focus on asking open-ended questions when creating content to boost engagement. Ask questions that trigger a reaction. Ask yes-no questions or go multiple-choice style. Host a poll. Organize interactive quizzes and award prizes for winners.
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- Be responsive
Make an effort to reply to every comment on your social posts. That makes your audience feel valued, and sometimes your response can include a link to your website, which offers more information on the topic.
Expediting your responses can also be a brand differentiator. Another company could have a higher marketing budget or create better content, but if you’re responsive, engaging, and genuinely build relationships, your brand is going to win.
Incorporate customer service into your social media so your brand can respond to queries and complaints promptly. The customer’s experience not only matters to them, but it offers proof to prospects on how your company is going to treat them too.
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- Get visible
Social media users respond to visuals better than text-only, from images and infographics to videos and presentations. They are a suitable medium to develop an emotional connection or trigger a strong reaction. They can also make your content more interactive or easier to consume.
Use images as standalone entries or alongside text. Avoid stock imagery in favor of more authentic images that help viewers connect more to the people in or served by your company.
Infographics can reimagine your content in a refreshing way. They are especially helpful to translate detailed or complex information. Make sure the data is easy to consume at first glance. Otherwise, you probably won’t see the boost in shares that infographics can provide.
Don’t forget video – recorded and live. As Vertical Measures’ Arnie Kuenn explains: “(I)f you aren’t consistently producing videos on all of your social media platforms, you are already far behind the competition. Focus on creating content that aligns with your customer journey and considers content amplification. The more users that make a connection with your brand, the more engagement, and followers you will ultimately receive.”
If you aren’t consistently producing #videos on all of your #SocialMedia platforms, you are already far behind the competition, says @ArnieK via @TopTierAgency via @CMIContent.CLICK TO TWEET
Live videos have been shown to bring even better interactions. How about hosting a Q&A session every week to interact with your audience? It could be a standard live format or you could ask the audience to submit questions in advance to ensure you’re properly prepared to answer them. You can also create video webinars or similar presentations and design them to convert viewers to your website.
Conclusion
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