How to Hit It Big On YouTu be
A Guide to Establish Your Business on the World’s Video Platform
2
WILL TEACH SEOFI ED YOU:How to set up your business’ YouTube account and get started
The fundamentals of setting up a successful YouTube campaign for your business Best practices for increasing your view counts How to go about marketing your Videos online How YouTube views are calculated Key demographics within YouTube audiences
Introductio n
In a few short years YouTube has gone from being an entertaining curiosity filled with funny videos to the one of the world’s largest search engines. During that span of time the com pany (along with Google) m anaged to harness its initial popularity to create an increasingly lucrative marketing hub as more viewers and advertisers m igrated from television to the Internet. YouTube now exhibits m ore than 6 billion hours of video watched each m onth as well as m illion of subscriptions to various YouTube channels each day.
No longer strictly the dom ain of film geeks and funny video aficionados, the network, which boasts m ore than a million advertisers using G oogle ad platforms , can provide a low - cost to no-cost way to create a social m arketing channel for your business. W ith thousands of channels m aking six figures a year through YouTube’s Partner Program alone, the rewards for making a channel that captivates an audience are higher than ever before. If you aren’t effectively leveraging the network, you’re missing the viral video boat. However, as with most things in life, success isn’t often attained with a haphazard, slapdash effort. Being successful on YouTube takes planning, time and effort.
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GettingStarted Getting Started with YouTube Getting Set Up: Before
you
can
start
posting fantastic content that will help promote
your
business
online, you need to m ake an account. Before even considering heading over to YouTube, you needto set up a Google gm ail account. It is a good idea
to
create
your business YouTube
an
that
account
strictly
for
will link
services
like
and Google+
Furthermore,
together.
YouTube requires you to have
a gm ail account so if you want a YouTube
Create Your Account: To
create your account,
navigate to YouTube’s “Get Started” page.
account you’re going to need gm ail anyway.
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Choosing Your Username: At this point YouTube will ask you to create a “Usernam e.” It is extremely im portant that you pick a usernam e that is relevant to your business. This is
particularly
significant
when
people
search for your business - you want them be able to find your YouTube page w hen they use search engines like Google and Bing. Avoid generic keywords that
can
cause your business to get overshadowed and keep in mind that your YouTube username must be one word, with no spaces or special characters.
Build Your Profile: Once
your
account
is
set up
it is
essential
to customize your YouTube profile in order to highlight the most important inform ation. In order to do this click on “edit” in the “profile” section of your YouTube account. Fill out as much information as is applicable to your business. Keep in mind that the more inform ation you have available, the easier it w ill be for people to find your account on YouTube.
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Typesof Channels A User Channel User channels are the basic
free
accounts
that anyone can start.
A Partner Channel Partner channels are channels that
are
accepted
by
YouTube as YouTube Partners, either
via
invitation
an
from
YouTube
or
through the channel filling
out
YouTube
a Partner
application. Partner channels get a share of revenue from the ads that run on their videos, and mo re control of their channel’s overall design. As a result, if it
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Defining “Success� Success on YouTube can m ean different things to different marketers and businesses. First, you m ust decide on what you are ultimately trying to a c h i e v e .
Increase in Sales
Brand Engagement
Increase in Views
Do you need people to
Does your video need to give
Are you sim ply trying to get
click through from your
your
as m any people as possible to
video to
m ore interaction with your
another website where they
brand?
potential
custom ers
see your video?
can take a desired action?
After you define w hat YouTube success m eans for your business, you Can begin som e research.
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Keyword Research
To be discovered on the second largest search engine, you will need to know w hat people are looking for. Use
YouTube’s Keywo rd Tool to find popularsearches within your space. Select a few terms that have a high search volum e and are especially relevant to your video. Use these terms in your title, description, tags, and mo re to help your video be discovered.
You can find youtube’s keyword research tool here: https://www.youtube.com/keyword_tool
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Demographics
US Demographics
Online Audience Reach
Monthly Veiwers
Total audience Ages 18-34
58%
122.7
67%
37.6
Ages 34-49
60%
31.6
Ages 50-64
53%
25.7
Ages
50%
12.3
65+ Male
58%
59
57%
63.7
Female
Part of doing well on YouTube is understanding who your audience is going to be. Know ing w hat percentage of YouTube users fall under your business’ targeted age demographic, for instance, w ill help you understand just how helpful the service will be in reaching your targeted audience. However, understanding w ho your business w ants to target is only part of the battle, the next step is identifying what kind of people are on YouTube and w hat percentage of the service they m ake up. Source: http://www.youtube.com/yt/advertise/demographics.html
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Most Common Types of Peopleon YouTube Music Lovers
21.8
million people
Video Gamers
4.7 million people
Comedy Fans
27. 3 2
million people
Auto Enthusiasts
million people
Source(s):http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/newswire/2013/march-2013--top-education---career-sitesand-u-s-web-brands.html, http://www.youtube.com/yt/advertise/demographics.html
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Know Your Competition Search on YouTube to find other videos that rank w ell for the keywords that youwo uld like to rank for. See w hat it is that you are up against and seek out strategies to out-do them. This phase should also help you in your keyword research. Find opportunities: are there some high traffic keywords that seem like they may be easier to rank for than others? If so, consider targeting those keywords instead of ones that will be difficult to rank for.
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Create Unique and Captivating Content
W hen in doubt: Inform: Keep your viewers informed about the company or industry
Entertain: Entertain your target customer with something that they find enjoyable
Educate: Make a “how-to” video or a product demo that acts as a free service that betters your customers
Content doesn’t go viral just because you want it to. Viral content, unless it happens by chance, m ust be w ell thought-out and gripping! No one is going to pass on a video to their friend(s) if they don’t really care for it themselves. W hen m aking your content it can be helpful to consider whether you’re m aking something that your imm ediate friends would share as an indicator for what others will think of your content. Always remember that while video quality is important, the content you are presenting is what will make or break your YouTube campaign. Also consider the demographics that were shown above as a good indicator of what most people on YouTube gravitate towards – not only cats are popular on YouTube!
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Uniqueand Captivating Content
Acer’s YouTube Channel: Acer’s YouTube Channel is both unique and captivating in that it has custom graphics that stress its “Superstar DJ” m arketing cam paign for their Aspire P3 Ultrabook. The hom e page is structured in a way that leads users to m ake a conversion. The page is optim ized in a way that easily draws custom ers to their products. Heineken’s :
The official Heineken channel takes advantage of its YouTube partner status to create a highly custom ized and visually im m ersive page that m akes the user experience w ith their brand on YouTube truly unique. Their current cam paign “The Voyage” is featured on the front of their page in a way that seam lessly integrates the overall them e of their page directly into their video. Particularly interesting is the clearly visible tim e and consideration that has gone in to figuring out what still im age of their video cam paign would best fit with the rest of their page. This is som ething that other brands should definitely try and replicate on their own page in an effort to present a m ore visually captivating page.
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Video Details Put important keywords at the front of your video
titles
and include the m in your descriptions and tags. Do not over-do it, just use keywords that are relevant and are based on your keyword research. Make sure you allow your videos to be em bedded, so that viewers can see your videos on YouTube as w ell as on other sites that cover topics that are related to w hat you have input in your video details boxes.
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‘Featured Videos’ Section
A “Featured Video” is a video that generally com es from YouTube’s partners, but may also include select user videos that are popular or have been previously showcased in the “Spotlight Videos” section of YouTube. Features are not necessarily advertisements or paid placements, but often feature content from Youtube’s partners w ith whom they have a commercial relationship w ith. If you are certain that your video will be a m ajor hit, use YouTube’s paid “Featured Videos” service to get your video seen by as m any people in as short am ount of tim e as possible. Once the video takes off, your organic traffic will usually outdo your paid traffic. Pay attention to when this happens so that you can scale back your paid traffic as is appropriate.
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Use
annotations
to
insert links to your other
Insert Links In Your Videos
Include links here
videos to maximize every Viewer. Make sure those viewers
that
come
to
your channel with the intentions of
watching
just
Utiliz e me!
Tryit !
one
video end up watching two or three of your other videos as well.
However, keep in mind to
not
overdo
annotations
on your
videos either. try
and
link
Ideally
find
the
happy medium
at
which
your
annotations help you connect videos
your without
impeding
the viewing
experience for the user.
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Utilize Social Media
By putting built-up and relevant social media accounts to work for you, you w ill get your video seen by more people. “Relevant� means that your friends and your user history should be somehow related to the topic of your video for it to get more qualified traffic. Some of the best sites for video sharing are Digg, Twitter, and Stum bleUpon, but other sites w here video sharing is prevalent are also good options. Due diligence should be carried out to try and identify what the best m edium to post your specific video will be.
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Paid Advertising Options on YouTube
If you w ant to use YouTube for paid advertising, a good option for your businessmight be YouTube’s “TrueView” feature w hich allows you to use your videos like television advertisements. This feature w orks like an ad campaign - you pay for the term s you’d like your video to show up for and users see your ad before videos that have related terms to what you’ve entered. There are four w ays to use the Trueview: 1) TrueView in-stream: In-stream ads work a lot like television advertisements. They play before or during other YouTube videos that are related to what you are advertising for. You only pay if they watch at least 30 seconds or to the end of your video.
2) TrueView in-slate: In-slate ads show before YouTube videos that are more than 10 minutes long. Users chose between three advertisement options, and you only pay if your advertisement is chosen.
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3) TrueView in-search: In-search ads appear above or to the right of regular results when users search for certain videos. This feature works a lot like regular google search pay-perclick, with your business only paying when a viewer chooses to watch your video.
4) TrueView in-display: In-display ads appear in the sidebar of other YouTube videos that are related to what your target audience is watching. Your business only pays when a viewer chooses to watch your video.
Each of these Trueview options could take your business to the next level on YouTube, but taking the time to understand w hich specific TrueView strategy or combination of strategies w ould work best for your business is im portant to understand instead of blindly investing in all of them. Test each option out and see w hich one gets the best results for your business.
Source: http://www.youtube.com/yt/advertise/trueview.html
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Practice Makes Perfect The more times you go back and start over the easier the process of creating and sharing your video to a wide audience will become. Look at what you can improve about your video production and continue to keep your video channel page fresh with m ore videos to keep users interested in the content you are publishing.
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How Are YouTube Views Calculated? _
=
+
7 4
58
6
1
2
3
0
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W e’ve all heard YouTube’s dazzling numbers: Over 4 billion views every day; m ore than 60 hours of video uploaded every m inute; Over 13 m illion hours of footage was uploaded in 2010; m ore video is uploaded every 60 days than the three m ajor US television netw orks produced in the previous 60 years; and YouTube receives the equivalent of 115,000 full-length feature film s in uploads every year. For the savvy sm all business owner with a tight budget who is looking to integrate social m edia platform s into their m arketing m ix there are also interesting statistics to be had. M ore than 2 billion videos per week are m onetized, while the total num bers of advertisers using YouTube has increased 10-fold. For those looking to leverage m obile, YouTube also offers an attractive option - w ith the m obile app consistently getting over 400 m illion view s a day.
According to a recent study, video m arketing is on the rise in 2011 - with 77 percent of m arketers planning to increase overall video m arketing efforts, with networks like YouTube leading the way in providing low -cost distribution channels. It’s obvious why sm all businesses are flocking to YouTube, and just as obvious is that sm all business com panies m ust allocate som e serious resources to keeping their view counts free from
fraud.
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It should be no surprise that
YouTube
Getting An Accurate Count
has
tightened its video view calculating
process.
W ay back in the early days of YouTube (circa 2005), counting views was a
Refres
more casual affair.
h
The entrepreneurs (Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and
2,78 6,042 Jawed Karim) that
brought Views us into a w orld of 24/7 Funniest Hom e Videos simply registered how m any times a page was loaded. Under those conditions, any teenager looking to bum p up the stats on his Skyw alker battle reenactment video could simply press a brow ser’s refresh button over and over again to increase the view count. It didn’t take long for YouTube to get wise to this game and they implemented some changes. As the com pany m oved to m onetize videos, the importance of video
view
counts
increased
significantly.
The
current
process is done in a m anner we have come to expect from a Google-owned company - all through algorithms and security system s. There are very few teenagers left that are able to gam e the view count system YouTube now has in place.
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Despite the com bined technical prowess of YouTube and Google along with their added security m easures and algorithms, it is still possible to inflate view s artificially - but it is m uch harder Thedo.most com m on attem pts occur through spam to
bots
m alware, with a few attem pts by the
and uploaded
video’s particularly internet savvy.
w hen
SPAM!
SPAM!
SPAM!
the user is
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What Does YouTube Do ToAddress This?
Most attem pts at artificial view inflation fail miserably and
the penalty
for getting caught can result in
losing large percentages of both real and fake view s that you’ve am assed on your channel. Take this exam ple below as proof enough that artificial inflation of your views is not w orth the risk.
YouTube has said that a view is counted w henever someone watches a video on YouTube and claim they “do not get more specific than this to avoid attem pts at artificially inflating view counts.” W h ile YouTube is generally tight lipped about its security measures, the com pany is not shy about discussing the technology in more obscure terms. YouTube has sophisticated technology to count views consistently. If this technology detects that there has been an attem pt to inflate a video’s view count artificially,
that
video’s
view
count
will
be
frozen, according
to
the
YouTube guidelines. During this time the video is still available and the allimportant view count will continue, only it will not appear until the video and the issue has been adjudicated.
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YouTube explains why they have employed these measures: “We’ve implem ented this type of technology and view count analysis in order to prevent abuse of the system. Video view s are at the heart of the
YouTube co mmunity and we w ant to ensure that we’re counting only
valid views (and
not artificial attem pts to gam e the system). Ultimately,
consistent view counts benefit everyone in the com m unity, from the view ers to the .”
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Is My YouTube Campaign Successful? How to Hit It Big on YouTub e A G u ide for You r B u siness
In utilizing a YouTube campaign brands should obviously be constantly tracking and evaluating success based on the goals they have set for themselves. There are a few different ways to track key success metrics of you r YouTube campaign’s perform ance:
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• Views: the number of times users have
2,930,811
viewed your video
835
835
• Subscriptions to your channel: the number of users who have signed up to be notified of when
namehere
10 videos
your channel posts new content
835
• Traffic driven to your website: incoming traffic to your website from your YouTube videos - as measured by Google Analytics
• Likes/Dislikes: The amount of positive votes towards Like
the content of your videos versus the amount of negative votes
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• Comments: The amount of users who
comments
have commented on your video
• Embeds: The amount of users who have embedded your video into their own content
Em bed <lifram width=’420’ height=”315” src=”//www.yotu bue.com/embeded/jdhfklasjh.framborser=”0”>
• Audience Demographic: The age, gender and geographic location of people viewing your videos. Are the people you are trying to target predominantly your viewers?
• Audience Retention: How long users are watching your video and how engaged they are with it
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Need help bringing your YouTube campaign up to par? Get in touch with our video production and animations team to see what we can do for your brand.
Contact Us +1-310-626-4717 And for m ore tips on online m arketing, web design and development, visit us at www.seofied.com
Dinesh Das Project Manager at SEOFIED Email: dinesh@seoinfotechsolution.com Ph- 9124419800 Skype : dasdinesh