Building Your Brand With

Building Your Brand with YouTube

By Kevin Hunter

As a long-time YouTube Creator with over

322,000 Subscribers and an audience that has grown beyond 42 Million people, it’s fair to say I’ve become a bit of an expert on creating and maintaining a presence as an online influencer. Today, I hope to shorten your journey to success by giving you a few things to think about, and some extra tools to help you build a solid online presence. • Information

• Education

• Entertainment

You did not go to the internet hoping to be “sold” something. Yet, many YouTube creators produce one video after another that is full of “salesy” and time sensitive updates that have “We’re the best, so call us” tones and attitudes that fall well short of what people were looking for. Why didn’t these creators give others what they hoped to find on the internet themselves?

They used their marketing expertise from other forms of media, all those places that gave them the stage to “Sell themselves.” They failed to consider why they frequent the internet themselves. Without realizing it, they created content that even they wouldn’t watch if they weren’t into themselves and their products so much.

You must focus on creating great informational, educational, and entertaining videos. If you can do all three in one video, you really have something! If you can do an “Evergreen Subject,” even better (information that is true for years to come). Every channel must include some Evergreen Subject videos, or are likely to die off.

Does high quality video matter? Yes, but not nearly so much as quality of content. I’ve created very low level quality videos that have generated millions of views, just because the content was right on the money. If you have great content, I’d start now, well before you have the most amazing video production studio. The guy who spends all his time getting ready to be ready by building a fancy studio… but has lousy or sales sounding content... will be eating your dust when you have a

“Does high quality video matter? Yes, but not nearly so much as quality of content.”

You were on the internet today. Do you remember the reason why? Let me guess. It was likely you were looking for one or more of the following:

For some of you, you’re reading this after the fact. You already tried YouTube. When the day came that you decided YouTube should be a part of your branding strategy, a little research gave you a few ideas: Create a channel, choose a target audience, research competition, learn from If you have great content, I’d others, optimize your start now, well before you videos, create an upload schedule, optimize have the most amazing video your channel, try some production studio. YouTube advertising. Despite the soundness these ideas seemed to contain, your efforts brought nothing but failure. Why? Didn’t you have great success with other forms of media using these ideas? What happened? This disappointing outcome is reported by a lot of people after applying their previous expertise to the world of YouTube. Let’s change that for you.

message people are thirsting to hear. Great content from an inspiring creator will blow up right from a laptop webcam and a handheld recorder. Or even a video done with animated picture stills. Content is King; and it matters so much more than a high quality video. I’m totally serious. Let’s recap. Inform. Educate. Entertain. And never violate the rule about sounding like a salesman. Now, from this foundation, let’s add secret sauce.

With every video I produce, I present three learning styles. Without question, it has helped many of my videos go viral organically. That’s pure gold to growing an audience fast, and there’s no better way to do it. My videos have:

• Stimulating Visuals for Visual learners • A great voice presentation for Auditory

Learners

• Text Overlays for people who like to

Read.

You won’t find me creating a video today that doesn’t take into consideration the three learning types I just mentioned. Never skip that. Many of my viewers say “I wish you had been my instructor... in college… or high school… or my coach. I learn so much from you!” I like hearing that, but it’s not just me. It’s partly due to the fact that my videos always include the three learning styles I mentioned. Viewers get more out of it because their brain connected three different ways with my message, and they “get it.” Let’s add more secret sauce.

I don’t just “create content.” As good as I am at what I do today, I don’t turn on a camera and wing it. I research ideas, I pay attention to stories that are generating lots of traffic, I track my peers, I search top hashtags for a subject I’m considering, and then I make sure I’m hitting the nail on the head with my story. In today’s messed up media world, it’s fair to say that it’s easy to find content that is filled with opinions, emotions, and wacky views that others don’t really care about. Don’t be that kind of content creator. Make your video count! Be factual, smack the nail right on the head, and your audience will notice… and then come back!

Length of message matters, too. My sweet-spot is 8 to 13 minute videos. Several people told me I was going too long, or too short. Some thought 90 seconds, others thought 2 hours. None of that was true. 8 - 13 minutes has been perfect. Online audiences want enough meat on the bone, yet they don’t want to be chewing on it all day either. As a former radio broadcaster there was a time when I was on-air for three hours every morning. Never again. Today, I won’t even do a 30-minute show. There will be other creators in the lane you enter. Don’t worry about it. There’s a lot of mediocrity out there. Don’t be mediocre. Do your thing, do it well, follow the basic principles I shared here today, and be patient. With a little time, you’ll carve your niche. Just start. Today, Tomorrow, or the next day… but START! Kevin Hunter, “The Homework Guy,” is the public face of the famous THG TEAM, and is a well known Auto Expert, giving free advice to millions of car buyers since 2009. Kevin Hunter is the author of “Is that the best you can do?” on Amazon Kindle, a book that is actually for business people, and has published a variety of how-to content and consumer advice videos that are viewed by millions of people from 220 countries and territories. For more information about our THG TEAM, please visit http://www.thehomeworkguy.com

“Length of message matters, too. My sweetspot is 8 to 13 minute videos.”