YouTube is no longer a site for watching kittens fall off counters, Justin Bieber sing or babies biting each other. YouTube is an effective and essential tool for marketing your business online. And the best thing? It’s Free to get started!

YouTube Statistics and Facts

YouTube has been around since 2005, and since being purchase by Google, has turned into one of the most popular websites on the internet.

• Over 2 billion videos watched each day.
• 70% of YouTube traffic comes from outside the USA.
• Every minute 24 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube.
• YouTube is now the 2nd most popular search engine behind Google.
• YouTube is in 22 countries and 24 languages.
• According to alexa.com, YouTube is the 3rd most visited website on the internet, behind google.com and Facebook.
• In April 2010, the Indian Premier League was live streamed on YouTube.
• YouTube states it’s demographic is between 18 and 55, however it is widely assumed that the demographic spans from pre-teens to over 60s.

Sources YouTube Fact Sheet, Alexa.com and Website Monitoring

Getting Started With YouTube

The first thing to do is to setup an account. This can be done by visiting youtube.com and clicking on the create account link in the top right corner and following the prompts. If you already have a Google account (Gmail, Google Apps, Google Analytics etc), you can use this account as your YouTube account. If you don’t, then just create a new Google Account during the YouTube setup process.

During the account setup process you will need to choose a user name. You are limited to 17 characters and can only use letters and numbers with no spaces. Try to use a name that reflects your business and it doesn’t necessarily have to be your business name, you could use a name which is more about what you do.

Once you have your YouTube account setup, you can go through and customize your channel. You can upload backgrounds, edit colours, change the order of the boxes and enter details about your business.

Now you are ready to start uploading videos!

Creating Videos

If you are in this for the long haul, you will need to invest in a video camera that will deliver high quality video. These days you can get a good digital video camera for under $1000. Click here for search results for digital video cameras.

Once you have recorded your videos, you will need software to edit and export your videos for YouTube. Microsoft Movie Maker and Apple iMovie are both free and easy to use.

The optimal resolution for HD is 1920×1080 (1080p) or 1280 x 720 for standard video. The maximum video length is 10 mins 59 secs and max file size is 1 GB.

All Sound Too Hard?

Uploading Your Videos

Ok so you have a video and you’re ready to upload it. Here are the instructions copied from YouTube Help:

Click the Upload link at the top of any YouTube page.

Click the “Browse” button to browse for the video file you’d like to upload to our site. Select the file you want to upload.

Click the ‘Upload Video’ button to start the uploading process.

As the video file is uploading, enter as much information about your video as possible in the relevant fields (including Title, Description, Tags, and Category). You’re not required to provide specific information, but the more information you include, the easier it is for users to find your video!

Click the ‘Save changes’ button to save the updates you’ve made to the video file.

The important part of this step is ensuring you have entered an appropriate title, description tags and category. Why? Because this is the only way the YouTube search engine is able index and find your videos when someone searches. Try to use keywords related to your video within your title, description and tags, and make sure you choose an appropriate category.

Ten Ways to Promote Your Business Through YouTube

1. Upload informative videos or seminars by industry experts in your company.
2. Get client testimonials on video.
3. Create a virtual video tour of your business. You could include interviews with executives etc.
4. Run a competition where people enter the draw by following your YouTube channel.
5. Participate in the YouTube community by following other businesses and commenting on their videos.
6. Offer tutorials and help videos for your products on your YouTube channel.
7. Create a map to your shop/office from popular landmarks, main bus/train stations etc.
8. Video company events, product launches and website updates (using screen capture).  You don’t always have to upload them to YouTube, but recording everything gives you the option.
9. Add to your company news roll with video news bites. Post company news videos on YouTube and embed them into your website news posts.
10. Think viral. Viral videos are videos that extremely popular because people have shared them through email, Facebook and other social networking tools. Viral videos are often clever company ads (VWs piano staircase), something completely original (the wedding dance), something really amazing (sand art), new music videos (Justin Bieber) or something clearly ridiculous (Charlie bit my finger).

Here are the viral videos referred to above:

Maintaining Your Presence

YouTube, like all Social Media is only useful if you maintain your presence. If you look at the most successful YouTube campaigns (some are listed below), they interact with their YouTube followers by commenting on videos and responding to comments.

A simple strategy is to dedicate 1 hour per week to participating in your YouTube community to comment on other videos, respond to comments on your videos and upload new videos. Also, try to find other YouTube channels that are related to your business and follow them. This helps you keep in touch with your competition and can also get you access to some of their YouTube followers.

YouTube Inspiration

Getting the inspiration to start is sometimes difficult. That’s why looking at some of the leaders in their industry’s YouTube channels can help give you some more ideas to get started.

Nike Football

University of Phoenix

Bing

VW

Volcom

YouTube Wrap Up

If you are still unsure as to why you should use YouTube to promote your business, my question to you is Why Not? It’s free, easy to setup and has more visitors than the men’s room on game day.

Here at Zhoom we pride ourselves in helping your business get started in the world of online marketing and social media. If YouTube sounds like something you want to try out for your business we are more than happy to help you get on the front foot!

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