YouTube is one of the most popular websites on the Internet, with a huge audience and reaching into every corner of our lives with its app preinstalled on pretty much every smartphone, set top box and TV in the world. And whilst like so many of the biggest media platforms today, although it started out with very humble beginnings in the mid-2000s and was originally used primarily to share funny and viral video clips online, it has since matured to the point of being as respected and influential a source of video content as the big TV networks like BBC, Netflix and the like.
But it’s mainly cat videos, make-up tutorials and over-entitled GenZ-ers posting video on YouTube, right? Why use YouTube for business? Read on for 5 reasons to start a YouTube channel for your business.
1. Your Target Audience is Watching YouTube Right Now
Once of the key reasons why you should launch a YouTube channel for your business is that we live in an audio visual world, and media (ie. video) is now key to the online experience. Now that Internet speeds have matured to the point that full-quality video can be watched over the Internet not just at home, but also when you’re out and about on your smartphone (and it’s not even a big thing any more!) this has changed people’s habits and their expectations along with it.
Did you know that YouTube is the world’s second-largest search engine? Second, of course, to Google; the owners of YouTube. YouTube has over 2 billion regular monthly users and a staggering 81% of 15-25 year olds in the US use YouTube. And over 500 hours of new video content is uploaded to the site every minute!
When someone wants to look something up, the first thing they’re likely to do is Google it. And Google results contain a mix of web pages and YouTube videos, too. The second-most likely thing they’ll do is type their search directly into YouTube rather than Google, but either way a YouTube video result is where you want to be.
As well as being indexed on Google, YouTube content is also indexed on other search engines too like Bing and Yahoo! so just by existing in the YouTube realm you’ll be found much more all over the internet.
You can further capitalise on your business’ YouTube channel’s exposure by writing a complimentary high quality and in-depth article on your website’s blog to go alongside each video every time you upload a new video to your business YouTube channel. This will create yet another piece of high quality, shareable content that people will share and link to – creating more backlinks to your website (for free) and increasing the authority of your website in Google’s eyes. This means the other pages on your website, too, will gradually get pushed higher up Google and you’ll get discovered more in general as a result of your YouTube videos. It’s win-win-win-win!
Top Tip: Also share the videos you’ve made on your business Facebook page, where you can reshare the same video again in new posts days and weeks later, without having to upload the video again. You can also post your videos on your company’s Instagram on the IGTV tab, as well as post short “teaser” versions on Twitter signposting to the full YouTube video.
2. Watching Video is Better Than Reading Text
Given the choice between a long, dull page explaining and exploring the features and possibilities of a product or service and an entertaining, enlightening, inspiring and maybe even amusing video… which do you think your potential customers would rather consume? If you write a load of text, it’s likely that hardly anyone will read it. Show your audience. Demonstrate.
Many academics agree on this. According to a 1997 study by Metcalf for the University of Texas, “people remember 10% of what they read, but 30% of what they see – and an incredible 50% of what they hear and see.”
Another one of the benefits of YouTube for business and to owning a back catalogue of engaging video content is that if you embed these high quality videos in appropriate places on your company’s website, this will keep visitors around for longer and that helps your business’ Google search rankings because Google will see people clicking on your website from search results pages and then staying on your website, not returning to the results page, indicating that your website was a good fit for what they were looking for.
A picture is worth 1,000 words. Video’s worth even more!
3. Your Audience Will Get to Know You
One of the benefits of starting a YouTube channel is that you get to connect with your audience and tell compelling stories with longer-form content that just isn’t possible with shorter promotional videos and adverts.
You can inspire your customers, show them how to use your products and give them ideas for bigger projects. Tutorial videos work brilliantly, as a customer is far more likely to purchase something from you if they know how to use it and have the confidence to do so having watched someone demonstrate it. Plus, being able to watch again and rewind the video means they can – without embarrassment or judgement – review the same parts until they’re comfortable before copying what’s done in the video.
By inspiring your customers and giving them confidence in themselves, you’ll be creating more sales opportunities because your customers will start having new, bigger ideas and desires which your business and its products and services will be excellently placed to service!
Customers don’t just buy from companies, they buy from the people behind the company name and logo. This is especially true for big-ticket items where there’s a lot of money at stake, but it’s still true if you sell cheaper items in larger numbers.
Running a YouTube channel for your business helps you to achieve two vital things; it’ll help you stand out from the crowd and get noticed, and it will help those that notice you to develop a feeling of trust which is essential if they’re going to loosen their purse strings.
4. Content Marketing Is King
“It’s marketing Jim, but not as we know it…”
As staggering as it sounds, the average person is apparently exposed to between 4,000 and 10,000 adverts every day. That’s so many that we just switch off. So how can you cut through the noise and get yourself noticed when there are 9,999 other adverts competing with your message?
Content Marketing, that’s how. When done right, content marketing can produce a much higher ROI than traditional forms of marketing. It’s one of the most effective ways to market your business and promote your brand, and it can be much more fun too!
So what is it? Content Marketing is when you create compelling, interesting and useful content related to your industry, your business or your products/service and then give the content away for free!
Great examples of content marketing include blogs (like this one), YouTube videos, podcasts and other forms of media such as infographics or even simple memes.
Creating a YouTube channel for your business so that you can harness the power of content marketing will allow you to stand out from all the noise and get noticed – your content is subtly advertising your brand without it being all advert-y.
By giving away your content for free in the form of YouTube videos (or by starting a podcast for your business), you’re creating a relationship with a new audience, an exchange of value with no financial barrier to the viewer. That viewer is then more likely to become a paying customer, thanks to their knowledge of and positive opinion of your brand.
Plus, if you make your content so good that your viewers start sharing it, they will be effectively doing your business marketing for you… for free!
The better your content, the better it will do on YouTube. YouTube is so huge that if you make good quality content, you’re pretty much guaranteed to build up a following of subscribers who love your videos. The more they watch and engage with them, the more YouTube will push them out to others. A great example of this is DigitalRev TV, which is currently on nearly 2 million subscribers and claims to be the most-watched Photography show on t’internet.
How does this happen? If your video is good, people who click on it on YouTube will watch it. When someone watches your video and it keeps their attention, YouTube takes note and considers it to be good content so it suggests it to others too. Interactions like subscribing to your channel as a result of watching the video are another big indicator of quality to YouTube’s algorithm, as are things like clicking like, commenting or sharing the video. So your videos could be recommended by YouTube’s algorithm, even if people don’t directly search for your business. Why not dominate on there, before your competitors do?!
If you have the budget and you want to give your videos even more chance of success, you can promote your videos and have them appear as the skippable or non skippable ads before other people’s videos – maybe even your competitors’, so viewers see your video before theirs!
5. Starting a YouTube Channel for your Business Can Unlock Brand New Revenue Streams
Once you begin to establish yourself on YouTube with an engaged audience who love you and your videos and maybe even consider you to be the leading expert in your field, some very promising monetisation options will start to become available for you. This means that your YouTube channel – as well as being a great marketing tool for your business – could also end up giving you another potentially significant bonus revenue stream!
If your business YouTube channel grows to over 1,000 subscribers and you’ve got 4,000 hours of watch time within the last 12 months, you can apply to join the YouTube Partner Programme (YPP) and monetize your videos directly. This means that every time someone watches your video and an ad is played or displayed before, during or after the video, you’ll receive a cut of that ad revenue from YouTube/Google. You’ll also receive a share of the revenue when your videos are watched by people who subscribe to YouTube Premium (the ad-free version of YouTube where, funnily enough, there are no ads).
Even before you reach that point and join the YPP, you can monetize your videos in other ways – sponsorships where you work directly with brands, eg. your suppliers, and discuss or promote their products/services within your videos. You could review products or even run giveaways and competitions, sponsored by whichever company wants to pay you to feature their stuff in your videos. Just be sure to be fully transparent with your audience – and with YouTube – when your videos feature paid promotions. Always be honest and upfront, and be sure to avoid overkill; your viewers will switch off pretty sharpish if all you do is try and flog your sponsors’ swag to them.
You can also make great use of affiliate links (such as Amazon Affiliates) for some significant extra revenue where you discuss or recommend a product and then earn a small percentage commission when someone buys via your link on a retailer such as Amazon. Assuming you don’t sell the product yourself, of course!
So, are you inspired to start a YouTube channel for your business? Or do you already make business videos for YouTube and you’d like to take the production value to the next level with a video production partner like us? If so, get in touch and we’d love to chat with you about how we can help you turbocharge your Business YouTube Channel and the rest of your business in the process!
