Best Practices in SocialMarketing: YouTube

YouTube Marketing Best Practices

SocialMarketing Best Practices:YouTube

from Awareness, Inc | Creators of the Social Marketing Hub @awarenessinc | awarenessnetworks.com

YouTube Best Practices

Introduction
Video content is an increasingly important part of any companys content strategy. Search engines increasingly serve video results for search queries One of the most important aspects of HTML 5, the latest revision of the language that controls structure and presentation of the World Wide Web, is its enhanced video features An increase in both broadband availability and smartphone use contribute to an increase in video consumption

According to comScores December 2009 US Search Rankings Report, YouTube is the worlds second largest search engine. YouTube searches grew 35% year over year to more than 3.9 billion search queries.
For most brands, YouTube is at the heart of their video content strategy. With 2 billion views per day1 and 3.7 billion searches per month2 , YouTube is the dominant video sharing and distribution site on the web and the best option for disseminating information, building brand awareness, and increasing trac to your site. Basically, if you have customers online, you should be on YouTube. Statistics provided by Website Monitoring illustrate why business marketers are spending time promoting video on YouTube: Exceeds 2 Billion views per day. Thats nearly double the prime-time audience of all 3 major U.S. broadcast networks combined. 24 hours of video is uploaded every minute The average user spends 15 minutes per day on YouTube More video is uploaded toYouTube in 60 days than all 3 major USnetworks created in 60 years 70% of YouTubes trac comes from outside the US Video guru and Author of GetSeen:Online Video Secrets toBuilding Your Business Steve Gareld says Video allows you to tell a much richer story than you ever could with just words or pictures alone. Video enables you to engage the viewer emotionally. It's the same reason TV became popular video stimulates more of your sense. The most savvy enterprise marketers realize this and have used YouTube as a channel for delivering their message. We hope this ebook will give you the basics you need to begin leveraging YouTube in a meaningful way for all you marketing programs. This whitepaper will discuss best practices for marketing your brand and products on YouTube.
1 http://www.reelseo.com/happy-5th-birthday-youtube/ 2 http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2010/4/comScore_Releases_March_2010_U.S._Search_Engine_Rankings www.awarenessnetworks.com

YouTube Best Practices

Getting Started:What to Upload

What to Upload: Quite simply, any video content that is customer ready can and should be uploaded to YouTube. Even if you oer premium video content that requires a registration to access, you can upload a portion of the content to YouTube to promote the full video. We will review options for organizing videos on YouTube, so as a good rule of thumb, if you have videos, upload them. Examples of dierent kinds of videos businesses upload are: Announcements for new products or features Interviews with internal employees such as product developers Recorded webinars Tradeshow highlights from your booth and/or speaking session User submitted videos How To videos featuring your products YouTube allows new users a maximum video length of 15 minutes, though this might increase after you successfully upload several videos. Video length is an important factor to the success of your content marketing; ideally videos will be a maximum length of 2-3 minutes. If your video is longer than this, you may want to divide your video into smaller sections before you upload. YouTube does not have a tool for chopping up videos; you will have to use a tool such as Windows Movie Maker or Final Cut. You can also edit videos prior to uploading to include captions and other eects, though YouTube does oer tools for these that we will cover in another section. Creating a channel: Your YouTube Channel is the homepage for your account, and allows for customized messaging and graphics. Brands should use the settings of the YouTube Channel to help their videos get found as well as facilitate communication with their audience. NOTE: You must create a YouTube Account before you create a YouTube Channel. Lets look at the most important settings of the YouTube channel for marketers: When creating a channel you will select a username. This username will be incorporated into the channels URL (http://www.youtube.com/Username), so select a username that your audience will understand You can associate a picture to your YouTube Account, which will also appear on your Channel. In most cases this should be your company logo A short Title can be added to your channel which should provide more information on the theme of your channel Channel Tags should contain keywords relevant to your brand and your videos. These tags will help your channel get found by both users in YouTube and search engines The Themes and Colors area allow you to customize the appearance of your channel. You can even upload a custom background image. HINT: Even if you do not currently have a custom background image, you will still have to delete the current background image before uploading your custom image

YouTube Best Practice: Be aware that you currently CANNOT change your user name once it is selected. This is the same procedure Google uses for its accounts and now that YouTube is a Google property, they have carried over this limitation. Choose wisely!

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YouTube Best Practices

Creating a Channel (continued) You can select the widgets that appear on your page in the Modules area. All are optional, though it is recommended that brands at least show the Comments and Subscribers to make your Channel appear more social as well as your Recent Activity so users can more easily access your newest videos. You can also customize the positioning of each module on the page. Be sure that under Videos and Playlists you select to display My Uploaded Videos and Playlists. You can also select which videos and content is displayed by default when a user rst visits the Channel. HINT: You will want to update these defaults regularly to keep your channel looking updated The Prole area can be used for messaging your channel visitors. If you are hoping to direct trac from your YouTube channel to your site, the Prole area is your best option. Each piece of the prole is optional and you can hide the prompts that dont apply to your Channel, but you will want to pay special attention to the following o o o entered in the o area Uploading Videos Uploading videos is a straightforward process, but there are a few options that marketers will want to pay special attention to: After selecting a video to upload, you can provide information on the video. It is important to note that YouTube functions as its own search engine and is also indexed by other search engines, so it is important that you understand the concept of keywords in reference to search engine optimization. Some of the more important information you can enter when uploading a video is: The Title should entice users to watch your video, but also contain the most relevant keyword(s). We mentioned in a previous section that longer videos should be divided into shorter videos if possible. The titles should reect the specic content of each video. For example, if you divide a webinar into sections, do not use titles such as Widget Webinar Part 1, Widget Webinar Part 2. Instead use Widget Webinar Part 1: Getting Started, Widget Webinar Part 2: New Features The Description should provide more information on the video, again for the purpose of enticing users to watch your video. HINT: You can include a URL in the description, so this might be a good area to link to your site. When you view a video, users initially only see the rst line of the video and will have to click Show More to see the rest, so you may want to include your URL in the rst line The Tags should contain additional keywords that are relevant to your video, which will help the video be found in YouTube and in search engines. Pick as many relevant keywords as you can, including the Suggestions made by YouTube If you want your video to be found, the Privacy setting should be set to Public. Any other setting will limit views You should allow Comments, Comment Voting, and Ratings to encourage activity among the YouTube community Depending on your level of expertise, you may have added special graphics or audio to your video prior to uploading. If not, there are post-upload options available. You can add Audio, Annotations, or Captions and Subtitles. For example, you may want to add an annotation at the end of your video that says For more information, visit www.MyWebsite.com. Name Separate from the Title mentioned above, your Name will likely be the name of your company or brand Website Enter one URL from your site that you would like users to visit. This could be your homepage or a custom built page for YouTube visitors Description Should inform visitors as to why they should follow this channel. HINT: You can include URLs in the Description, so you can repeat the URL you Website or highlight other areas of your site users should visit About Me Information specically about your brand or company. HINT: Again, this can contain URLs, so this is a good area for links to your other social sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and/or LinkedIn

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YouTube Best Practices

Once your video is uploaded, you will want to group similarly themed videos into Playlists. For example, if you divided a webinar into 5 videos, you would want to create a Playlist for that webinar. Or, if you have several videos about new product features, you can consider creating a New Features Playlist. To create a Playlist, select Videos from My Account and you will see a left-nav option for Playlist +New. You can add a Name, Description, and Tags to Playlists the same way you can to a video. There are two benets from creating Playlists: 1. Organized videos provide a better user experience, directing YouTube users towards similar videos and thus increasing views 2. You can direct your email and social media audience to Playlists rather than individual videos Promoting Your Videos Setting up a Channel and uploading videos is just the beginning of your YouTube strategy. One of the biggest benets of YouTube marketing is way it integrates into your other campaigns. In fact, there are auto-sharing options on the Account level. Promotional options include: Embed videos on your website (the embed code will be available immediately after you upload) Posting bulletins to your YouTube subscribers Tweet about both your videos and you video playlists Post videos to Facebook and elicit discussion Include links to videos in e-newsletters Include a QR code on business cards or print ads that links to a complimentary video

Be sure you have a coherent strategy for including YouTube videos in these marketing channels. Each time you upload a video, schedule posts in each applicable channel to drive trac. Tracking Like any other marketing eort, your YouTube Channel should be tracked and optimized. YouTube Insight provides reporting users and activity. Marketers should track items such as: User demographics Views by date, total views, and most viewed videos Trac source (examples: YouTube search, External site, YouTube recommended videos, etc.) Subscribers by date This information will help you understand where your audience is coming from, what videos resonate best with them, and when to time activity for both views and subscribers. If you using YouTube to drive trac to your site make sure that your web analytics is set up to track YouTube as a referral source. Get Started! As you upload more videos, you will get more comfortable with the many options YouTube has for videos and your Channel. Dont feel like you have to wait until you have a comprehensive video library to get started. Even if you only have a handful of videos, create your page and upload them. Youll soon recognize the value video content ads to your marketing campaigns, and your audience will grow
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YouTubeBest Practices

The Awareness SocialMarketing Hub

The Awareness Social Marketing Hub helps marketers publish, manage, and measure their marketing across key social media channels, and helps marketers engage with users around that content. The Hub has support for the most important social marketing channels in use by enterprises today, including Foursquare, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and branded online communities. The Awareness Social Marketing Hub oers some groundbreaking benets to enterprises that are looking to get serious about social media marketing. Benets include:

Control your social media publishing with enterprise-grade permissioning, workow, and audit controls Centralize your social media strategy and execution to coordinate product, business unit and corporate messages Use social media to engage throughout the entire customer life-cycle Engage and interact directly with the people who are talking about your social marketing campaigns Measure success across social media channels

For more information see http://www.awarenessnetworks.com/why-the-hub

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YouTube Best Practices

Contact Information: Awareness, Inc. 25 Corporate Drive, Suite 390 Burlington, MA 02451 United States Tel: 1 781-270-240 About Awareness
Awareness builds social marketing management software for marketers leveraging multiple social channels to engage with customers, build their brand, and increase revenues. Built upon Awareness expertise deploying more than 200 communities and social media projects for the worlds biggest brands including Sony, JetBlue, Kodak, ASOS.com and AIRMiles, The Awareness Social Marketing Hub helps marketers publish, manage, and measure their marketing across key social media channels, and helps marketers engage with users around that content. The Hub has support for the most important social marketing channels in use by enterprises today, including foursquare, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and branded online communities. More information can be found at: http://www.awarenessnetworks.com

Awareness Canada 5050 South Service Road, Suite 100 Burlington, ON L7L 5Y7 Canada Tel: 1 866 487 5623 Fax: 1 905 632 4922

2011 AWARENESS, INC.