7 Ways to Use YouTube in Your Business

02 Feb 2011

Though Facebook and Twitter were the leading social networks that swept through the business world in year 2010, in 2011 YouTube continues to be the most valuable video marketing and advertising tool for businesses of all sizes. By far the web's largest and most popular online video archive, YouTube offers fantastic opportunities for a business to show off its expertise, share knowledge, market products and connect with customers, colleagues and prospects.

Here are 7 ways to use YouTube as an effective business tool.

A YouTube Channel for Your Business

While it sounds like an obvious first step, I've come across many businesses that upload tons of videos on YouTube but don't even create a channel for themselves. Having a dedicated channel gets your business a lot of exposure and provides an innovative medium for you to keep your followers updated on your new offerings.

YouTube offers a barebones channel so make sure to customize it to improve its appearance and include information about your business.

Tag your videos

It's crucial to tag your videos with the right set of keywords. Spending a fortune on creating impressive videos is of little use if they don't appear in YouTube search results. Judiciously choose your keywords based on your business product/ service offerings.

Soft sell your videos

YouTube videos should not be used as a substitute for TV advertisements. In fact, if you hard sell your business on YouTube, your video is likely to be flagged as Inappropriate. Use your YouTube videos as an input to your marketing funnel. Promote your videos through your business website, blog, Facebook and Twitter profiles and highlight how convenient it is to use your products and services.

Video Promotions & Contests

Launching video contests and promotional campaigns is a great way to gain traction for your business. Encourage your Twitter followers and Facebook fans to participate in these contests and reward them with discounts and goodies – it pays in the long run!

Playlists

Playlists are a great way to organize your collection of videos. For example, creating a separate playlist for each of your product offerings helps organize all your videos neatly. Moreover, it's a great convenience for users as they can see all videos using a single click rather than having to search and play each video clip individually.

Call to action

People love to get involved on social networks and YouTube is no exception to that rule. A call to action inevitably gets people worked up to participate in discussions. There are a variety of ways in which your business can promote call to action for users such as Subscribe to my videos, Post your comments, rate this video, check out my channel etc. These can help drive traffic to your website and increase the overall reach of your offerings.

Customer Service

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is surely worth a million keywords. People love to see things in action as it leaves little to imagination as compared to listening or reading about stuff. Create "how to" videos to help your customers use your product or service.

Have you used YouTube as a marketing channel for your business? If so, was it an effective medium? Please share your opinion by leaving a comment below this post.

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