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I bet you only use YouTube when your 10-year-old daughter wants you to watch some cute pet videos, right?
But you would never think of using it to market your business.
If I told you that YouTube has a ‘Science & Technology' category, a ‘How To' category, and an ‘Education' category, can you begin to see the possibilities?
Whether you work for a high-tech company, a hardware store, or a university, you might want to learn more about using YouTube to publicize your operation.
Why YouTube Marketing?
Because YouTube is all about video broadcasting. And videos are perfect for showing technical equipment, demonstrating a procedure or giving parents of prospective students a virtual tour of the campus.
Videos can even show a “talking head” touting the benefits of any product or service. Just like a TV commercial. But you have up to 10 minutes to make your case, not 30 seconds. And it won’t cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars.
This is not your father’s TV. It’s not 97 million Americans watching the Super Bowl on one channel on one day and seeing whatever ads the station selects, whether they want to see them or not.
This is 400 million people worldwide actively seeking information on an estimated 6 million to 9 million YouTube channels every month. Yes, I said millions of channels. And watching what THEY want to see.
As of 2009, approximately 100 million Americans watched about 6 billion videos on YouTube each month. Americans performed more than 2.9 billion searches on YouTube every month.
In fact, YouTube accounted for 79% of all US visits to 60 online video sites in 2009. Google Video was #2, with a 4.6% market share.
What Businesses Can Do on YouTube
Rem
ember, social media is about monitoring and participating in the conversations about companies, products and services. And finding evangelists and influencers who can help you build your business.
Your customers are already having these conversations on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube — wouldn’t you like to know what they’re saying? Wouldn’t you like to find those evangelists?
Here are some things businesses can do in a YouTube video, according to the book YouTube and Video Marketing an Hour a Day by Greg Jarboe:
• Publicize a news event about your company.
• Introduce a new product or service.
• Demonstrate a new product or service.
• Distribute a speech given by the company president, CEO or VP.
• Record celebrity endorsements of your product or service.
• Show conference presentations, exhibits and speeches.
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GET THE DETAILSYou can even advertise on YouTube. You can place your own ads on videos that match your criteria. It can be a traditional Google text ad or a video ad to the right of the video player. Or you can place the ad in the lower part of the video itself as a semi-transparent overlay while the video plays.
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You can also create a Brand Channel complete with your logo that gives you many more options than a regular channel. It’s expensive, but “YouTube gets a Super Bowl–sized audience month in and month out,” according to Jarboe.
Yes, more than 147 million US Internet users watched an average of 100 videos per viewer in January 2009. That’s a bigger audience than the 97.5 million people who watched the New York Giants beat the New England Patriots in the 2008 Super Bowl!
And it’s not just 10-year-old girls. Sixty-two percent of YouTube viewers are 35 and older. Almost half have a college degree and a similar percentage have incomes of $75,000 or more.
Marketing Will Never Be the Same
Jarboe’s book could be used as the textbook for a college-level course in YouTube marketing. He says it will take you eight months to get through it, but don’t panic!
The first month will go very quickly because only weeks one and two have any “homework.” Basically, just get on YouTube and look around.
Weeks three and four are essentially an outline of the rest of the book. You can probably finish the entire first month in a few hours.
Likewise for week four in the second month. There is no homework, you just have to read one or two pages each day. Piece of cake!
But then it starts getting technical:
• Month three: You watch top-rated videos so you can learn how to create a “viral” video.
• Month four: You learn the basics of creating and customizing a YouTube channel.
• Month five: You learn about engaging with and contributing to the YouTube community.
• Month six: You learn the principles of digital video production.
• Month seven: You learn about becoming a YouTube Partner and advertiser.
• Month eight: Covers YouTube Insight, TubeMogul and other metrics.
A YouTube channel is the equivalent of a Facebook profile. You create the page and put whatever you want on it. But instead of lots of text, you put lots of videos. Videos of all those things that businesses can do on YouTube.
And YouTube allows viewers to rate your videos, favorite them and share them with friends. They can also upload a video response to your videos, add comments and subscribe to your channel.
But be forewarned! A TubeMogul study of the viewing of 188,055 YouTube videos found that half of the viewers stopped watching a video after only 60 seconds.
Ouch! Do you know what that means?
It means you shouldn’t even consider creating a compelling video until you engage the services of an experienced copywriter. A copywriter who can write a video script that grabs your prospects’ attention and never lets go.
Here are two places you can find experienced freelance copywriters:
My only negative comment about this book is the high number of non-technical errors. Not just misspelled words, but missing words! Of course, your brain will supply the missing words based on context; but I’m sitting here thinking, “Doesn’t Sybex have editors?”
Otherwise, this book is a treasure trove of information about YouTube and how you can use it to build your business. In the words of Suzie Reider, head of YouTube advertising, “Marketing has changed, forever — and will change more in the next few years than it has changed in the last 50 years.”
Are you jumping on the bandwagon or sitting on the fence?
Social Media Examiner gives this book a 5-star rating.
What do you think about YouTube? If you are using YouTube, please share your experience! Comment below…
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