Everyone loves Youtube. With 4 billion videos watched per day, I’m not sure there is anyone in the world that hasn’t at least heard the name. You must be living under a rock to not have heard of the site.

Many people think that YouTube is strictly for watching cat videos, or the latest fail compilations (my personal favorite), but it’s more than just that. It has a real potential to help grow your business.

With thousands of brands sharing their content on the site, using video is now a staple of any solid content marketing strategy. People are becoming more interested in brand channels, too. Between 2014 and 2015, brand channels saw monthly views increase by up to 55%.

Want to put your small business on YouTube, but not sure how to, or where to start? In this blog I will discuss how you can get YouTube to work for your small business.

Make content that’s creative.

Some of the best YouTube videos I have ever seen are from brands. Videos that are fun, informative and make you want to hit the “replay” button.

Create a video marketing strategy in relation to YouTube, and spend some time brainstorming over possible topics you could create video for.

Even if you want to make an informative video that’s chock full of statistics, you can still make the video fun. Knowing how to properly edit your videos can improve your overall video quality.

Make sure you keep the content coming. Pick a day of the week to post your video, and post on that day every week, or every other week. This will give you the ability to spout lines like “Check back next Tuesday for a new video.”  This becomes more necessary as you start posting more and more videos.

Spend time creating your channel.

If you are like me when I was in middle school, you created a YouTube channel in hopes of internet stardom. I thought of a catchy username, and spent time thinking about what I wanted to post on YouTube, but I didn’t focus on what people would see when they saw my profile.

YouTube today allows you to do quite a lot of creative things to your profile. You can give your profile a cover photo, like Twitter. My favorite YouTuber, Casey Neistat has a great cover photo.

I think it’s cool and emcompasses what he is all about; filming, cameras and his sunglasses, of course.

To build out your channel and let your visitors know what you’re about, create an intro video. This will automatically play when someone enters your profile. This video is simple; explains who you are, and what you do. Dollar Shave Club does the intro video perfectly. It’s funny, informative and gets the point across. With 22 million views, it’s one of the most seen intro videos on YouTube.

Don’t go crazy trying to perfect your profile. You should be spending the majority of your time creating great content!

Follow these three steps:

• Get a profile picture (Your company logo, or another visual that represents your brand)
• Get a nice cover photo (perhaps of your full company name, or a picture of the city you are located in)
• Make an intro video (Fun, short, informative)

Remember SEO.

YouTube has a huge influence on your SEO value. Videos are 53 times more likely to appear on the first page of Google search results pages than other content. Post the transcript of your video in the description. As of now, Google spiders (not sure what a “spider” is? Check here.) can’t fully understand what you’re talking about in your video. Writing the transcript, chock full of important keywords, will help give you an extra boost. You can also use closed captioning in your videos, as Google crawls this for search engine keywords.

Remember to use tags when you post your videos. Tags give YouTube an idea of what you are posting about, so they can funnel it through the right channels. Without tags, your video will struggle to find the right people, thus driving no traffic to your website.

This last tip is nitpicky, but important. Give your video an appropriate name. Don’t name it “InboundSUPERFINALLASTVERSION.mov (I see you, graphic designers). You could give it a name like “InboundMarketingbyCompanyName.mov. Video file names are like alt tags for videos, they tell search engines what the content is about.

Use YouTube’s analytics tools.

Some may think this is a no brainer, but I myself, a huge lover of YouTube, forgot they even had analytics until I was writing this blog.

Twitter, Facebook, Wordpress, SquareSpace and even Instagram have analytics, and I’m sure at one point we’ve looked at all of them for some insight into how we are performing.

YouTube’s analytics are quite in depth, and they could be perfect for you as you start to grow your YouTube channel. Use the tool to review which videos perform well; take those insights, modify your strategy as needed and move forward. Use personalized links to judge engagement (sites like bit.ly are perfect for that).

These analytics are free, so you’d be a fool not to use them... right, Mr.T?

Make use of call-to-actions and annotations.

Think of your video as a blog post. You say what you want to say, including all the necessary facts, figures and other jargon. You would be silly not to place a call-to-action (CTA) in your blog, right? That’s inbound marketing 101.

Here’s a tip: Place a simple CTA at the end of your video. Reference to “check out our latest...,” ebook, white paper, etc., and point towards a spot on the viewer's screen, where you’ve included your clickable CTA. Things like that give your video some personalization to set you apart.

Get collaborative.

If you think about your own small business, you probably have friends in other small businesses around you right?

Try to collaborate with other small business owners you have relationships with, or invite guest speakers to do an on-camera interview with you that you can post on YouTube. It’s a win-win as it gives you both exposure.

You could also collaborate on testimonial videos with clients. Testimonials can be hugely important when prospects are looking for information. They show your prospects the benefits clients receive when working with you, and build your credibility.

No matter how you choose to be collaborative, make the video fun, informative and valuable, so people feel like they really learned something new while watching.

Have any tips or tricks on successful YouTubing? Share below! To learn more about how you can engage with other social media sites, download our Get Started with Social Media ebook or contact Milwaukee marketing agency, Accelity Marketing.