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YouTube celebrated its fifth birthday on Monday (May 17) and the most popular video-sharing website in the world now gets a whopping two billion views per day. “For perspective, that download number is almost double the prime-time audience of ABC, CBS and NBC combined,” wrote Clint Boulton of eWeek (May 17).
The average YouTube user spends 15 minutes per day on the website; 24 hours of video are uploaded every minute; and 45 million daily homepage hits are generated. Of course, with such an overwhelming abundance of content, separating the quality from the quantity is no easy task – most of the quality advertising time is generated by ads of various formats rather than from TV commercials uploaded directly to YouTube.
“YouTube runs ads against more than one billion video views weekly worldwide, which managed to triple ad partner revenue in 2009,” wrote Laurie Sullivan of Online Media Daily (May 17). “The site boasts more monetized views than any other video site has total views. And based on the different ways that people interact with YouTube, ad formats match those experiences.”
Some ad formats include: Promoted Videos (the search advertising product that helps drive views, like AdWords for Youtube), display ads, Participatory Video Ads (PVA), Brand Channels and InVideo Ads (also known as overlays). The company also offers the YouTube Partner Video Program and Individual Video Partnerships, as well as YouTube Insights (an analytics tool), Click-to-Buy (an e-commerce platform), Pre-Roll ads, Video Targeting and YouTube mobile ads.
A small-to-medium-size retailer would never need all of those options. So, where should you begin?
Morgan Brown, director of marketing for TurnHere, a California-based leading online video production and ad company recently wrote a column on ReelSEO.com entitled “5 Ways Small Businesses Can Take Advantage of YouTube” (May 3).
Brown says that while YouTube is the number-two search engine (in terms of query volume) on the Internet, most of the two billion daily views are purely for entertainment. However, he adds, “a substantial number of videos are watched by people seeking help and information. In fact, there are more than 35 million searches each month on YouTube for ‘how to’ videos. (Not to mention the opportunity to show up in parent-company Google’s search results.)”
Here are Morgan Brown’s 5 tips to help small businesses capitalize on YouTube:
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Create Content that Meets a Need. “Capture attention and create interest by meeting the information need of your audience. Create interest in your ability to match a smartphone to every type of user (See What Customers Want: Top 3 Smartphone Features) and provide additional tips the viewer might not have considered.”
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Pay Attention to Production Value. “Make your videos professional (avoid shaky hand-held camera work, poor audio, bad lighting and incoherent storylines) and easy to watch.”
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Optimize for YouTube Search. “You need to optimize your video so viewers will find it on YouTube. Include important keywords in the title and make sure your tags include those keywords, too. Choose an appealing thumbnail to capture what your video is about.”
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Give the Viewers a Follow-Up Action. “Give the viewer a compelling reason to follow up with you and a clear path to do so,” suggests Brown. “The best way for retailers to do this is to provide a special offer and a unique web address in the video: ‘Print this coupon for 10% off your next smartphone purchase.’ The unique URL and discount allow you to measure how successful your Youtube video is.”
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Let them Know Who You Are. “Encourage users to take a step towards a relationship with your company by having them subscribe to your YouTube channel or company e-mail newsletter. By building your YouTube subscriber base, you’ll automatically reach a built-in audience of potential customers who have opted-in to seeing your latest videos.”
The biggest challenge is establishing a corporate presence on YouTube that will attract customers and encourage them to not only buy but to also send the link to their friends. To do this, your videos have to be unique, informative and entertaining, and offer a deal at the end.
Come to think of it, that sounds a lot like conventional advertising to me.
- newsletter@iQmetrix.com
* To read more about Marketing on YouTube and Social Networks, check out the following articles from iQmetrix News & Views:
New Technology: Retailers Connecting with Customers' Smartphones
Use Twitter to Monitor Customer Tastes
How to Use Twitter for your Wireless Business
Companies Using Twitter as Customer Relations Tool
Use Facebook to Promote Your Wireless Business
Cheap, Easy Text-message Campaigns for Your Business
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