youtube tips

My 10 Favorite YouTube Video Marketing and Promotion Tips, Handpicked from around the Web

MikS Music
Hi all, that’s my second digest post (see the first one with nice video marketing articles) and today I am going to share my 10 favorite YouTube video marketing tips discovered by reading some of the recent post from around the Web.

Just to remind, you can also get what I share in real time if you follow me on Twitter or Facebook. Alternatively, you can subscribe to my monthly newsletter to get the digest by email.

YouTube as your video marketing platform

After reading a good amount of posts and articles concerning video marketing and promoting your products and services on YouTube I can summarize it like this:

If you’re not convinced that YouTube should be a part of your online video marketing strategy, you may be missing out on using one of the most powerful video marketing platforms of today.

So, here’s a quick list of the top 10 YouTube video marketing tips that caught my attention recently. Keep in mind though, these are MY 10 favorite tips, picked from a much larger pool of available tips and tricks. If you disagree or have more useful tips then by all means leave a comment.

Tip 1: Watch a lot of YouTube videos

That’s by far my most favorite tip. Before you try and craft your own video marketing strategy, see what others (not necessarily in your niche) are doing AND see how well it works for them. Read the comments to see what videos and subjects trigger response and questions from their audience and try to come up with some ideas as to what videos may have your prospective clients engaged. Furthermore, you don’t have to re-invent the wheel and you can instantly pick up lots of ideas from successful YouTube channels just by watching what they publish.

Tip 2: Get familiar with Google keyword planner

YouTube is the #2 search destination after Google, which means that many people prefer getting their questions answered on video rather than in text. Thus, if you want your videos getting any exposure you must get familiar with at least some basic SEO (Search Engine Optimization) techniques. Keyword planner is a free tool from Google that helps you to get a good idea what your target audience is searching for and to choose proper titles and keywords for your videos. Here’s a quick video that explains how Google’s keyword planner works:

Get more insight from Google in this article: Using Keyword Planner to get keyword ideas and traffic estimates

Tip 3: If you don’t enjoy making videos, don’t do it

Find somebody who does and you’ll end up with much better results. If you decide to hire a video production company this guide will help you to make the right decision.

5 Things to Ask Yourself Before Picking a Video Production Company

Tip 4: Don’t measure your success by the number of views alone

Views are often meaningless and misleading, what matters is measuring the engagement of your target audience. Instead of focusing on the views counts alone take a look at the “estimated minutes watched” report and “average view duration” numbers as a useful indicator of overall success of your YouTube videos.

Tip 5: Don’t take yourself too seriously

Most business videos are dead serious. However, when done right and in moderation, good humor can contribute greatly to the success of your video. The video below successfully manages to present a boring subject (something you probably have seen many times) in an entertaining way, at the same time making it enticing to share and to spread the brand name!

Tip 6: Nobody’s going to like a video that sucks

Making a pro-looking video on a tight budget is tricky but not impossible, as long as you follow some rules and don’t make common mistakes.

Tip 7: Keep videos as short as possible

Yoav Hornung of Veed.me gives the following suggestions:

  1. 45 – 90 sec for tutorials and explainers
  2. 15 – 59 sec for creative commercials
  3. 2.5 min for crowdfunding videos
  4. 60 – 119 sec for testimonials

Get more ideas for promotional marketing videos: 5 Ideas to Help You Start Promoting Your Business on YouTube

Tip 8: Be vigilant about using copyrighted material

If you are serious about promoting your business on YouTube, don’t use unlicensed video and music. YouTube has a sophisticated system in place, called Content ID matching, to keep track and to prevent unauthorized use of copyrighted material in YouTube videos.

If the Content ID system detects the copyrighted video or music in the uploaded video, your video will get flagged and, unless you can present a license that proves that you can use, say, the background music, your channel will be penalized.

 5 Music Licensing Mistakes that Can Make Your Video Disappear

If you video gets flagged even if it only uses the properly licensed material (and this does happen fairly often), follow the guide below to resolve the situation.

 How to Dispute YouTube Background Music Copyright Claims

Furthermore, the copyright strikes and getting your video blocked apparently isn’t the worst thing that could happen: Ultra Records files copyright infringement lawsuit against YouTube blogger

Tip 9: Use background music to convey emotion

Unlike a blog post or a slideshow, a great video is all about motion and emotion. Would you like to see a movie with no music in the background? I doubt it and there is a good reason that most movies are scored.

Looking for background music for your video?

Where To Find Great Background Music to Use in Low-Budget Videos

Tip 10: Always include call to action

When you upload a video to YouTube you probably have a good idea of what is that you want to achieve. But do your viewers know? So you need to make it clear what is that you want them to do once they finished watching your video. Is it to visit your Web site? To share their opinions? To call you? To watch another video? Whatever that is, just say so.

Using YouTube annotations is a simple way to add interaction to your videos and to incorporate your call to action.

Bonus Tip: Check out YouTube’s Creator Academy

For more YouTube tips and online lessons check out YouTube Creator Academy

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Mik
About the author: Hi, I’m Mik. I make royalty free music for promotional videos, YouTube business vlogs, marketing campaigns, film, and more. All my music is available for licensing online with a simple royalty free commercial license. Buy once, download instantly, use forever!

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