Given the growing popularity (and current supremacy) of video as a preferred medium for consuming knowledge, incorporating video in your marketing strategy should be a question of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’. YouTube is the ultimate platform to house your investment in marketing content for a number of reasons:
Statistics in favour of a resounding “yes” verdict
- “1.9 billion logged-in users visit YouTube every month.”(Cooper 2019)
- “Searches of ‘how to’ videos are growing by 70% year on year.”(Smith 2019)
- “In an average month, 8 out of 10 18-49 year olds watch YouTube.” (Smith 2019)
Search Engine Friendly
YouTube is a search engine in its own right, allowing people to search just for video results that suit their needs and purposes. But in addition to this, your videos can also appear in a targeted Google search among written article results.
The reason that your YouTube videos can pop up in a Google list of results is that YouTube is actually owned by Google. Videos pop up in your list of search results just as written copy would, provided that they have been well titled using key SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) words in the title.
Sharing is Caring (and an excellent content marketing strategy)
Sharing and embedding video from YouTube to other social media platforms and web pages is such a simple process. Ideally your investment in a YouTube video can be used on a landing page for your business and across multiple social platforms to both capture potential customers, and educate the ones that find their way to your website.
While YouTube might be the initial destination for your video, from there the options are endless. Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, are just a few of the highly popular social platforms that businesses frequent with videos. The further your video is shared, the more exposure your business gets.
Is YouTube suited to all industries?
It is surprising how many different industries have successfully embraced YouTube as part of their marketing strategy. In the same way that a television, print or radio ad works for a huge variety of businesses, so too can YouTube. Here are just some of the ways YouTube has been used:
- Through demonstrations, ‘how to’ steps, and helpful advice, businesses use YouTube to “build their reputation as an expert in a field.” (Business Queensland, Queensland Government 2016)
- Customer testimonials in video format encourage potential customers to trust your brand.
- Popular content for service based businesses is video content of a recent project or treatment in its various stages of completion.
Consider how your business can utilise YouTube in its marketing strategy.
References
Queensland Government. Benefits of YouTube. https://www.business.qld.gov.au/running-business/marketing-sales/marketing-promotion/online-marketing/youtube/benefits (online source).
Cooper, Paige. Hootsuite. ‘22 YouTube Stats that Matter to Marketers in 2019’. January 2019. https://blog.hootsuite.com/youtube-stats-marketers/
Smith, Kit. Brand Watch. 46 Fascinating and Incredible YouTube Statistics. January 2019. https://www.brandwatch.com/blog/youtube-stats/
