People love watching videos, and this is exactly the reason why YouTube has been consistently performing well ever since its launch in 2005. With over 1.9 billion monthly active users, the platform has become a major hub for people of all ages. If you want to improve your business’s online presence, then you’ll have a better chance at it if you’re also utilizing this video-based social network. We’re rounding up seven benefits of YouTube for brands and why should take time to build your brand’s YouTube channel.

7 Benefits of YouTube for Your Business

1. YouTube Helps You Reach a Wide Audience

YouTube processes over three billion searches in a month! The platform is not only used as a social network but also as a search engine. The success of YouTube’s reach stems from the fact that our brains process videos better than text. Entertainment value aside, people watch videos to be informed and to learn – and this is where your brand’s YouTube channel comes in.

Here are a few types of content that are doing especially well on YT.

How-To Videos

You'd be surprised at the wide variety of videos teaching people how to "do stuff" – from unclogging the kitchen sink to losing weight to pretty much anything else you can imagine. There are unlimited ways to showcase your product or expertise and market your brand online through this social media platform.

Explainer Videos

If you have a new product or service to offer, an explainer video can help you highlight its features to its potential users. Explainer videos are more informative rather than promotional. They have a softer approach, which can make them easier to market to people.

Training Videos

Another way people are using YouTube is for training videos. If your brand is all about providing resources or expertise in a particular field – like teaching people how to become great marketers, for instance – giving your prospects a taste of what’s to come in the form of a video presentation is an excellent way to do it.

2. It Makes You More Searchable on Google

YouTube is owned by Google – a.k.a. the world’s most popular search engine. So, aside from the fact that the platform is being used as a search engine, specifically for videos, YouTube is also backed by one of the most popular and influential tools for online marketing today.

Furthermore, Google, at present, already includes video results in people’s searches. If your video is relevant and if you’re using your keywords correctly, then there’s a chance that a thumbnail of your video will show up on the search results page.

You want to maximize your online presence as much as possible, and the thumbnail – which takes up substantial real estate space on Google’s search result’s page – can help make your brand more visible. Increased visibility on the search page means higher chances of your link getting clicked.

On top of Google’s video thumbnail feature, here are some of the other ways YouTube can help improve your search rankings on Google.

Backlinks

Google considers backlinks as a kind of recommendation that increases your credibility score and gives you bonus points on the search engine. The more backlinks you have and the more relevant they are, the more frequent you appear in the users’ searches.

So, just how can YouTube help you build backlinks? The answer is quite simple. This can be done by adding links to your website in the video’s description box. This way, your viewers know where to find you for more information about your products or services or where to purchase. That backlink increases your credibility score and, as a result, makes you more searchable on Google.

Reduces Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is the percentage of people visiting your site and then leaving right away after viewing only one page. This isn’t too good for your website.

Why?

Because Google takes the duration of your guests’ visits into account when ranking your website for their search engine. The longer they spend on your page, the better.

So, how can you make them stay a little longer?

The answer: engaging content, specifically, videos that play for a few minutes to encourage site visitors to stay and watch. You can embed a link to your YouTube video on your web page so visitors can click and watch it easily.

Doing this for some of your pages can help reduce your brand’s bounce rate and improve your Google rankings.

3. YouTube Videos Can Be Utilized for a Lot of Things

One of the great things about YouTube videos is that their exposure isn’t only limited to that one platform. Although you uploaded the file to your YouTube account, its use goes way beyond your YouTube channel.

YouTube videos can be embedded and shared in a number of places.

Your videos can be added to your website or blog to make it more engaging. Other than that, you can also share a helpful clip to your friends through other social media networks like Facebook and Twitter. Moreover, you can also forward the link to your video to someone through your messaging app or via your email list.

YouTube videos are very helpful for brands. They can increase the exposure of your brand to a large audience and help you:

Save Bandwidth

Instead of uploading a large file to your own website, which eats up a lot of space and slows down the loading speed of your page (Google doesn't like this!), you can simply paste your video’s YouTube embed code.

Additionally...

YouTube Videos Stay for a Long Time

Unlike the posts you make on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, YouTube videos don’t go out of style. They aren’t pushed to the bottom of your feed in lieu of new content. Your videos will remain available and searchable for as long as they’re still up.

With these said, YouTube videos can also help:

Increase Your Brand’s Exposure

With a decently relevant video and good SEO strategies, increasing your brand’s exposure is highly possible. YouTube’s algorithm is advertiser- and user-friendly in a way that it shows the user ads, suggestions, or recommendations that fall under that person’s preferences. YouTube takes note of a person’s liked or saved videos to provide that user ads that they can actually relate to.

This way, you can be confident that your ads are distributed to people who may be a part of your target audience and who might become a potential customer.

4. YouTube Increases Website Traffic

We all know how important increasing your website traffic is in driving people to your page, turning them into warm leads, and then hopefully, into potential customers.

Providing backlinks in the description of your YouTube videos makes it easier for people to find you online. You can add a link to your website or store that your viewers can click on in order to reach your website. This can drive more traffic to your website and bring more people to your landing pages, where they can subscribe to your posts or join your email list.

5. It Improves Conversions

Most humans pay attention to visuals very quickly. In fact, it takes a tenth of a second for us to identify a visual scene. That’s a lot faster than reading plain text.

Now, what does this imply?

It simply means that visuals, like images and videos, are processed so much faster compared to when people are reading a line or a sentence. If you want to send a message across, then a visual presentation would be a faster way to do it.

YouTube is all about videos. And videos – with both visual and auditory elements – are an excellent medium for providing information.

Here's one tip to increase your YouTube conversion rate:

Entice People to Join Your Email List

Email lists are exceptionally important in increasing your conversions. They provide you with warm leads which you can update, follow-up, and eventually convert into paying customers. With a YouTube video included on your landing page, there’s a higher chance of your prospect clicking that subscribe button.

Why?

Because people trust landing pages (or any other offerings) better when they see the face of the person endorsing the product or service. It makes your brand more credible. And people willfeel a bit more at ease in filling out your form with their personal information.

6. Live Streams

If you have special events, you’ll be able to broadcast to the world using YouTube livestreams. This method enables people to see your product as well as increase your exposure to a large number of users without spending a lot of money on it.

7. YouTubeAds

There are two ways you can utilize YouTube ads for your brand: as an advertiser and as a creator.

Promote Video Content Through Ads

If you want to promote your products on YouTube, you can run ads. YouTube’s exceptionally great when it comes to showing people the ads that they’re actually interested in. You can take advantage of this feature to expose your brand to more people who pretty much are your target market.

Make Money Through Ads

The second way you can make use of ads is as a creator. Advertisers pay per view. The more views you get, the more income you can generate.

This is the reason why you shouldn’t just limit your content to merely promotional. Creating videos that can help people, such as how-to videos, can help you build a strong following. The more people clicking on your video and watching it, the more money you make.

YouTube Video Guidelines

Now that you know some of the things that YouTube can do for your brand, let’s discuss how you can create effective content.

It might come as a surprise, but you don’t really need to spend a lot of cash on video production (although you can, if you want to) to make an attention-grabbing video that people will love watching.

Here are a few guidelines you might want to consider before creating a YouTube video for your brand.

Know Your Audience

Who will be watching your video? What demographics are you targeting? What are their goals and pain points? The first step to creating any content for social media is to determine who your audience will be and what their needs are.

This gives you insight into the type of voice you have to use, the type of story you can tell, and the type of content you can create.

Plan Your Video

Do you have to record your video? Do you have raw clips you can collate to make a visually interesting video content? What music will you be using?

Before you start recording, form a concrete and practical plan to help you achieve the video content that you want.

For instance, if you have to record a video, then you have to make the necessary preparations: identify the scenes that you have to shoot, determine where you can shoot, acquire the necessary permits (if needed), set a schedule with the personalities you want to appear on your video, determine when you’re releasing it, how you’re releasing it, and other important details.

SEO

Finally, if you want your video to show up searches, you have to optimize. Use the right keywords in your video file name, insert keywords (subtly) in the title of your video, optimize your description, and properly categorize.

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