Table of Contents
This book is dedicated to my niece Natalie, and to everyone who has ever produced and shared a video on YouTube.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Jillian McTigue and everyone at Entrepreneur Press, as well as Jeff Herman, who worked hard on this project. My gratitude also goes out to all the YouTube and online marketing experts who agreed to be interviewed for this book, and to the folks at YouTube/ Google who have created an extremely powerful and versatile video streaming service.
On YouTube, You or Your Business Is the Star!
So, youre a small-business operator or entrepreneur faced with the challenge of continuously growing your business, finding new customers or clients, retaining your existing customers, keeping costs down and discovering ways to out-maneuver your competition. Youre not alone!
Perhaps youve already discovered that the internet can be a powerful and cost-effective sales, marketing, advertising, and promotional tool, and that online social networking services, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, and LinkedIn, allow you to easily and informally reach existing and potential customers using text, photos, and other multimedia-based content.
Theres yet another online resource you can inexpensively utilize: YouTube, the worlds leading streaming video service.
Virtually anyone with a video camera or camcorder, webcam, smartphone, or tablet can record, edit, and publish videos onlineabout any topic whatsoeverand then share them with the world.
Millions of small businesses, entrepreneurs, and organizations have discovered innovative ways to create original YouTube content as a low-cost tool for building their brand, reputation, and image. Its a way to attract new customers, share information, showcase products and services, and share testimonials.
The Ultimate Guide to YouTube for Business will introduce you to just some of the ways small businesses are using YouTube as a business tool. And youll discover proven strategies that can help you promote your company, brand, products, or services using high-definition video without spending a fortune. Youll learn the best approaches to planning, creating, editing, and then sharing your videos with the public, and how to leverage YouTubes tools to help achieve your objectives.
Well also look at ways to identify your target audience and keep them top-of-mind as you create your videos. Youll learn how to incorporate YouTube with your overall virtual and real-world marketing efforts so that YouTube can complement and enhance what you may already be doing with a website, blog, Facebook page, or Twitter feed.
Well look at pre-production, production, post-production, and promotional tasks required in order to create successful YouTube videos. And youll learn from the experiences of successful YouTube and online marketing experts, who share their advice in exclusive interviews in the last section of this book.
YouTube has changed how people worldwide and from all walks of life experience multimedia content. Now, you can begin tapping this vast and ever-expanding audience in order to grow your own business. Dont worry; its not too late to jump on the YouTube bandwagon!
Even if youre on a shoestring budget, you can quickly begin using YouTube without expensive video production equipment or Hollywood cinematography skills. Beyond what this book offers, what youll need to be successful is creativity and a strong understanding of your target audience.
But first, lets take a look at what YouTube is, and focus on just some of the ways small businesses, entrepreneurs, and organizations working in virtually any industry are already utilizing YouTube. Thats the focus of Chapter 1, Using YouTube as a Promotional and Marketing Tool.
Part I
Using YouTube to Market and Promote Your Business
These first seven chapters will focus on YouTube basics for business: how to get started; ways to use YouTube as a marketing and promotional platform; how to plan and promote videos and interact with customers, fans and viewers; and how to monetize your videosespecially useful for consultants and freelancers.
Chapter 1
Using YouTube as a Promotional and Marketing Tool
IN THIS CHAPTER
An introduction to YouTube and how businesses can leverage it
Developing a YouTube strategy and integrating it into your overall online marketing strategy
Identifying your audience and its needs
Developing realistic expectations and goals
What you need to get started
To be competitive, its virtually mandatory for a business in almost any industry to tap the power of the internet and online social media. YouTube, the popular video-streaming service and worlds second most frequently used search engine, can and should be a powerful part of your overall marketing and promotional strategy. It can be implemented using almost any computer or internet-enabled device, from almost anywhere, 24 hours per day, seven days per week, 365 days per year.
In 2011, YouTube videos received more than 1 trillion views, which is equivalent to 140 separate video views for every person living on the planet. More than 72 hours worth of new and original video content is uploaded every minute of every day, attracting a truly global audience. At least 70 percent of YouTube users are from outside the United States.
Every week, more than 100 million people click on a Share button and tell their online friends about a YouTube video via Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and other social media. Every day, the equivalent of more than 500 years worth of YouTube videos are watched on Facebook alone; every minute, more than 700 individual videos are shared via Twitter.
Businesses utilize YouTube in myriad ways, including simply buying adsfrom text-based and display ads that link to websites, to video messages that resemble 10-, 15-, 30-, and 60-second TV commercials. In many instances, paid advertising on YouTube is one of the most affordable and effective advertising options available on the internet.
Many businesses also produce and publish their own YouTube videos as part of their overall online marketing and promotional strategy, either by hiring a video production company or doing it themselves.
As a YouTube content provider, youre encouraged to create and maintain your own YouTube channel, which can give you the opportunity to share in advertising revenue thats generated when optional ads are shown in conjunction with your original video content on your YouTube channel. In fact, many people have actually developed a paying career producing videos for YouTube, which then generate revenue by attracting large audiences of viewers. These people are often referred to as online personalities or YouTubers. When it comes to producing YouTube content, take an extremely creative approach in order to set yourself apart from your competition, capture your target audiences attention, and build their loyalty. Using original video to do this is the focus of Ultimate Guide to YouTube for Business.
FIRST, LETS GET ACQUAINTED WITH YOUTUBE
YouTubes launch in early 2005 changed forever how people use the internet. YouTube allows for everyday people, entertainers, business operators, and entrepreneurs from all walks of life to produce, upload, and share original videos, for free, and build a potentially global audience for them. YouTube can also be used effectively to target a regionalized audience.
