How to Create YouTube Videos That Connect With People

Simple YouTube Strategy

Here’s a simple strategy.

Want to integrate YouTube into your online marketing strategy effectively?

Then you must create and share valuable video content that’s relevant to what your ideal customer is searching for on the Internet.

This might be an answer to a frequent question, a tutorial or a customer review of your services.

When you use video strategically, YouTube will generate leads for your business.

In this article I’ll show you five styles of YouTube videos that will get you the results you’re looking for on YouTube.

#1: Turn New Viewers Into Subscribers With a Trailer Video

YouTube Trailer Video lets you feature a video at the top of your channel when nonsubscribers visit.

Why not use this space to tell new viewers who you are, what your business is all about and what they can expect from your content?

Your YouTube channel and trailer video as seen by nonsubscribers.

Here is a simple, three-step outline to help you create a 45-to 60-second video that will convert viewers into subscribers who will get alerts whenever you post new video.

• The Intro—Welcome new viewers to your channel by introducing yourself or the name of your business, then share notable credentials that will help instill confidence in the service you offer.
• The Why—To captivate your audience, tell them what benefits they’ll receive from your videos, then share why you do what you do. This is where your personal story comes in and will go a long way toward creating a personal connection.
• The Call to Action—Wrap up your video and tell people what to do next. Tell them how to subscribe to your channel. If you have a web page or blog you want them to visit, give them the URL!

#2: Share Stats That Matter to Benchmark Yourself

Position yourself as a reliable source of information with a video that presents numbers and niche market data in a unique, easily sharable way. People love statistics, and if you gather and present good data, they’ll share your video with colleagues who are interested.

About two years ago, I uploaded a simple two-minute video to share the latest statistics about online video, entitled YouTube and User Engagement. The original received 16,000 views and the follow-up, Video Revolution 2.0, now has close to 40,000 views.

Video Revolution 2.0 shares the latest statistics about online video and has close to 40,000 views.

Use these three simple steps to create your own stats video and share important, relevant information with your market:

• Collect eye-opening figures and data about your market.
• Find an awe-inspiring song over at Premiumbeat.com.
• Hire an Adobe After Effects animator at oDesk to combine the facts and figures with graphics and music.

#3: Share a Customer Success Story to Establish a Good Reputation

There are few things more powerful than a first-person testimonial that tells how your product or service made a customer’s life better.

This doesn’t have to be polished and technical. You can record customer interviews with your mobile device or on a Google hangout with a simple webcam.

Better yet, ask your past customers to put their own success stories on camera and send you a link to their video so you can share it on your own channel and add it to your channel’s favorites.

Showcase the stories of your customers through video.

Here’s a simple formula you can use to help customers bring their stories to life for you.

• Intro—Have your customers introduce themselves so people trust they’re real humans.
• The before—Ask them to share what need led them to search for your product/service.
• The shift—Remind them to tell viewers why they chose you.
• The after—Encourage them to share how your product/service has made their life better.

#4: Answer Questions to Demonstrate Your Knowledge

Your potential customers are going straight to Google to find answers to their questions. Claim your Google Authorship, then connect your Google+ profile with your YouTube channel and use video to deliver those answers. You’ll become a go-to Q&A resource in no time.

Share your knowledge with little things and people will remember you when they need to buy big things.

Marie Forleo of MarieTV reads and answers the questions her audience members ask.

To get a jump-start on the questions your customers ask most, use keyword research tools, review forum questions or send out a survey to your existing subscribers and customers. Use these questions to record a Q&A library of videos that are short and to the point so people get what they need quickly. Provide real value, avoid the fluff and don’t hold back!

#5: Teach People Something to Create Top-of-Mind Awareness of Your Services

If you do a quick search for “how to tie a tie,” you’ll find videos at the top of Google’s search results. Some of these videos have more than 13 million views.

Rather than writing a text-based article with a series of pictures on how to do something, record step-by-step tutorials, demonstrations and how-to videos. Your viewers can pause the video as needed and that makes their lives easier!

Find out which “how-to” keywords your customers are searching for on Google!

If you’re camera-shy, the good news about tutorial videos is that the “star” of your video is the product. For online or software tutorials, screen-capture software like Camtasia or ScreenFlow will record your screen and you don’t even have to be on camera!

Here’s a recap:

The ONE Element Every Video Needs

There are more than five styles of videos that work on YouTube and you don’t have to limit yourself to the options in this article. Find the best fit for your business, theninclude the only essential element every video needs: your Call to Action. 

Provide value and communicate a clear and compelling call to action that inspires your viewer to subscribe, purchase, visit your website or share the video they just watched and you’ll see results in no time.

via

Beginner's Guide to YouTube Branding

With so many business-related videos on YouTube, and more being added every day, you need to put some effort in if you want your brand to stand out.

In this article I’ll look at five quick tips to help you create a more memorable YouTube presence.

Tip #1: Reinforce who you are

At the end of every company video you upload to YouTube, you should reinforce your brand. For example, you could say your company name and web address at the end of each clip or include an image showing this information in the final frame of your video.

If you fail to do this, people might forget who you are by the end, depending on the length of the video they’ve just watched.

Tip #2: Add your social media links

Your YouTube channel shouldn’t be treated as an individual online entity. It’s definitely a good idea to include your other social media links within the channel. For example, if people like your video and what you’ve had to say, they might want to follow you on Twitter or Facebook.

Tip #3: Take time choosing your avatar

The avatar for your YouTube channel is also an important consideration. You need to bear in mind that you’re competing with millions of other company video channels, so an eye-catching logo that stands out for all the right reasons is essential.

Tip #4: Add your logo to your videos in a subtle way

A watermarked logo can be added to your videos in a subtle way so that people are aware of it without it being intrusive. This also helps with branding if other people decide to embed your video on their websites.

Tip #5: Include your brand in the tags

My final tip is to include your company name/brand name as the final tag when you’re adding these for each video you upload. If you put this at the beginning, you’re using up a valuable space that should feature one of your main keywords.

Including your brand is great if you’ve recorded a series of videos and want the others to be displayed as related content.

via

YouTube for Business: The Ultimate Guide

Online video can no longer be ignored. On the crowded commuter train many passengers have ditched their evening newspaper for YouTube on their phone. In my office when something goes wrong with the system our calm, twenty something intern sits back and watches a YouTube video to find a solution to the problem. YouTube is the 2^nd biggest search engine in the world behind the mighty Google itself. So there is no doubt that you, as a company, need a presence there. Here’s everything you need to know about YouTube for business to get started.

The business case for using YouTube

Need more reasons to jump on the “YouTube for business” bandwagon?

• 70% of YouTube traffic comes from outside the US, so it is not just a US thing
• 60 hours of video is uploaded every minute
• Over 4 billion videos are viewed a day
• YouTube Mobile gets 400 million views a day

YouTube for business: before you start

Beware – No-one that I am aware of has ever gone onto YouTube in search of boring, self-promoting video.

So before you jump in you need to decide on a few things:-

• You must clearly define who your target audience is and understand what valuable content would be of interest to them.
• Define what your business objective is by creating a YouTube Channel.
• Is it a branding exercise or are you trying to generate sales from your YouTube videos?
• Ensure that YouTube is integrated into an existing Social Media strategy you already have in place.

Setting up

Knowing that you have a clear objective it is time to create your own YouTube channel. Ideally you should create your account with your existing Google account. That way your account will work well with Google+ and in particular, Google+ Hangouts. So to sign up simply go to www.youtube.com/signup

Username

When creating your account make sure that your channel looks great and that it reflects your brand. You will want to customise your username. Eg. www.youtube.com/user/ahaingroup. This username can then be used on all your marketing materials, email signature, business cards etc.

Later, market your username and encourage people to visit and subscribe to your channel. Even the best videos on YouTube will not be seen if no one knows they are there.

About

Make sure you fill in the “About Us” section and add links to your website and other Social Media sites.

• Click on “My Channel” on the top right hand side of your home page and then click on the edit button. Try to make this section short and sweet.
• Treat it a bit like an elevator pitch and for SEO benefit add in relevant keywords to make your channel more likely to be found.

Avatar and background

• Click on “Channel Settings”. Make sure you add an image or logo for your YouTube avatar – suggested dimensions: 800 x 800 pixels. Maximum size: 1 MB.
• You will also have the opportunity to customize your background here. Choose a colour that fits in with your background image and logo. Maximum size for your background image is 1MB.

Tags

Click on the Info and Settings section and add Tags to your channel. These keywords will enable YouTube users to find your account. So ask yourself what words or phrases would my targeted viewer use if trying to find my video?

Tabs

Click on the “tabs” section and make sure what activity you wish to share on your YouTube channel.

Customise layout

Before you decide to upload content, create favourite folders or subscribe to third party channels. You should decide on what layout your channel should have. The default setting should be fine, however you can customise your layout by selecting the “Featured” link.

If you are creating frequent video content the “Blogger” option may be your best bet as it will display a reverse chronological list of your video uploads.

Uploading videos

Now that your channel has been set up it is time to upload content to your account. So just click on the Upload Button at the top of your screen. You can:-

1. Upload an existing video,
2. Create a video from your webcam,
3. Create a video from your photographs and/or images
4. Broadcast a Google+ Hangout directly to your YouTube channel.

Video length

A standard YouTube account will only allow you to upload videos under 15 minutes in length. However it is easy to request to be allowed to upload longer videos – follow these steps:

1. Visit the upload page at www.youtube.com/my_videos_upload
2. Click Increase your limit at the bottom of the page
3. Follow the steps to verify your account with a mobile phone. Currently they aren’t able to offer other ways to verify your account.

Note: The most viewed videos on YouTube are less than 5 minutes in length.

Average Video Length for Top 50 Most Shared Global Videos in 2012:

• Top 10 – 4 minutes 11 seconds (does not include “Kony 2012”)
• 11-20 – 2 minutes 30 seconds (1,501 total seconds)
• 21-30 – 3 minutes 5 seconds (1,849 total seconds)
• 31-40 – 2 minutes 57 seconds (1,770 total seconds)
• 41-50 – 1 minute 45 seconds (1,049 total seconds)
• Top 50 – 2 minutes 54 seconds (8,682 total seconds – does not include “Kony 2012”)

Make sure your video gets your point across and if applicable a clear call to action. Remember you are not creating the video for you, you are creating it for your audience. So dare to be different, dare to stand out.

VideoToolBox

The VideoToolBox channel is a great resource to find out more about video production, editing and uploading video. It is a channel designed to showcase videos from users about making videos.http://www.youtube.com/user/videotoolbox

Format

Upload your video in the best quality format. We would normally upload HD video as a Windows Media Video file in widescreen format  (1280 x 720). The great thing about the Windows Media Video file is that it enables good quality video at a relatively small file size. This makes the upload to YouTube fast and effortless.

Title, description and tags

Once your video has been uploaded take some time adding a title, description and tags.

• Make sure your title is something that a YouTube user would want to click on and add keywords into your title where possible.
• Add a description of what the video is about and add tags to your video.
• Choose the most relevant category to list your video under.

See below for an example.

Privacy settings

When you have uploaded a video on YouTube you can decide to make it:

• Public,
• Unlisted,
• Scheduled
• or Private.

(See Privacy settings tab on the image above).

Public

If you want the world to see your video you must make sure your video is Public. Only Public videos will show up in YouTube searches.

Exclusive

That said I’ve often uploaded exclusive content onto my YouTube channel and very often bonus training resources. I can make these videos invite only (Private) or Unlisted so only a viewer with a link can see my bonus content. This can be a great way to make a loyal customer or client feel special.

So, for example, I create a 10 minute video about Facebook for Business offering valuable content. At the end of the video I put a call to action, eg, “subscribe to my YouTube channel and ‘Like’ my Facebook page at …… and gain access to the full 60 minute video.”

Editing

YouTube has a number of great features to help you enhance the quality and impact of your video once you have uploaded it. As long as you are in “Edit video” mode you will see a number of options at the top of your page – Enhancements, Audio, Annotations and Captions.

Enhancements

Allows you to brush up the quality of your video:

• Auto Fix -The Auto-fix feature may be worth trying out and seeing if it improves your video masterpiece.
• Style – You can also change the style of your video by selecting a number of great looks. Eg. 60s look, Black and White etc. Don’t worry if you get tired of applying filters or don’t find one that suits, you can still revert back to it’s original look.
• Lighting – You can also fine tune the lighting on your video by clicking on the lighting tab.
• Stabilize –  Did you record your video without a Tripod? A great feature in the enhancements section is that you can fix your shaky camera work by clicking on the stabilize button.

•  Blur faces – You can blur out people’s faces in your video should you need to do so. See Additional features above.

 

Annotations

Annotations lets you add:

• Text links to your videos
• Links to other videos,
• Channels and playlists
• Or even create interlinked video narratives.

You control what the annotations say and when and where they appear on the video. These can be useful if you want to link back to your website or even add a “Subscribe Now” link to your YouTube video.

Audio

The Audio section allows you to add royalty free music to your video. However if your video has audio already you are likely to find that the music drowns out your sound even if you select the “Favour Original Audio” option.

Captions

Add a text transcript of your audio to your video here.

• This is very good for your SEO, but I wouldn’t be a great fan of watching a video with subtitles.
• YouTube can automatically convert the audio to text for you (though it doesn’t translate very well), however I would recommend you upload the text by clicking on the “Upload Caption File or Transcript” button.

Video editor

Finally you can create projects – trim and attach videos to each other in order to create brand new video content in the Video Editor section.

Getting views

Once your video has been uploaded and tagged it is vital to ensure that it reaches your intended audience. If you are banking on your video being found by a large number of YouTube users you may only have a few hours to get traction after you upload your video.

So you need to share your content to as many of the right people as quickly as possible. Remember no one will see your video unless they know it is there. So you will need to market your post to your audience.

Share

Below your video you will see a share button. Here you can easily share your video by using the shortened URL or even send the video out to your various social media networks. A nice feature with the shortened URL is not only can you choose to link to the HD version, but you can choose exactly what time you want the video to start. This can be powerful if there is a specific part of your video you want the viewer to see.

Embed 

YouTube also allows you to embed your video on a third party site such as your website or your blog. A good way of generating views for your video is to create a video blog post with text and the embedded video. You could do this on your own company blog or post to a community or business blog site such as Tweakyourbiz.com.

So where else might one share their YouTube video? Well….everywhere your intended viewer is liable to be hanging out.

• Depending on the nature of the video – LinkedIn Groups can be a great place to start a conversation about your video topic and share your link. I would also share the video as a LinkedIn update on my personal and company pages.
• Facebook, Pinterest, Flicker and Twitter are good platforms to share your video. Don’t be afraid to share your video multiple times. Eg. I will typically share a video link three times a day on Twitter for three days when I upload a new video.
• If your company sends out newsletters why not embed or at least link to your latest video there.

Other steps you will need to take to get views are:

• Brief several individuals you have a strong relationship with and who have good online Klout and get them to share and mention your video.
• Take time building up a list of YouTube subscribers.
• Identify a list of key influencers in your industry or community. Engage with them and encourage them to share your video.
• Use Bookmarking sites such as Reddit, Technorati and Digg to list your video.
• Engage with third parties who are commenting on or sharing your video. Always thank any user sharing your content.
• If appropriate write a press release about your video and send it to relevant media channels.

Advertising 

And don’t forget about advertising. Spending money on online ads will increase the impact of your video. You can generate views and/or subscriptions through targeted Google, Facebook or even YouTube Advertising.

True View video ads works well with Google Adwords for Video:

Google Adwords for Video:Right Viewers at the Right Price:

Find out how to Create Your Google Adwords for Video here:

Measuring success

You can get a quick recap of stats underneath any video. Just click on the statistics symbol. This will give you a snap shot of how a video is performing. I find these stats valuable when assessing 3^rd party videos and analysing how competitor videos are performing.

Analytics

However, when analysing your own videos YouTube provides channel owners with some powerful insights. To access just click the Analytics tab on your Channel’s homepage – it is at the top right hand side next to the Video Manager tab.

Here you can see:

• detailed data on your video performance, engagement, demographics and where your video has been viewed. (mobile, 3^rd party sites etc.)

• the countries where your video has been viewed

• where your views are coming from

• the age and sex of your audience

Reports

YouTube allows you to download reports of data (in Excel format). So ensure you take the time to analyse the performance of your videos.

YouTube ROI

• Impressions – Listerine place 55 million impressions on the back on an interactive YouTube campaign
• Traffic - Dollar Shave Club‘s brilliant ad starring CEO Michael Dubin racked up more than 8 million views in 10 months.
• Sales - 50% of Rokenbok’s customers are generated from YouTube
• Branding - Nike generated 61 million new video views in 2012. Over half of these views came from just the “Summer of Football” campaign.
• ROI – Heineken discover that YouTube has a more efficient ROI than TV

Finally….YouTube is a brilliant place to listen, learn and engage with other users.

• So don’t forget to subscribe to other users channels. It is amazing what valuable content you can gather and even the influential people you can network with by subscribing and commenting on other people’s content.
• Spend time analysing competitors videos and assess what they are doing well and what they are falling down on. Then go out and trump their content.
• YouTube is becoming more and more Social and is now a place for companies not only to showcase their brands, but also a place where companies can network and engage with their audience.
• I love the fact that Google+ Hangouts now allows YouTube users to broadcast content live. This enables us to get new, unique content out to our audience faster and quicker than ever before.   However, it is important to invest in a high quality webcam and a good microphone if streaming content live.

YouTube is no different to any other platform, so if you are going to be there……look amazing, be different from the rest, engage with your audience, have a clear message and ensure everything you do enhances your brand.

via

How to Create Custom YouTube Thumbnails

Are you frustrated by the default random YouTube thumbnail option for your videos?

Do you wish you could create something custom to improve your views?

Since December 2011, YouTube has been making some radical changes to their site.

Everything from the home page layout, website colors and even the look and feel of the video players have changed dramatically.

But none of these aesthetic changes have had any real impact on the way we need to be marketing videos on YouTube.

However, this latest change may just be the biggest game-changer that savvy video marketers can take advantage of! Introducing the Custom YouTube Video Thumbnail.

From YouTube's Support Portal, instructions for uploading a custom thumbnail.

A Little Background

In April 2012, YouTube quietly rolled out the option for all YouTube channels to become “YouTube Partners.”  This original YouTube Partner Program consists of a selective club of content producers with a large audience and a ton of views.

These original partners have access to additional features and options to help market their videos that no one else had (for example, the Custom YouTube Video Thumbnail).

Then YouTube announced that anyone could become a partner, and everyone rushed to monetize their channel and fill their videos with a bunch of distracting ads and 15-second commercials that slightly annoy viewers. Yet there were still no special partner privileges like the Custom Thumbnail option… until now.

YouTube has been quietly (and selectively) rolling out the Custom YouTube Thumbnail function to some channels for the past month or so.

What Is the YouTube Custom Thumbnail?

No change or update has had me quite as excited as this one!

Until now, YouTube randomly selected (and when I say random, I really do mean completely random!) three still images for you to choose from to use as your video’s thumbnail.  This means you are probably forced to choose one of the worst screenshots possible.

You can now choose your custom thumbnail.

But this is changing. Select users can now upload an image of their choosing to represent their video.  These users can now choose a thumbnail for their video and this thumbnail will be displayed in search result pages, related videos and as the start image on embedded videos.

Why Is This SO Important?

This is a powerful new functionality for YouTube marketers.

One of the easiest ways to get more views on your videos is to have an appealing thumbnail image.  When you have little control of your thumbnail selection, you leave a lot up to chance.

Choose thumbnail images that best fit your YouTube marketing goals.

But there’s more.  YouTube actually measures the click-through rate (CTR) of your video.

In short, if your video is ranked #3 for your prospective keyword, yet everyone is choosing to click on YOUR thumbnail over #1 and #2′s thumbnail, chances are YouTube will bump you up in the rankings!

A good thumbnail = more views

Do You Have the Custom Thumbnail Option?

How can you get the custom thumbnail option?  I don’t have an answer for you.

I’ve seen new channels, old channels, channels with a lot of views and channels with only a few videos that have this new option, while others do not.

I haven’t found a pattern, and can only assume that YouTube is slowly rolling this feature out to all (fingers crossed).

To check if you’re one of the lucky YouTubers, head on over to your Video Manager and select the Edit button on any one of your past videos.

Below the three options for thumbnails, you will discover the Custom Thumbnail button.

Click the Custom Thumbnail button and upload a thumbnail.

What if You Don’t Have the Custom Thumbnail?

If you don’t have the custom thumbnail option just yet, my recommendation is to be patient.

In the meantime, I believe monetizing your channel helps your chances—even though I’ve found non-monetized channels with this function available.

You can enable monetization on your YouTube channel.

In your YouTube Channel Settings, select Monetization and activate it.

Here is my strong recommendation: Even though you want your channel monetized, you can select which of your videos will have advertisements.  You’ll want todeselect as many as possible.  I decided to simply have three or four of my oldest videos monetized.

Unless you are bringing in millions of views, you will not see a lot of money from this.  It’s better to focus your video efforts on bringing in new leads and customers through your funnel.

What if You DO Have the Custom Thumbnail?

If you discovered that you are one of the lucky few who have already been given this powerful marketing gift, pay close attention: You need to create custom thumbnails for all of your past videos as soon as possible.

It’s my theory that this custom thumbnail option is too powerful and it will be abused.  When that happens, YouTube may just take it away for good.

Find a graphic designer to go in and add a custom thumbnail to all of your past videos.

What Should Your Custom Thumbnails Look Like?

Check out this short YouTube video on how to create the “perfect” YouTube thumbnail.

The following are a few tips to follow to make your custom thumbnails as effective as possible:

#1: Make it Relevant!

Just because cute babies and pictures of pretty women get more clicks doesn’t mean you should use them.

If your thumbnails are not relevant to your content, your new-found audience may get angry.  Not only will they “thumbs down” your video, they will leave immediately.

YouTube tracks Time on Page.  And with an average time on page of just 3 seconds, your rankings and views will plummet.

Make the effort to choose thumbnail images relevant to your video.

#2: Find the Perfect Still Shot

Instead of using a random image, find a still shot from your video.  Take your time andlook for the perfect shot that really describes what your video is all about.

This could be an action shot, or a close up of your face, or something that grabs people’s attention.

Choose thumbnail images that capture your viewers' attention.

#3: Add Text

Using photo editing software, add some benefit-driven text to this still shot.  People should be able to quickly read the text and know exactly what your video is all about.

This thumbnail image highlights the contents of the video.

#4: Add Color

Bright neon colors tend to stand out far more.  Incorporate bright, contrasting colors into your thumbnail so the viewer’s eye travels right over to you!

In Conclusion

Even though I’m really excited about this new feature, it doesn’t take away from the ultimate strategy for YouTube success:  Provide remarkable value!  As always, continue to deliver exceptional content to your audience and empower the viewer, and the results will come.

Go check your YouTube channel to see if you have the Custom Thumbnail option.  If you don’t, go ahead and activate the monetization feature on your account, and just be patient.

via