YouTube Marketing for Business
While YouTube is a popular social media platform, it’s barely used for marketing purposes when you compare it to other platforms such as Instagram and Facebook.
YouTube has continued to rise in popularity over the past few years, especially since it’s not just for laptops anymore. You can now access YouTube from your smartphone and even TVs.
With the potential to reach millions of people with YouTube marketing, there are many pros and cons for Youtube marketing, and ultimately the decision is yours whether you want to invest your time in it or not.
In this post, I will explain the key points to consider when determining whether or not being on YouTube marketing is worth it to you.
First I’ll start with the pros, and then the cons.
It’s Free
One of the main advantages of using YouTube is that it’s free. You don’t have to pay anything because the fees are paid by advertisers. This is great for start-ups or those who don’t have a lot of money to invest in something that they aren’t sure will work out.
Sharing YouTube Videos is Easy
When you create a video, you want it to be seen by people. One of the ways for your videos to be seen is for viewers to share the video. Luckily, YouTube makes it very easy to share videos. They give you the option of sharing videos on Facebook, Twitter, and more.
I’d say though you need to definitely be proactive in asking your viewers to share your video within your call to action of your video or even have it written in the description of your video.
No Video Length Rules
Your videos on Youtube can be as short or long as you want them to be. This is very different from Instagram, where your videos can only be a maximum of 1 minute long. A great video length for YouTube marketing is 2-3 minutes.
If you have any video seminars, classes or speeches, you can upload them to YouTube as well, even if they are 1 hour long.
When you first start your YouTube account you are limited to only 15 minutes in length but YouTube offers a verification process that will allow you to extend that limit beyond 15 minutes.
Reach More People
You can reach even more people through YouTube marketing, people who weren’t already following you on other social media sites. It’s one more platform to gain potential customers and new followers. Make sure to use the tag feature with your keywords when you upload a video so that people can find you through their searches.
Always name the video on your hard drive first with the keyword or words before you upload it. This is important for ranking.
Another way to reach more people is to start subscribing to other channels. Those channels will get notifications and hopefully, in return, they will also follow your channel.
Every single day, over 4 billion videos are viewed. How crazy is that?! YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine, and the 3rd most viewed website in the world (Google and Facebook come first). It’s a great form of advertisement.
Gives Your Audience More Options
If you give your audience a variety of ways to consume information, it will increase your business’s overall engagement. Some people prefer plain text through the form of blog posts, while others prefer photos with captions (Instagram).
Did you know that 65% of people are visual learners, though? These people will be grateful for your video content and watch that.
If you are a blogger consider uploading your video to YouTube then create a blog post around your video and embed the YouTube video within your post.
Also, don’t forget if you have an email subscriber list send them an update when a new video is uploaded to YouTube to grow your channel.
Make Money With Google Adsense
With YouTube, the main way that you can make money from it is by promoting your products and business. However, you can also make money through Google AdSense, just for posting a video in the first place!
The way that Google Adsense works is through ads.
When viewers watch your video and click on an ad, you get money from it. If you monetize your videos, these ads will automatically show up for a few seconds at the beginning of your video. Even if viewers don’t’ click on the ads, you can still gain income from it.
You will need to go into your channel settings to set up monetization with YouTube and Google Ad Sense to activate the monetization of your videos.
Drawbacks of Using YouTube Marketing For Business
Now that you know of a few ways that Youtube can benefit your business, it’s only fair that I mention the drawbacks as well.
You Have to Do Your Own Marketing
The main drawback when it comes to YouTube is that YouTube is not going to promote your videos for you. You will need to find a way to market them on your own.
YouTube paid ads are available. Something you should consider but that could be considered a drawback if you are on a tight budget.
Takes More Time
Creating content for YouTube takes more time than any other platform. For example, on Instagram, all you need to worry about is a photo and caption. On YouTube, you need to create the video, edit the video, upload the video, and then finally optimize the video.
You also need to take into consideration the title, the description of the video, the hashtags, and the thumbnail. It is a very time-consuming process which is why people typically only upload a few videos a month.
Again maybe considered a con but could also be quite profitable if done right in your business.
No Guarantees
Probably the worst thing about YouTube is there isn’t any guarantee that your videos will be popular. Even if you create the perfect video with amazing value, it could only get a few views.
It is much easier to get likes on Instagram than views on YouTube.
Slow Growth
Another con when it comes to YouTube is that growth typically happens at a much slower rate than any other platform. It can take months and months to build up your channel so that you have an impressive and substantial amount of followers, views, and videos.
However, the key is not to give up and remain consistent with your marketing efforts.
Is YouTube Business Marketing Worth It?
There isn’t a specific yes or no answer to this question. For some people it’s worth it, for others it isn’t.
If you already have other social media platforms that you can market your videos on, I’d say it’s worth a shot.
After all, what do you have to lose? It’s free to sign up, and you can just create one video as a trial experiment to see how it works.
