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YouTube Tests Timed Emoji Reactions

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By Stephanie Mlot

The feature lets users anonymously share emoji reactions at an exact moment in a video.

YouTube is experimenting with a new option to share emoji reactions at an exact moment in a video.

The video platform is piloting timed reactions with a “small number of channels to start,” YouTube community manager Meaghan wrote in a blog announcement.

Those watching as part of the trial can tap into a separate reaction panel via the comments section, where users can share their thoughts as colourful pictograms and see how others are (anonymously) reacting—similar to Facebook Live or Twitch. “We’re testing multiple sets of reactions and will add or remove reactions based on how the experiment goes,” the blog post explained.

YouTube last year began testing a function that lets users view comments timed to an exact moment in the video they’re watching. Folks can already timestamp video comments, adding a direct link to a specific point—making it easier to navigate a video or simply highlight a particular moment.

“We heard such positive feedback about the times comments beta feature,” the blog said, “that we wanted to test out similar features.” There’s no word yet on whether timed comments will be made more broadly available.

Emoji reactions are historically hit-or-miss: Twitter has twice tried the iconic retorts, last year asking people to choose between three different sets featuring classic options like a laughing face, thinking face, crying face, astonished face, and flame. Nearly a year later, the microblogging service has yet to roll out any reactions beyond the usual heart.

By Stephanie Mlot

Sourced from PC Mag

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3 Things You Must Know When Marketing on Youtube

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Marketing your services and your business through YouTube sounds super simple, but there are guidelines to be aware of if you want your videos to be found.

Leveraging YouTube means being able to know and understand the users of the platform, what metrics to track and what to create content about in the first place. When you have these pieces of the puzzle down, your channel will become a natural extension of your lead generation efforts.

Here are three things to keep in mind when marketing on Youtube:

1. Obey the laws of YouTube SEO

SEO (search engine optimization) is a fancy term for making your content visible in search engines such that when people search for a term your content comes up in search results. In other words, if you’re searching for “how to start a podcast with an iPhone”, then your content should be optimized with keywords, tags and a title supporting that search phrase.

Another point to remember is that you should not be making content that people aren’t searching for. If you’re trying to answer a question people don’t have or solving a problem that doesn’t exist, your videos will go nowhere and people won’t find your business or your content.

2. Know which metrics to measure

Like any platform, there are many metrics you could use to measure the success of your channel and its ability to generate leads and revenue. Most often people look at subscriber count and number of views to measure success, but that’s not actually what YouTube loves to see. YouTube, like any other platform, wants to keep viewers on the platform for as long as possible — so it’s going to pay attention to metrics in support of that goal. To that end, what you want to pay the most attention to is your average view duration and click-through rate.

The average view duration is a good indication of how long your viewers are spending watching your content. When that’s high, YouTube recognizes that your content is good for the platform and will likely push out more of it on their platform. The click-through rate is a measure of the percentage of viewers who click through to your view after it’s been presented to them (like on the home page or as a suggested video). This is an important signal in determining that your content is relevant to viewers and is more likely to keep them on the platform and coming back for more.

3. Answer specific questions

People come to YouTube to be entertained and to learn. YouTube is, after all, a search engine. Your video should be able to provide the information they need. In return, you are boosting the authority of your business and your channel in the eyes of the viewer. They are then more likely to get to know you and your business.

When you answer specific questions with your YouTube videos, it can be as specific as, “How to change the colour of a menu item on Elementor” (I know because I Googled that very thing this afternoon.) If you’re not sure where to start, begin by listing the 25 most frequently asked questions in your niche or line of work. Don’t worry that they seem too basic because people are looking for the answers to these questions.

The more videos you make, the larger your audience will eventually be. Then, you’ll be able to tailor your content to their questions. But it all starts with answering specific questions.

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Entrepreneur Leadership Network Contributor

Zach Benson is the founder of Assistagram, a company that empowers influencers and Fortune 500 companies to connect with real followers in their target audience. Benson helps influencers and brands cut through the noise to accrue millions of new followers on Instagram.

Sourced from Entrepreneur Europe

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Microsoft Testing YouTube Creators ‘Follow’ Feature In Latest Browser

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Microsoft began testing deeper integration with YouTube in its latest version of its Edge browser, Canary. The feature lets users follow their favourite content creators on YouTube. The test is only available to a limited number of people testing Edge Canary.

One media outlet called the feature a “modern RSS feed.” The Microsoft Edge followable web feature looks similar to Google’s experimental feature in Chrome announced in May 2021, per the report, which lets people follow blogs and enables creators to get the latest content when it’s published. It’s an extension of RSS inside Chrome, and it includes a follow button.

At the time, Google said some Android users in the U.S. will see it in Chrome Canary.

Google designed the experimental Follow feature to help people get the latest content from sites they follow. It will become available to follow sites from large publishers to small neighbourhood blogs, by tapping a Follow button in Chrome.

When websites publish content, users can see updates from sites they have followed in a new Following section on the New Tab page.

Reddit user u/Leopeva64-2 identified in March the Follow feature in Edge, but said Microsoft quickly removed it. Now the feature is back and enabled by default.

In Edge, users can check the list of creators they follow or their most recent posts by clicking the corresponding button in the ellipsis menu. The feature is part of the Controlled rollouts from Microsoft.

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Laurie Sullivan is a writer and editor for MediaPost. You can reach Laurie at [email protected]. @lauriesullivan,

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A Step-by-Step Checklist for a Successful YouTube Ad Campaign

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By Chkad Kodary

YouTube videos offer endless entertainment, quality education, the latest news, and updates on virtually every topic on earth. It makes it one of the most popular social channels, where people come to binge-watch videos.

You’ll be surprised to know that 80% of online traffic is video traffic. Therefore, intelligent marketers can’t afford to ignore this gold mine of online traffic. Most top-rated brands such as Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Facebook, and Google systematically invest in video ads on YouTube.

The best part of YouTube advertising is that smaller brands can also reap its benefits to leverage the popularity and reach of the network. However, it requires setting clear goals and creating campaigns with laser-sharp targeting to achieve a positive ROI.

There are various ways of using YouTube to market your business. YouTube advertising is among the most effective strategies to boost your brand and achieve conversion goals. Brands have been bullish on increasing their ad spend on YouTube ads.

According to Statista, Apple Inc. was the top spender on YouTube ads in the US between March 2020 and February 2021, with an ad spend of $237 million, followed by Disney and presidential candidate Donald Trump with $178 and $146 respectively.

Here is the step-by-step checklist to run a successful YouTube Ad campaign:

Launch your YouTube Channel

Before you even think of running a successful YouTube ad campaign, you will first have to create a YouTube channel.

Check out some YouTube guides or follow these steps to create your own YouTube channel:-

  1. Sign in to your personal or business Google account
  2. Open YouTube and sign into it with your Google account. It will automatically fetch details from your Google account.
  3. Go to “All My Channels” page>> Click on “All My Channels” tab>>A dialogue box will open>> Click on “Create a New Channel“>>Choose a name for your channel in accordance with your brand or theme>> Select a category for your YouTube channel.

 

YouTube allows you to launch a channel to promote your product or brand and represent your entire company.

Create a YouTube account for your brand

If you are a startup, you can create a single channel representing your company and core products. However, the more prominent companies can create multiple channels to meet their needs.

It is essential to do some homework before you click the “Create” button. Pay attention to the title of the channel and also the category you have chosen. It’s crucial as it helps boost your branding and search engine rankings.

 

It is also essential to add relevant keywords in your title, including the keywords representing your industry and location. Don’t forget to mention your brand name, as many people will be searching for it.

There are several other measures you can take to boost SEO on your YouTube channel. You can add crucial keywords in many places, including in the video descriptions.

  • Add Details

Now that your YouTube channel is ready to use, it’s time to add information for your viewers. To help your viewers understand the type of content they can find, it’s essential to add critical information related to your channel. A proper channel description will also allow viewers to follow your channel.

Go to your channel Customization page>>Click the “About” tab on it>>Click on the “+Channel Description” button>>Add description in the form.

 

The next step is to upload videos.

Tips for writing the description:

  1. Add a short intro to your brand and topics you want to include.
  2. Add your target keywords in the first 70 characters to boost SEO, but do it naturally.
  3. Add links to your website or social media profiles. It can either be a branded link or a link placed on a call-to-action.

Remember, YouTube can flag spammy links, so make sure you structure them properly and never overdo them.

The first thing visitors do is go through your description. Therefore, the description must be written carefully. Your video channel description not only represents your branding but also drives traffic.

  • Create and Publish Your Videos

To strengthen your branding and engage your audiences, create engaging videos. These videos should boost your brand and should aim to create a buzz around it.

Don’t aim for perfection in the first few videos. As famous entrepreneurs like Gary Vaynerchuk and brands like SONY have had extremely disappointing experiences when they began creating YouTube videos.

You can begin your journey with a positive frame of mind and persistently go through the learning curve.

Create and Publish Your Videos

  • Pay Attention to “Watch-Time”

Since YouTube is the biggest video platform globally, it helps advertisers, entrepreneurs, marketers, and influencers earn regular income. To suggest the best videos to the users and decide their rankings, YouTube uses algorithms, and a metric is known as “watch-time.” In May 2019, people uploaded 30,000 hours of newly uploaded content per hour on YouTube. To boost their rankings, you need a strategy and a few action steps. First, you need to know how to increase the YouTube watch-time to gain visibility for your videos in YouTube search results.

Link Your Ads Account to Your Channel

The next step is to link your Google ads account to your YouTube channel. Remember, Google treats both the products as separate entities, so someone with access to Google Ads cannot change your YouTube campaigns or videos in the channel, even if Google owns both the platforms. Similarly, you can’t create Google Ads with the YouTube channel manager.

Here are the steps that you can follow to link both these accounts:

Steps to link a Google Ads account to a YouTube channel:

  1. Sign in to your YouTube Studio>>Click Settings>>Click Channel>>Click the Advanced settings tab.
  2. Click Link Account>>Enter a name for the link, a Google Ads customer ID>>Choose permissions to be granted.
  3. Click Done>>Click Save.
  4. Your YouTube channel will be linked to the Google Ads account after the Google Ads account’s owner approves your request.

 

Create Ads

Once you’ve launched your YouTube channel, you can start creating ads. Here are the steps to begin this process:

  • Choose a Bidding Strategy

There are majorly two types of bidding strategies available for Google ads. Cost-per-click or CPC, and cost-per-view or CPV. However, CPC is more popular. It is also considered less risky and easier to implement.

When you choose CPC, you pay for each click a user makes. On the flip side, with CPV, you only pay when a user watches the video for at least 30 seconds or an entire video if it is less than 30 seconds.

However, YouTube ads allow only CPV bidding, and it can be difficult for marketers who aren’t used to it.

This type of bidding is considered advantageous for the marketers as you will pay only when viewers watch your videos.

However, you should decide your budget before launching your ads, as with a CPV bid, you will pay for each video view. So, you have a minimal choice with CPV ads compared to CPC campaigns, wherein you are charged when someone clicks it.

Even though it’s tempting to increase your bid to get more traffic, you need to choose your bids carefully so that it doesn’t exceed your budget. The reason is CPVs fluctuate a lot when other advertisers adjust their bids or try to target different audiences.

How to Set Bids for Your YouTube Ads?

Your bidding strategy will largely depend on your business objectives, including the amount of traffic you want and the targeting strategy you choose. With Google Ads, you can target different groups through custom bidding.

  • Control Your Targeting

The effectiveness of your ads depends on whether they are served to the right people. With some fantastic targeting options, you can be sure that the right people are watching your videos.

For better targeting, you have the following options:

  • Choose Relevant Topics

To ensure that your ads are served to the right audiences, you must carefully choose your topics. First of all, make sure that the topics you choose are relevant to your niche. For example, you can’t serve the ad of online coding classes on the recipe videos.

Google helps you with choosing topic categories and subcategories and provides you with thousands of choices. So, if “fast food cravers” seem like too broad a topic, you can select “sea-food lovers” as a subcategory.

In the beginning, choose a few categories and keep on testing.

  • Target User Interests

To help you with laser-focused targeting, Google has now introduced many new targeting options based on interests. For example, you can choose sports lovers as your target audience and further narrow it down to tennis lovers. It will improve conversion.

  • Target Specific YouTube Videos

To find the most relevant audiences for your products, you can also choose and target specific YouTube videos to run your ads. All you need to ensure is that the particular video has high traffic on it.

  • Target Search Terms

Search terms can be the best way to target your audiences precisely. Research the keywords using a tool as you do while running a Google Ads campaign. Google Keyword Planner allows you to research keywords people use in the YouTube search bar. It helps your ads to appear in the same match cases.

To sum up, YouTube offers many targeting and filtering options according to demographics and user behaviour, which you can test for effectiveness.

  • Construct Your Ad

After zeroing in on your targeting options, you can create your ad. Once again, you have a variety of options to choose from.

What Are Your Ad Options?

Different types of ads are needed for different kinds of campaigns. For example, you can choose a video Ad to play before or after the video and whether it can be skipped or not.

Here are some of the ad formats which you can use:

  1. Video Ads – These ads play before you are allowed to watch a video. With these video ads, you can also show a banner ad almost free of cost. You can place it next to your in-stream ads. Some of these ads can be skipped, while most can’t. If you can’t skip the ad, its maximum length can be up to 15 seconds. If you can skip the ad after 5 seconds, its length can be up to 60 seconds.
  2. Overlay Ads – These ads are meant only for the desktop version of YouTube. They appear in the form of a rectangular and semi-transparent strip on the bottom 20% of the videos you choose to show your ads. These ads are primarily text-based.
  3. In-Search Ads – These ads are displayed at the top of the search results page on YouTube. You can easily spot them as they appear on top below “filters” and above organic results. In addition, these ads are less intrusive than the regular video ads that pop up when a video is playing.
  4. Discovery Ads – These are thumbnail image ads found in the top right corner of the result pages on YouTube.

Choose a Video for Your Ad

The next item in your checklist is a video you have to create and upload to your YouTube channel to display your ad. You can choose any other video, but it should contain your ad message. Make sure that your video’s length is within the specified limit for your ad type. You should pay attention to the other aspects of the ad, such as the stage of the buyer’s journey and their psychographics, while creating a video for your ad.

If they are looking for introductory or how-to videos, serve them educational content.

If they are looking for videos related to your company, brand, or financial results, it is time to pitch them your product in the video ad.

Set the Destination for Your Ad

Google Ads allows you to choose the destination where you want your visitors to land. It could either be your YouTube channel or one of your videos. However, in the early stages of the sales funnel, sending your visitors to your YT channel would be a more sensible step, as it will allow them to browse your brand videos and learn more about your brand.

On the flip side, if you target the users at the end of the sales funnel, where people are ready to convert, you can link to videos with a clear call-to-action.

However, regular testing will help you know if your choice of destination for your YouTube ad is correct or not.

Tip: Try to engage with your audience with your YouTube ad campaign. Craft your ads to target your desired customer base and to achieve your conversion goals.

 

Image Source

 

SEO, Keyword Analysis, and A/B Testing

You can save time and grow your YouTube channel by downloading a browser plugin. It will help you perform advanced keyword research, reduce publishing time, rank higher in search results, get more views and subscribers, and test, tweak, and attract traffic.

Browser plugins will also help you with the following:

  1. Auto translation for global viewership
  2. Auditing your videos and channel
  3. Tag suggestions
  4. Keyword research
  5. Search rank tracking
  6. Video A/b testing

YouTube Advertising Best Practices

YouTube offers a powerful advertising engine, but the success of your campaign depends on how well your videos connect with your audience. Here are a few tips that will help you immensely:

  1. Grab the attention of your audiences through familiar faces, moods, emotions, and music
  2. Focus on branding for the top of the funnel viewers
  3. Use storytelling and emotional appeal
  4. Add a solid call to action and tell people what to do next
  5. Use templates if it produces better results

Final Words

With over one billion users, YouTube is undoubtedly the most popular video-sharing site. In addition, the site has over 1 billion users, making it the favorite website for marketers to find their target audiences easily.

Creating and running video campaigns can be comparatively easy, but you won’t achieve the required ROI if you don’t use predefined audiences. Don’t overspend in the beginning and create a scalable video campaign structure. The key to success and profitability is setting your campaigns the right way and refining them using analytics.

Achieving your conversion goals may require a lot of work. For example, creating video ads that engage and convert requires targeting and consistent testing & tweaking.

 

 

By Chkad Kodary

Sourced from readwrite

 

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Study Indicates Ads Placed In News Media – Especially Print – Outperform Social

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Ads placed in news media consistently outperform ads on Facebook and YouTube, according to a study conducted by Australia’s ThinkNewsBrands.

The cross-platform analysis found that while ads in both print and digital news publications perform better than ads in the social media channels, print ads specifically had a much greater memory impact on readers.

The study included more than 5,350 participants who experienced ads from seven Australian brands in 11 forms of media.

For six days, 42 custom print runs were sent each morning across Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth.

To cut down on bias dependent on ad-placement, seven versions of each newspaper were also distributed each morning. Two hundred and fifty-two websites were also created, with more than 6,000 unique brand exposures.

To maintain the same creative assets for all platforms, the study provided three different print sizes — full-page, half-page, and quarter-page ads — and 6-second, 15-second and 30-second ads for digital display and video.

Duane Varan, CEO of MediaScience, who oversaw the study, describes it as “a monumental effort” that is intended to assure advertisers that it was a true “apples to apples comparison.”

Results show that newspaper ads, regardless of ad type, outperformed Facebook up to four times.

On mobile and desktop, ads in news outlets delivered 1.7 times the unprompted recall of 6-second YouTube ads and were equal to 15-second YouTube ads.

News outlets also proved most effective for short-term ROI, with 10% stronger sales growth than social media.

“The thing about news is that it’s cognitively engaging,” Varan explains, adding: “When you watch the news, you’re thinking about what’s going on. You go into the ad break with your brain wired and fired up, and so you have better access to your memory pathways as a consequence.”

According to Varan, ad recall in news outlets was consistent across three stages of memory:

1. Attention (seeing and absorbing content) was measured by brand recognition.

2. Message-processing was measured by queue recall.

3. Memory retrieval was measured by unaided/free recall.

“It’s telling the story, again, around this clear superior memory effect for news,” Varan says. “It’s consistent with what we’ve seen across many other studies that we’ve done for news clients.”

Varan believes there is too much “assumption” in the market and that various media ad-effectiveness propositions “need to be weighed.”

“We can’t just make assumptions about what effects we think things deliver. We have to have some data that informs it.”

Out of all the study’s findings, Varan says he was most surprised by the comparison of print ads to Facebook ads.

“Just to see how much stronger newsprint was vis-a-vis a Facebook ad, you’re getting a much greater impact,” he says. “A print ad is even outperforming a video ad. That’s pretty telling.”

Varan thinks advertisers have forgotten how good print ads look.

“We just have not been around the medium enough to remember,” he said. “A print ad is very rich. Compare that to the fleeting experience of seeing an ad and scrolling through it.”

Overall, the study suggests how powerful context actually is.

The success of an ad may depend heavily simply on where an ad is placed, Varan says, noting: “Think about how hard it would be to get a 10% lift. Here we’re talking about much more dramatic effects.”

While the study is based on Australian consumers and media outlets, Varan believes that if the study was replicated overseas it would show similar results.

“The numbers might not be exactly the same, but the trend would be,” he says.

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Sourced from MediaPost

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5 Ways to Boost Your Small Business using YouTube

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Sourced from Boss Magazine

As we move into the digital era, YouTube marketing is becoming the prime factor of success for any business or brand promotion. YouTube offers a platform to publish valuable video…

As we move into the digital era, YouTube marketing is becoming the prime factor of success for any business or brand promotion. YouTube offers a platform to publish valuable video content that has the power to bring in millions of subscribers across the world. However, it requires consistency and a unique marketing strategy.

Most brands focus on finding the best sites to buy YouTube views. This will help to boost your channel on YouTube. However, to increase the engagement rate and build a loyal subscriber list, it is essential to focus on developing an excellent strategy. Look at the five best ways to boost your business through YouTube and start increasing engagement and subscribers on your channel.

Customize your YouTube Channel

Visual brand identity plays a crucial role in growing your business on YouTube. Therefore, customize your YouTube channel to attract more subscribers. Pay attention to the following tips for creating an optimized YouTube channel –

  • Profile and cover photo – always use your brand logo as the profile photo. Headshots work well for independent video bloggers. Similarly, create an appealing cover photo for your channel. The cover photo or YouTube Art should provide the audience a clear idea about what the channel is all about.
  • Channel description – it is also known as the ‘YouTube About Page’. This is where your viewers can learn more about you and your business. Create an informative bio. Tell your audience what your brand is all about and the type of content you publish on your channel.
  • Video titles and descriptions – create compelling video titles and use industry-specific keywords to help your video rank higher in search results. You can also add information about your website, business catalogue, and much more in the description box.

Create Trending Videos

Trending videos are the best ways to increase engagement rate on YouTube. Your audience can view the trending videos on the YouTube homepage under the ‘Trending Tab’. These videos reflect popular culture and provide an opportunity to make your videos go viral on YouTube.

While buying YouTube subscribers will help you boost your content on YouTube, viral videos will help to create significant exposure for your brand. Besides following the trend, your content should also be valuable or informative.

Include Interactive Call-To-Actions

Call-to-actions are an excellent way to increase engagement on YouTube. Set clear and concise key actions to encourage people to like, share and subscribe to your YouTube channel. For example, create an entertaining video that will hook your audience. Use end screens, annotations, YouTube cards and ask your viewers to subscribe to your channel for more updates.

Another powerful way to get more subscribers is to run giveaway campaigns to increase audience participation. Add your website link in the description and ask your subscribers to check your brand collection. This will bring more traffic to your website. Thus, helping you boost your business through YouTube.

Collaborate with Other YouTubers

Collaborative videos are most popular among content creators. It is an excellent way to find your target audience and increase your YouTube subscribers. Moreover, it also provides social proof for your YouTube channel.

Partner with well-known content creators on YouTube who are relevant to your niche and brand. It is not necessary to limit yourself to one YouTuber. You can create promotional videos, talk shows, tutorials, and challenge videos with other YouTubers. This will generate excitement among your audience. Thus increasing video views and engagement rate.

Go Live on YouTube

YouTube Live broadcast is the perfect way to interact with your audience in real-time. Most brands and businesses get tremendous traffic and result from YouTube live streams. Here you can answer questions, tell your story, and share updates about upcoming events or sales.

You can also share valuable information about your brand or host a talk show with your industry experts or influencers to keep your audience engaged. It is an effective way to build trust and credibility with your audience that will boost your business.

Conclusion

YouTube marketing is a continuous learning process. As you use the features and create more videos, you will get better at optimizing your channel to gain more subscribers. Most businesses and brands buy YouTube subscribers to boost their content. But you must also focus on the quality and execution of your videos.

Be consistent, collaborate with others and interact with your audience. Follow the above steps to increase engagement on your YouTube channel. The more engagement you create, the more subscribers you’ll get. And over time, you’ll be able to boost your business through YouTube.

Sourced from Boss Magazine

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How to Use YouTube to Market Your Business

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By Bob Buckley

If you aren’t getting enough customers in the door for your business, it might be time to try a new marketing strategy. Tapping into the growing trend of video is a great place to start. YouTube is the second largest website on the internet by monthly web traffic, according to data from Ahrefs. This makes it an awesome place to get into video and potentially drive a ton of business your way.

How to Use YouTube to Market Your Business

Start a YouTube Channel

In case you don’t have money to invest in paying for advertisements, you can still do something with the potential to be just as effective. The great thing about starting a YouTube channel is that there are no barriers to entry.

Contributing content to any website typically involves an application process. You can’t always get feedback if they don’t think your content is a fit, either.

To start a channel, all you really need is an email address. We will get to the other things required to grow it, but, the most important step besides signing up is deciding what your channel will be about.

Pick a Topic

You will need to pick a topic for your channel to focus on. It usually makes sense to go with one related to your business, so you can promote it in each video and include links to a website in the description.

Staying focused on your topic is important – it wouldn’t work very well for building an audience if you had a finance YouTube channel where every third video upload was cooking-related. Maintaining consistency will also make creating each video a little easier and faster.

Set Up a Filming Space

Depending on the types of videos you plan on making, you might want to set up a consistent filming space. This can be as simple as using your office and filming at your desk. It should be somewhere that’s blocked off from a lot of noise and interruptions.

That may just mean coordinating with your assistant (if you have one) to hold calls and avoid coming into your office while you are filming. The same goes for the family if you work from home.

Get Filming Equipment

The nice thing about today is that you probably already have a nice camera. A lot of phones have been able to film in HD and even 4K for a couple of years already. In addition to a camera, you will want a tripod, lights, and probably a decent microphone.

The tripod is crucial and you can pick one of those up for around $20 or $30 on Amazon. If your filming space has reliable natural light through a window, you could stick with that in the beginning.

The phone’s microphone should also work, at least at first. If you decide to stick with this marketing strategy, you can get all of the other equipment for under $200 later on.

Get Video Editing Software

Depending on your computer, you may already have some video editing software installed. If you use an Apple, iMovie is free and a powerful program for editing. PC users also have a variety of free options that can make high-quality videos.

I use Lightworks for our YouTube channel and it works pretty well on my older laptop. OpenShot is another free, open-source program that works well and can create videos up to 4K in resolution.

Get Comfortable on Camera

It’s pretty normal if you feel a little uncomfortable getting on camera. Pretending to talk to someone when you’re really talking at a tripod will always feel a little weird. One strategy that I’ve found works pretty well for dealing with that is to have an audience.

As long as they don’t make a ton of background noise, having someone sit behind the camera can help you focus more on making the video sound conversational. If you really can’t see yourself on-screen, consider working with someone who already has an established channel.

Work with YouTube Influencers

Working with an influential YouTube personality could be big for your business. When some of them command audiences in the hundreds of thousands, one shoutout on a popular video could (maybe) pay for itself many times over.

Every social platform has influencers, but ones on YouTube are especially powerful. Instead of written posts or pictures, they routinely speak directly to the people you want as customers.

Make A List of Relevant Influencers

There are going to be at least a few influencers you could approach that cater to your market. They will have a pretty wide range of subscribers and a number of views on their videos.

You can make a list in an Excel spreadsheet or Google sheet and organize them in order of highest to lowest subscriber count (or vice versa). It also can’t hurt for you to watch a few of their videos. That will help you make sure there isn’t any content you would want to avoid associating your brand name with.

Costs of Paying for Mentions

The cost for influencer marketing will vary depending on the number of followers someone has. Everything will still be negotiable, but data from eMarketer shows a few standard rates.

If you approach someone with 500 to 5,000 subscribers, expect to pay around $315 per video. The costs can go all the way up to $3,857 for channels with 500K + subscribers.

Measure ROI Before Spending a Ton

If you’re not careful, you could end up putting a lot of money into influencer marketing without seeing much in the way of results. Just look at the story of the Instagram star with 2 million followers who couldn’t sell 36 t-shirts.

Depending on your budget, you should take caution in paying for videos ahead of time or anything like that. Additionally, consider starting with a smaller YouTube personality.

Data from this study shows that micro-influencers are actually more effective along with being less expensive. In case influencers seem too risky, you can always look at the old-fashioned (but still effective) way of getting your business’s name out there: advertising.

Getting into Advertising on YouTube

There are a handful of different types of advertisements you can run on YouTube. If you get everything ready for starting a channel and decide you don’t want to do that, you will still be in a great position for making video ads. In addition to video ads, you have the option of display ads, overlay ads (ads that show at the bottom of a video), and sponsored cards.

The Video Ads

Most of the other social platforms offer video ads now. However, on YouTube, people are expecting to be watching a video so it’s a lot more likely that someone will already be engaged when your ad pops up.

There are a lot of marketers out there that you can look at for low-budget video ad ideas. Take the Dollar Shave Club’s video from a few years ago, for example. They just filmed their founder walking around the warehouse saying funny things and it was wildly successful.

This and other low-budget videos helped propel the 2011 start-up to unprecedented (couldn’t help using the word!) growth and being acquired for $1 billion in 2016.

Different Types of Video Ads

There are a few different types of video ads to consider using. You will need to decide which one makes the most sense and structure your video around the way it functions for optimal results.

The ones you might be most familiar with are skippable video ads, which allow users to skip to their video after the first five seconds. These can be inserted at the beginning, middle, and end of videos. Then there are non-skippable ads, which can go up to 15 or 20 seconds in length, according to Google.

The third ones to consider are called “Bumper ads” and are non-skippable, running for up to 6 seconds. All of these are compatible with desktop and mobile devices, maximizing your reach.

Tying it all Together

YouTube is not showing any signs of slowing down, especially with the current stay-at-home state of the world. You can leverage a few different strategies to get your business known on the platform.

It’s worth dabbling in all of them a bit to see if one really stands out as effective. Consider starting your own channel, working with influencers, and making video ads to reach the masses.

By Bob Buckley

Bob is a 2021 CPA candidate and the founder of thiscollegelife.com.

Sourced from readwrite

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5 Secrets of Successful YouTube Marketing

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Check these effective ways for successful YouTube Marketing!

Making a YouTube channel is a child’s play. Nowadays, almost every other person has a YouTube channel. However, using the correct tools and methodology to market the content is not everyone’s cup of tea. Thus, to buy YouTube views and buy YouTube subscribers, you must seriously consider to up your game in the YouTube marketing field.

Read on the five secrets about successful YouTube marketing that every YouTuber should have on their fingertips.

Advertisements

Advertising on YouTube is often ignored and not valued. However, that is one huge mistake you do not want to be making as a YouTuber. Advertising on YouTube can make you reach a greater number of views and gain more subscribers.

There are four types: in-stream, in-search, in-slate, in-display. With the help of these options, you can curate your content and put it on display regarding contextual keywords, demographics, video interests, etc. YouTube advertisements will help you determine where which type of content is fruitful. For instance, if your channel is about cooking, your videos that deal with rice and noodles will work better in the Asian subcontinent than in the Western countries. Thus, this is one way to market and promote your content to the right audience. Do keep in mind, that YouTube advertising works best when integrated with a strategic video. However, that is not necessarily important.

Social Media Promotion

To increase engagement on your YouTube channel and your views, sharing your YouTube content on other social media platforms is the best way to go! Creating a strong social media presence be it Twitter, Instagram or Facebook can go a long way to make your life as a content creator easy. Moreover, YouTube makes it all the easier to share videos on other social media sites. All you need to do is just click on the “share” icon underneath your video and choose your desired platform. You can also add your YouTube channel’s link or recent YouTube video’s link to your profile bio. This way you can attract potential subscribers from other platforms apart from YouTube.

However, when you promote your YouTube content on social media, make sure it is attractive and interesting. Do not just let people scroll past your content by simply announcing your new video. Make sure you promote it, by talking about it. You can even prepare small teasers to release on social media platforms to attract people to your YouTube videos.

Call-to-Action Overlay

Call-to-Action overlay works as a tool that helps you to brand your YouTube videos. The CTA overlay helps you to direct your crowd over what would interest them on your channel. For example, if you run a Fashion & Beauty channel and someone who is watching a makeup tutorial on your channel is a likely audience who would want to watch makeup product reviews instead of fashion trends. With the presence of a CTA button, you can put in a display URL in the video that will lead them to another video of their liking. Call-to-Action is the literal button that can help you tell your audience what to do next.

Therefore, it is important to include the CTA in every video. You can avail of this feature by clicking on the “info and settings” and the Call-To-Action overlay appears. CTAs have become the open secret of every successful YouTube channel. Using a CTA is just as important as asking people to subscribe to your channel by the end or beginning of every video. Hence, missing out on this feature is a big mistake.

Video title, description & thumbnail

The ABC of marketing your video successfully and organically on YouTube is to optimize your video title and description and create an alluring thumbnail. YouTube is a platform that has 50 videos on the same topic, so why should someone decide to watch your video over the others? This deciding factor hugely lies in what you write in your headline, how precisely you describe your video and how attractive is your thumbnail looks. Thus, it is crucial to construct all these based on the intent of the viewers.

The best way to do it is to use Google. Just type in the keywords that describe your video and look at the sponsored ads that appear. These videos are the ones that are the most popular and they are ones whose titles and descriptions will help you build a similar one for your video. Furthermore, for building quality thumbnail applications like Canva are the best pick. Make sure that your thumbnail correctly represents your video content.

Put yourself out there!

The prime way to attract people to your YouTube channel is to put yourself out there. People love watching videos with real faces in them compared to the ones that only use camera rolls and voice overs. Even when your content doesn’t need you specifically to introduce yourself to people, still take the first 10 seconds of your video and introduce yourself in person and ask people to subscribe to your channel. Additionally, you can also collaborate with YouTubers and feature them in your video and increase your views.

You need to build a community of engaged users and regularly put out your content. On top of that using these five brilliant ways of YouTube marketing can give your channel the boost it has been waiting for.

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Sourced from INFLUENCIVE

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11 Best YouTube Marketing Hacks To Create Viral YouTube Channel

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Sourced from FINCYTE

In this article, we will discuss the best YouTube marketing strategies to make your channel go viral. Every YouTuber wants to improve their channel like more views, comments on your YouTube videos.

First thing, YouTube is the second-largest platform in the world. There are millions of channels that have been created on YouTube. It has more than 2 billion active users, and 50+ content creators are present on the YouTube channel.

In case you forget to follow any strategies, you have failed to improve YouTube marketing. In this article, we are going to learn some fantastic tips to help you.

Let us get started!

11 Best YouTube Marketing Hacks To Create Viral YouTube Channel

1. Build Amazing Content

Making content is a common thing for all YouTuber. But what is different between you & your niche. Before creating a video, you should analyse your competitor’s content like what they do, what keywords they used, length of the content and audience support, etc. Now, you have a clear idea about how to make video content.

Also, make sure that your content will be loved and easily grasp the audience. This is the ultimate strategy to improve your content.

YouTube provides several kinds of video content that can help you get more views are-

  • Vlog
  • Interviews
  • Product Review
  • Q & A Videos
  • How to videos etc.

2. Add a Watermark

If you want to get more subscribers for your channel and get the views, you have to use the best method – watermark.

Now, everyone thinks about what a watermark is?

Watermark is just an image that would display in your YouTube videos. So many brands use their logos in the place of the watermark. Whenever it’s displayed on the screen, the non- subscriber audience turns into subscribing to your videos.

Once you can follow the strategies, the next metric should be effective in getting more YouTube comments on YouTube.

3. Optimizing the YouTube Channel

Many YouTube stars thought that just optimizing the videos is enough to get popular. But, the actual answer is no.

You should optimize your entire channel with the help of keywords. Using keywords is the best quality method to improve your ranking and get more and more YouTube views too.

i. Video Title

The title should be creative, informative, and descriptive. The title characters are less than 65 characters and make strong content.

Placing keywords at the beginning of the title helps to increase the visibility and ranking of your videos.

ii. Video Description

This section helps to increase brand awareness among peoples. It should be 5000 characters. Add 2-3 keywords in the section, which helps to improve visibility.

4. Compelling Thumbnail Images

Thumbnail is the heart of the video content. Because most content will be popular based on the thumbnail. YouTube thumbnail is the first impression to get the audience into your videos.

You are creating a thumbnail to use high-quality images. Also, you need to ensure that you use an appealing image to grab the audience’s attention.

There are several rules to making a thumbnail:

  • It should less than 2 MB
  • The images format are .JPG, .PNG, .JPEG
  • Thumbnail ratio – 16:9
  • You can change the background, font, border, graphics, etc.

5. Collaborate with YouTube Influencers

Having a YouTuber and working with them is the most successful way to get more subscribers and become popular. Because those influencers already have tons of followers for their channel.

Once you have decided to work with any influencers, you should choose the perfect influencers who will improve the subscribers count on your videos and then create some amazing collaborations with them.

One or more than video, you both can work. Also, this is a way to impress the audience. After, the audience can easily find your face and get your idea in your video content. In this way, you could connect the audience and also get some fantastic love.

6. Build a Community

Many people think that YouTube is just a video searching and sharing platform. No, it’s completely wrong.

YouTube has a vast community basis like viewers, subscribers, and users, etc. Hence, you want to make more views and likes for your videos; you need to make a community for yourself.

In the community, you can post your engaging content that can be loved by the audience. Make a community for your business, and spread your content.

7. Increase the Watch Time

YouTube is one of the incoming platforms for YouTube influencers. It is the specific method of making which the videos would be present anywhere.

Many viewers come into your video present on the homepage, and most audiences enter your video based on the subscriptions or the suggested videos.

You can get more views when your video is presented on the homepage of YouTube. Increasing the watch time for your videos, you can earn money from YouTube.

Here are some tips to increase watch time on your YouTube channel:

  • You should be using cards throughout your videos
  • Use long-tail YouTube keywords in your content
  • Always focus on audience retention
  • Titles and thumbnails should be appropriately reflected in your content

8. Promote Your videos on Other Social Media

People spend their time on YouTube, and also they are spending most of the social media channels as well.

Sharing your videos are the top most strategies. Whether your subscribers or followers forget to see your video on YouTube, there are chances to see your video clips on other media channels.

Hence, after posting your video on YouTube, you will share the link on social media like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. Better, you will create an individual account for your videos and include links or clips on the account. With this, you can get more viewers to your channel. Don’t forget to add the CTA options.

9. Create Playlists

You noticed many top brands that perform well on YouTube because they have some playlists in their channels.

Now, your question is, really are playlists performing well?

The honest is that the playlist will ensure that you can get more attention from the audience in the first place, which specifically takes a lot of effort. Categorizing your videos are most convenient whenever your audience searches for the video they can easily find.

This job is a little bit tough because you can first find the same categorized video and make it into the playlist.

10. Use Cards and End Screens

Use cards and end screens are essential tools that you can use for business promotion videos on your YouTube channel.

First, you should verify the YouTube account to have these same features.

The second thing is that you can use the fantastic features on your YouTube videos to ensure that the audience likes it.

Include CTAs options that you can use for the YouTube video and get the best results.

11. Transcribe the Videos

It is all good to make a great video, but sometimes that the audience needs a proper transcription.

The worldwide audience can see your video due to some language constraints. There are closed captions provided by YouTube, or else you can add it as subtitles when making the video.

These strategies will help you get more views because most audiences who don’t speak your language can understand your content.

Sourced from FINCYTE

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Will YouTube Become Your Favourite Place to Shop Online?

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By Adam Levy

Everybody’s doing more online shopping these days, and that hasn’t gone unnoticed by tech leaders. Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) have expanded their shopping features over the last few months to capitalize on the trend.

After Facebook’s early successes with social commerce, Google sees an opportunity to create similar features in YouTube. The push to get YouTube’s two billion monthly active users to shop directly from the video sharing app could present a significant change to its business, accelerating revenue growth.

Shopping tags on YouTube

Instagram introduced shopping tags way back in 2016. The feature gives creators a way to link to pages where their audience can learn more about products featured in their photos and videos. It’s since become a key piece of the FAANG stock‘s commerce strategy.

YouTube is testing a similar feature, asking some creators to use its software to tag and track products featured in their videos, according to a report from Bloomberg. YouTube can rely on the backbone established by its parent company though Google Shopping in order to funnel shoppers to product pages for checkout. That should enable the company to move quickly in building out a broad set of products creators can tag and monetize, catching up with Facebook.

Facebook has accelerated shopping efforts on Instagram as well as its flagship app. The introduction of Facebook Shops earlier this year opened the door for the company to take greater control over commerce on the platform, taking the user from discovery to purchase without leaving the app.

Likewise, Google started offering merchants free listings on Google Shopping and removed the fees for its “Buy on Google” checkout service. The move was designed to increase listings on the platform. YouTube’s shopping tags will integrate with those listings.

A shift in business

Shopping tags may present a new way for YouTube video creators to monetize their content. They could take a commission or sell their own goods by utilizing the feature. YouTube has historically drawn creators to the platform through the promise of ad revenue sharing.

Other social media platforms don’t offer much in the way of revenue sharing. Facebook is experimenting with the business model in IGTV, its YouTube competitor. TikTok offers a creator fund for top content producers. The ability to sell items on those platforms — a reason Walmart wants a piece of TikTok — offers one of the best paths forward for them to attract talent and monetize content.

But the opportunity appears big enough that YouTube thinks it can be a differentiator in terms of content and monetization. And broad adoption of forthcoming shopping features certainly could have a big impact on the business.

Currently, most YouTube ads are aimed at the top of the sales funnel — they’re all about introducing products and establishing brands. But facilitating the online shopping process all the way to the checkout page can be a lot more valuable for advertisers, who will likely pay more per ad impression if it leads to higher purchase rates, and those purchases are more easily linked to the YouTube ads.

Ultimately, shifting more ads to higher value placements lower in the sales funnel could accelerate revenue growth for YouTube. The service’s sales have grown in the mid-30% range over the last couple years before running into secular headwinds this year.

If it had more e-commerce focused ads, perhaps YouTube’s ad revenue would’ve increased more than the 5.8% it grew last quarter. Facebook’s revenue, for example, increased 10.2% last quarter. Management cited strength in e-commerce as what propped up its ad revenue while most advertisers pulled back on spending across all platforms.

It’s a big opportunity for Google to reinvigorate one of the biggest factors driving its revenue growth over the last few years. And with Facebook and other social media companies also pursuing this opportunity, it has a greater chance of working as people become more accustomed to social commerce.

Feature Image Credit: GETTY IMAGES.

By Adam Levy

Sourced from The Motley Fool

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