YouTube Best Practices

YouTube is one of the more unique social media platforms.
It’s not the app you’d first think of when logging in to see what your friends
are up to, but it is a huge platform for consuming content from influencers,
vloggers, and amateur creators alike. Moreover, YouTube is a key channel for
brands given its SEO benefits as a Google company, and 96% of 18-24-year-olds
and half of internet
users over 75 using it. With so much potential to connect with consumers,
we’re outlining our YouTube best practices to help jumpstart your strategy on
the channel.

Video Content

Before you even get started with YouTube, you may be
wondering what kind of videos belong there in the first place. Luckily, with
such a broad audience and ever-expanding video library on the platform, you
have very large pool of content that may succeed.

To get started, here are a few considerations:

  • Include branding on your video within the first
    three seconds
  • Videos roughly 2 minutes in length see the most
    engagement, according to HubSpot
  • How-To, Educational, and Product Review videos
    are some of the most popular content categories on the channel
  • Insights from your brand’s videos on other
    platforms may help inform what content may succeed on YouTube
  • A quick scan of competitors’ YouTube channels
    may help spark inspiration as well

Video Uploading

Once you’re ready to upload content to your channel,
there are a few quick steps to take to help optimize your videos and improve
their chances of being seen.

With each video uploaded, the following should be
included:

  • Eye-catching, keyword-heavy title that
    accurately describes the video.

    • PRO TIP: use Google Trends and the
      YouTube search function to find popular keyword searches
  • Keyword-heavy video description that includes
    relevant links and details regarding your video.
  • Up to 10 relevant tags related to your video
    content. These may include brand identifiers, product descriptors, and
    additional keywords.

    • PRO TIP: research what keywords
      competitors and other popular YouTube channels are using by right clicking on a
      video on their channel > selecting ‘View Page Source’ in the dropdown menu
      that appears > Ctrl + f “keywords”. All keywords will appear in quotations.

Channel Management

After you’ve settled in to a groove of uploading the
right content to your YouTube channel, it’s important to address other
housekeeping items on an ongoing basis to ensure you’re getting the most out of
your YouTube presence.

Posting Cadence: We typically recommend uploading
video content at least twice a month. If you have a batch of videos available
to upload, consider uploading one at a time in order to maintain a continuous
pulse of content. Visitors to the channel will see that your brand has been
active recently and may be more likely to engage. On tactic we see many
influencers and vloggers employing is uploading video content on the same day
each week, almost as if each new video was a show that users could expect to
air on the same day, at the same time.

Content Segmentation: To differentiate between the
different types of content on your channel, you may create playlists to house
these groups of videos. For example, food brands may want to group all of their
dessert recipe videos into on playlist and keep all breakfast recipe videos
together in another. You do have the ability to add a video to more than one
playlist on YouTube.

Community Management: As with the rest of your
social media channels, a brand presence within the community is important for
growing and strengthening connections with your biggest advocates. Regularly
monitor comments on videos and posts to your channel to gather insight from
fans, and actively engage with these comments when appropriate.

There it is – your quick-start guide for YouTube. As you venture deeper into this video-sharing platform, be sure to keep in mind the best practices outlined in this post. And as always, contact us if you want to learn more about how we can help you refine your social media strategy.

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