02 Jul Four Tips For Growing Your Brand Through YouTube
Summary
If your company is serious about growth, chances are you’ve already started a YouTube channel. YouTube is an amazing platform both for brand awareness and new customer acquisition.
With over two billion users each month (nearly a third of the entire internet!) turning to YouTube for their video content, the platform is not to be ignored.
But as you watch other companies grow their channels with great success, you might begin to wonder: is my company doing enough? How do we design our YouTube videos in a way that increases subscribers and grows our brand?
Making successful YouTube videos isn’t rocket science. But maximizing YouTube’s massive marketing potential does require a certain amount of know-how.
Use these four tips to help grow your brand through YouTube videos.
1. Focus on useful content
Ultimately, you want YouTube viewers to convert into customers. But before that happens, you first have to get those viewers — and keep them. One of the best ways to do this is by focusing on content that answers questions or solves problems.
People love turning to YouTube for solutions.
Source: Think with Google
And if your company becomes a trusted source for solutions, you are well on your way to winning some serious brand loyalty points.
To come up with ideas for this type of video content, think in terms of common problems your target customer faces. These problems don’t have to directly relate to your company’s products or services. But they should either loosely relate to your brand or otherwise creatively tied into your products.
LEGO is a great example of this tactic. On LEGO Discover, one of the brand’s seven YouTube channels, viewers get “life questions answered with LEGO bricks.”
True, “how rainbows are made” isn’t directly related to building intricate structures with little plastic blocks. But the brand’s core demographic is probably very interested in the answer. And LEGO serves it up with a healthy dose of creative product placement.
Your company’s YouTube content doesn’t have to be as creative as LEGO’s, but hopefully, this gives you a sense of the direction in which you can take your videos.
Useful content? Yes. In-your-face advertising? No. Creative product placement? Absolutely.
2. Create bite-sized bits of information
Unlike most other social platforms, YouTube viewers tolerate longer videos…to a point.
A good rule of thumb for YouTube is to focus each video on a single topic. The subject of each video determines its length. If you can cover a subject in 30 seconds, great. If the subject takes five minutes to adequately explain, no problem. But as soon as you veer off into a secondary topic, you begin to lose your audience.
Think bite-sized. Give your viewers just enough information to teach them one thing, or tell one interesting story, or impart one interesting fact.
After you’ve covered that one, bite-sized topic, end your video and move on to the next one.
Designing bite-sized video content
This bite-sized format works in your favor, especially if you are short on video ideas. For example, if your company sells workwear, your YouTube audience might be interested in “the top ten tools every handyman should own.”
Create a quick listicle video outlining your top ten list. Then, break this list down even further and create ten separate videos that give more information about each tool.
Just like that, you have yourself a playlist to kick off your YouTube channel.
Does your company have a list of FAQs on your website? Turn each individual question into its own short video. Have five items in your product line? That’s five tutorial videos showing viewers how to use those products.
3. Remember consistent branding
A signature style and consistent branding are crucial for your company’s YouTube channel. Because you aren’t directly selling your products or services in your videos, viewers should be aware at every turn that your company is behind the great content they enjoy.
Here are a few easy ways to achieve this:
- Intro sequence: An intro sequence sets the tone for your video and starts your content off with strong branding. Use a template for your intro sequence so it is easy to produce and remains consistent across all of your videos.
- Logo placement: Every frame of your video should include your logo. Make it large enough to be noticeable, but discrete enough that it doesn’t get in the way. The bottom corner of the screen is usually an ideal place.
- Outro sequence: Include a short outro sequence at the end of each video. This should include a larger logo image, perhaps your tagline, and specific call-to-action.
- End screen: Don’t forget the end screen. Any YouTube video over 25 seconds is eligible for an end screen. Use yours to link to more videos and highlight both your company website and your YouTube “subscribe” button.
- Thumbnail template: Semi-uniform video thumbnails further extend your branding and make it easy for people to pick out your content in search results.
4. Create valuable partnerships
YouTube is an ideal place for potential customers to discover your brand. And partnerships are an ideal way to maximize this discovery potential.
Brand partnerships
Consider partnering with a like-minded brand on a series of joint video projects. This type of partnership gives you instant access to a new audience with similar characteristics to your own customer base.
In 2015, Buzzfeed teamed up with Purina to create a very successful series of Puppyhood videos. The debut video in the series has 29 million views and counting. In this case, Purina doesn’t have a very active YouTube channel (13.7K subscribers to Buzzfeed’s 20+ million) but the partnership still offered something for both parties.
Lighthearted content is right up Buzzfeed’s alley. Partnering with Purina gave them a new framework for everyone’s favorite type of lighthearted content: cute animal videos. In turn, Purina got access to Buzzfeed’s huge audience, along with a good deal of cool-by-association.
Influencer partnerships
Influencer partnerships are even more widely used than brand partnerships. And they have the potential to be wildly successful. In addition to increasing your brand’s YouTube reach, an influencer marketing partnership gives your brand or product social proof.
As the thinking goes: if my favorite YouTuber uses this product, maybe I should, too.
However you design your brand’s YouTube channel, remember this rule of thumb: inform and entertain first, and the selling will come along naturally. Follow these four tips to create your YouTube video strategy. With this solid strategy in mind, the sky’s the limit.
Author
Leah Diviney is a content manager at Biteable, the world’s simplest video maker. When Leah isn’t busy making videos, she’s writing about them for the Biteable Blog.