YouTube and Video Marketing

The Ultimate Guide to Video Marketing and YouTube Marketing

This is our comprehensive guide to video marketing and YouTube marketing. Start here if you want to get a full view of what you need to know to master this area of social media marketing. This post includes the following information:

• What's Video Marketing?
• The History of Video Marketing
  • YouTube
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
• 4 Popular Myths about Video Marketing
  • 1. Video marketing needs a huge budget
  • 2. You need to have humans in your videos
  • 3. Your videos need to get millions of views to actually help your business
  • 4. Your videos need to be short
• How to Use Video Marketing for Your Business?
  • 1. Showcasing your products or service
  • 2. Introducing your business
  • 3. Highlighting previous customer testimonials
  • 4. Educational Videos
  • 5. Interactive videos
• What Platform Should You Host Your Videos on?
• How about Your Competition?
• How to use YouTube to Promote Your Business?
  • 1. The title of your video
  • 2. The description of your video
  • 3. The tags of your video
  • 4. Closed captions and subtitle files
  • 5. Your original video file name
  • 6. Cards and End Screens
  • 7. Retention rate
  • 8. Thumbnails
  • 9. Video Engagement
• Wrapup on Video Marketing

What’s Video Marketing?

Video Marketing is a marketing strategy where you use video for the purpose of marketing to your product, service or even growing your personal brand!

Online video marketing can be used in your marketing campaigns in any part of the customer journey, Whether for increasing or building awareness around your brand or product or the consideration stage where the customer has already seen you before and now could be thinking about actually becoming your customer.

Note that video isn't limited to marketing or acquiring new customers: You can use it to nurture your current customers, too, since you can add live streaming into your content marketing strategy, make how-to videos,  ecommerce videos, etc. The sky's the limit with video. You just need to know how to use it for every part of your marketing strategy. We’ll discuss more on that later.

The History of Video Marketing

A lot of people might think that using video for marketing is a new or a modern tactic but that’s actually not true, The first time video was used for marketing was on the 1st of July in 1941, It was a TV commercial for Bulova and it cost them about 9 dollars to create! This means that using video for marketing purposes isn’t a new thing at all.

Now let’s discuss the evolution of video in online marketing and especially on social networks so that you can better understand both its current value and future potential.

YouTube Video Marketing

Let’s start with the world’s second-largest search engine, YouTube. In 2006 YouTube was acquired by Google and a few months later YouTube started to run ads against YouTube videos and help creators make money while also helping businesses reach their target potential customers.

In May 2013, YouTube began to roll out live streaming to verified channels who had at least 1,000 subscribers, Later in August in the same year they reduced the limit to verified channels who had at least 100 subscribers. Four months later, in December 2013, the limit was still limited to verified channels, About three years later, in February 2017, YouTube began to roll out live streaming to its mobile application but again it was still restricted to channels who had a certain amount of subscribers. Later that year YouTube reduced that limit to 100 subscribers opening the door for more users to live stream on the platform.

Facebook

Facebook, the 2.4 billion users social network, has always cared for video content on their platform for over a decade now. Since introducing the ability to upload videos on their platform, now more than 100 million hours of videos on Facebook are watched per day!

Videos on Facebook perform well in the algorithm these days. Video content on Facebook gets more shares more than any other type of content and it goes viral faster too.  Facebook video ads perform well as well. That’s something you should keep in mind if you consider creating video ads for Facebook, so don't forget to check out our Facebook video ads guide.

How about live streaming? Facebook started rolling out the ability to go live in August 2015 to a very limited number of users. By April 2016 all the users on the platform had the ability to go live. Now about 20% of videos on Facebook are live videos.

Facebook also introduced the Facebook Watch tab, which is similar to Instagram’s Explore page but for videos only. In the Facebook Watch tab, you get recommended videos based on your interests from the pages you follow. Currently, only verified pages and pages with over 5,000 followers show in the watch tab.

In summary, while most brands limit their video marketing to only YouTube, Facebook native videos, live stream, and video ads provide plenty of opportunities for businesses to engage with social media users.

Instagram

Instagram, the visual social network, has over 1.1 billion monthly users. How is it doing with video?

Instagram introduced the ability to upload videos in June, 2013. On that day alone more than 5 million videos were uploaded to the platform by the users, which shows how Instagram users were excited about using videos. It has only grown since then.

Videos uploaded to Instagram are limited to 60 seconds and to Instagram Stories further limited to 15 seconds. However, you can always upload your long videos to IGTV.

IGTV was introduced in June, 2018 and stated that it would “change the social video landscape forever.'', IGTV, which stands for Instagram TV, is basically an internal Instagram platform which allows users to upload both horizontal and vertical videos with a limit of 60 minutes per video. This allows more users to upload the video they want to upload, regardless of length.

Instagram also has a live video feature such as YouTube and Facebook, The only difference is Instagram live videos aren’t posted in videos and can only be watched from through Instagram Stories.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn, the social network for professionals, has over five hundred million users as of today.

More than 2 million pieces of content including posts, articles, and videos are consumed daily on LinkedIn.

In August 2017 LinkedIn started rolling out the ability to upload videos to the platform.

If you are a B2B business, using LinkedIn video can help you interact and engage with your customers in a more “human” way other than just posting text and photos, especially if you are going to show your face in your videos.

Did you know that almost 60% of senior executives would rather watch a video than reading text? this states the importance of B2B video content.

If you are feeling confused about using video on such a professional social network then check out this guide: how to use video on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn dynamic ads are so great too, they allow you to create personalized video marketing ads to each customer that sees your ad.

LinkedIn has recently started rolling out live streaming to its users, but it is not yet available for every user.

4 Popular Myths about Video Marketing

1. Video marketing needs a huge budget

Not necessarily. Actually, you can learn how to make a successful marketing video with a small budget. All you need is a good camera, which can be your smartphone, and good video editing skills. There are many video editing software tools out there that are easy to use such as Wondershare Filmora, Just see what software works best for you and see what you can create.

For further information, check out: How to make YouYube videos with your phone.

2. You need to have humans in your videos

This actually depends. If you are going to use your videos for social media marketing to your new business that has no customers and no one knows about, it’s always better to have real people in your videos because people trust people, not animations or robotic sounds.

But if you are going to use your videos to nurture your current customers or even create tutorials for your products, then in some cases it's okay to use animated videos.

3. Your videos need to get millions of views to actually help your business

Well, having a viral video is always a great thing, right?

While that sounds logical, it isn't always the case. Ask yourself these questions: What would the number of views mean for my ROI? Will getting millions of views increase your ROI? Should your videos REALLY go viral?

For an example, Let’s say that you own a car dealership business and you made a video showcasing the cars you sell. Getting many views would mean that more people would know about you and what you sell, and that should mean an increase in your ROI. But what if these views came from people who already have cars and not thinking about buying new cars. That means that tracking “the number of views” alone is a huge waste of time, You should track other things like:

-The number of potential clients who watched your videos

-The viewer’s retention rate

-Your ROI per every x amount of views

4. Your videos need to be short

Well, that could be true, but it depends on the goal you are trying to achieve with your video and also the platform you are going to upload your video to. If the goal of your video is to explain something to your customers. then your video can be as long as you want, as long as it achieves your goal and is not stuffed with useless information. Also, you should keep in mind where you are going to upload that video. If, for example, you’re going to upload it on Twitter, then you will need to keep it shorter than the maximum 180 seconds for that platform.

How to Use Video Marketing for Your Business?

Before deciding whether you are going to use video marketing for your business you need to answer a few questions first,

• Would using videos resonate with your target customers?
• What type of content can you create in a video?
• What’s the best platform for uploading your videos to? And why?
• Are your competitors already using videos or are you going to be the first one?

When you are done answering these questions, you should now know who your potential video audience is and how to make content that they’ll like.

Knowing who your audience is critical for your video marketing success.

In order to know if your audience likes videos or not, you need to do some research about them. How often do they watch videos? What brands do they engage with the most that rely on video marketing? Do they share these videos on their social media account? Do they create social media videos? etc.

Try to go as deep as possible about your target audience because the more you know about them, the more your video marketing strategy will be successful. 

What type of content you can create a video for? Is it going to be an infographics video about your product? Is it going to be how-to videos teaching your customers how to use your product? Is it going to be Q&A sessions with your current customers and potential customers? How about a snackable video? etc.

There are tons of ideas of content that you can create a video for, but you really need to figure what YOU need to create a video for. Don’t just make videos for the sake of it. You need to make videos that can positively affect your ROI.

These are the most common video marketing ideas businesses use:

1. Showcasing your products or services

Most businesses rely on video to create product videos that highlight the features of their product or service, especially if it’s a physical product.

If for example, you are an eCommerce store, then the sky's the limit since there are many kinds of eCommerce product videos ideas that you could make, such as videos showcasing your products, how they work, how to use them, how to set them up, etc.

If you’re a SaaS business, you could make videos explaining how your software works and how it can help your customers solve their problems.

2. Introducing your business

People trust people, right? Of course, they do! So why not have a person talk about your business in a video?!

You could make a video that tells your customers who work at your business, what your values are, when was your business founded and all types of information you could think of that your audience would love to know.

Making corporate videos is so great because it actually builds trust between you and your customers and builds communication between you and your customers in a more “human” way.  People won't want to buy something from a company they don’t know anything about, especially if all of their communications between it and its customers are just semi-robotic messages and already-seen stock images.

3. Highlighting previous customer testimonials

Did you know that about 84 percent of people trust online reviews and testimonials as much as friends' recommendations? And that 68 percent of people make up their mind after reading at least one review?

So, if you aren't using customer reviews in marketing your business, then you are leaving A LOT OF money on the table.

It’s so simple to implement. Simply contact your previous or current customers and ask them to give you an honest review of your product or service. If their reviews are positive you can then ask them to record a video of them saying so and you can give them a coupon or an offer in return so it doesn’t sound silly when you ask for it.

If you don't receive a positive answer from your customers then you have to know from these customers what you are doing wrong and how you can fix it and start working on it.

4. Educational Videos

Feel that your product or service is hard to explain? Why not create videos to explain them?

Educational videos are great because once you have them ready, you have saved yourself potentially hundreds of hours of having to explain your products and services to your customers via one-to-one communication.

It’s not just about you saving your time, Educational videos may also impact the purchase decision. No one will buy anything they can’t use or don’t know how it works.

For an example, if you are a SaaS business that has an SEO software that us rather complicated and you don't provide any tutorials on how to use that software, then your potential customer doesn't want to waste their money buying your product if they are going to end up messing around with it trying to get it to work, They might actually buy your competitor's software that’s easy to use and has tutorials on using it, even if your product is superior.

No wonder why almost every SaaS business makes sure they have video tutorials for their current and potential customers.

5. Interactive videos

Who said using videos for marketing is just for lead generation and acquiring new customers?

You can use video to interact with your current and potential customers. You could always host Q&A sessions featuring industry experts that your customers know, go live on social media and chat with your customers, and engage and interact with the public in an exciting way through video.

Here's some additional advice on how to use video marketing for your business:

• Do you know how to leverage emotional content in your videos?: The Power of Emotional Content in Online Video
• Video branding advice: How to Build an Amazing Brand on Social Media Using Videos
• Advice on building a video sales funnel: How to Create a Social Media B2B Video Sales Funnel
• Video marketing SEO tips: 9 Video Marketing SEO Tips to Skyrocket Your Mobile Marketing Efforts

What Platform Should You Host Your Videos on?

The answer to this depends on the purpose of your video.

If your video is showcasing your product then you should host it on YouTube and you should, of course, embed it on your sales page or your product’s page.

If your video is an educational one then you should have it on your website and/or your YouTube channel and you may also include it in your FAQ page.

If your videos are interactive ones, or in other words, not just another sales pitch videos, then you should create social media videos and have them on your social media pages.

The key takeaway is that you need to know who the target audience of each video is and where they are. For example, a video that’s meant to drive engagement and start conversations between you and your customers should be on your social media pages because that’s where they are more likely to engage with you in real-time.

It’s all about two things, the goals you are trying to achieve using videos and where your target audience is. That’s what will shape your video marketing strategy.

How about Your Competition?

Are your competitors using video marketing in any part of their marketing campaigns? If so, then how often? And what’s the estimated budget of their videos?  And what kind of videos perform best for them?

You should always have an eye on your competitors to see what they are doing, what they are doing well, and what they are failing at.

If any of competitors are using video and you want to invest more into your own video marketing, then you REALLY should analyze them right away!

You’ll get many actionable data points and you’ll save a lot of time and money on testing what works and what doesn’t.

How to Use YouTube to Promote Your Business?

We have covered almost everything about video marketing so far. Now let’s talk about the largest video-based platform on the Internet, YouTube.

Every minute there are more than 300 hundred hours of video uploaded on YouTube.

Every day there are more than 5 billion videos watched on YouTube.

On average every mobile YouTube session lasts more than 40 minutes.

About 9% of small businesses in the U.S. use YouTube for marketing purposes, showing that small business video marketing is a reality.

If you are serious about video marketing in your business then being on YouTube is crucial.

Creating a YouTube channel won’t take more than a few minutes, and from there you can start uploading your videos. But you should never treat YouTube as just a video hosting platform. Yes it is a video hosting platform, but that shouldn’t be how you are just using it for. Instead, you should be generating traffic from YouTube. Didn’t we mention that YouTube is the second largest search engine on the Internet?

Therefore, you need to do search engine optimization to appear higher in YouTube’s search pages and grow your YouTube channel, That’s what we're going to discuss next.

So what does YouTube look at to determine whether a video should rank for a certain keyword when someone searches for it? YouTube’s algorithm can't watch the video and know what it’s really about. Instead, it just looks at some signals called metadata. We’ll discuss them next.

1. The title of your video

Your YouTube video title shouldn’t be more than 70 characters long as it will be cut in the search page, However, the maximum character length is 100 characters.

Your title should include your target keyword at the beginning of it but it shouldn’t be put first just for the sake of having it first. You still want to have a readable title that makes sense to the searchers so they can click on it.

For example, if we were to make a video of this guide and our keyword was “Video Marketing” our title would be something like this “Video Marketing in 2019: The Complete Beginner's Guide.”

That’s a perfect one. It’s only 54 characters long, has our target keyword in the beginning, and most importantly, it makes sense!

Pro tip: Mention years in your video title. For example, use 2019 in your title because people always want to see the most recent information that's available, like we did in our example.

2. The description of your video

The description of your video is important and you should never neglect it. YouTube will only show about the first 100 characters of your description on the search page so you should treat the first one or two lines seriously. Try to write a short description of your video in a few sentences and include a call to action for your video.

As for the rest of the description, try to add the video transcript and links to your website, social media profiles, other YouTube videos of yours, hashtags, and links to any resources you mentioned in the video. Your description can be as long as 5,000 characters so you can add almost everything you want in it, but don’t try to stuff too many keywords in it.

3. The tags of your video

The tags of any video aren’t publicly available to see, They only exist in the source code and YouTube relies on them to know the keywords that any particular video is related to.

You should add your target keyword first and all other keyword variations that are RELEVANT to your video after it. You are limited to 500 characters so use them wisely.

Don’t try to stuff your tags with irrelevant keywords thinking that you would rank for them, YouTube looks at many more signals other than just this and if YouTube finds out that you are keyword-stuffing your tags or description, your channel may get permanently suspended.

Here’s a pro tip: Look up the tags of the top 10 videos ranking on your target keyword and use the common keywords among all of them in your video as well as relevant long-tail keywords.

You can find the tags of any video by checking the source code manually.

Right-click anywhere in the page and select View Source and then press CTRL+F and search for “keyword”. This will help you find the code where the tags are written.

You may also use a browser extension such as VidIQ which will do that step for you and show you the tags of any video as you are watching it. There are also many other YouTube tools out there that are very useful.

Here’s another pro tip: Use a common tag in all of your videos. It can be your channel’s name or whatever you want. Why do this? When many videos have the same tag YouTube thinks that they are related to each other and will suggest them to the viewers of each video, which means that when someone is watching a video of yours there's a big chance that another video from your channel will show up on the suggested videos side column.

4. Closed captions and subtitle files

Closed captions and subtitles files are good for both the viewer and YouTube as they allow the viewer to use closed captions to read what’s being said in the video. YouTube also uses it for almost the same purpose. YouTube scans the closed captions or the SRT file of your video to know what this video is about, So closed captions and subtitles files function act as metadata, too.

The next time you upload a YouTube video you should add closed captions to it. Even if the video doesn't have anyone talking you can always make an explanatory script and your viewers may also love that.

5. Your original video file name

Before uploading your videos to YouTube, change file names to include your target keyword, Don’t just leave it something like  “Mov041.avi”. Experts will say that the video file name is not a major ranking signal, but it’s still worth the effort.

6. Cards and End Screens

End screens appear in the last 30 seconds of your video, They are small rectangles where you can highlight other videos from your channel to keep them watching more content from you or encourage them to subscribe to your channel or even add a link to your website.

Cards are small rectangular icons that show up on the top right-hand side of your video while watching. Cards can be used to highlight other channels, ask for donations, send users to your website, highlight a video or a playlist, or even engage your viewers with polls.

End screens and cards may not be a direct ranking factor, but who cares? YouTube is giving you the ability to engage and add a call to actions to your viewers. Why wouldn't you use it?

7. Retention rate

Retention rate is the percentage of the length of your video that people watched. For example, if you have a video that’s 4 minutes long and you got one view and that one view came from a viewer who only watched the first minute of your video, that would mean a retention rate of 25%.

Typically you want your retention rate to be as high as possible, but how do you do so?

Most YouTube users will close a video within the first 10 seconds of it, so make sure that your first 10 seconds aren’t boring or confusing, Don’t use a boring intro or have a long introduction. Try to get straight to the point as early as possible. You should also check out this post that will teach you how to make a YouTube video that'll stand out and have a high retention rate.

8. Thumbnails

If you aren’t using custom thumbnails for your videos, you are missing out a lot! How can video thumbnails affect rankings? Well, thumbnails alone have nothing to do with rankings. It’s the CTR of each thumbnail that has to do with rankings. If you use a good catchy thumbnail that grabs the user’s attention to your video and then makes them click, that is sending a signal to YouTube that users love your video and it would push your video higher in rankings and suggested videos column.

So what makes a good thumbnail?

Have a human face in your video thumbnail and also use colors that stand out. Have a frame for your thumbnails because having a colored frame makes your videos stand out from the YouTube white background. Use text in your thumbnails, such as a catchy small headline that describes your video and entices readers to want to view it.

9. Video Engagement

The engagement rate with your video tells YouTube that people like this video and that will have a positive effect on your rankings.

But how do you increase your online video engagement?

It’s simple: Just ask people for it. A simple “Like this video and subscribe to my channel” can be effective if done right. By “done right” we mean placed in the right time of the video. You shouldn’t ask people to subscribe to your channel at the very beginning of your video, especially if they have never known about you before as that may lead to negative results and will hurt your retention rate as well.

You should ask people to subscribe to your channel and like your video when you are providing them the most value in the video. For example, if your video is a tutorial on how to fix a problem you should ask for a like and a subscription at the second you’ve shown them how to actually fix the problem. Otherwise, you are just stuffing the video with unnecessary calls to action.

You should also ask people to comment on your video. YouTube scans the comments to know what this video is about, so keywords in your comments section also count as metadata. Having known that, you should ask people to comment with something that will include your target keyword.

For example, if we were to make a video of this article we may ask people “What’s your favorite video marketing strategy?” No one can answer this question without mentioning the word “video” or the word “marketing”.

Here's some additional advice on YouTube marketing from our blog:

• Branding for YouTube advice: YouTube and Your Personal Brand: 5 Reasons Why Every Professional Should Have a YouTube Channel
• Advice on creating a YouTube reality show: What I Have Learned From Creating a YouTube Reality Show
• Have you heard of the YouTube ad crisis?: The YouTube Ad Crisis: Will Big Brands Kill YouTube?

Wrap Up on Video Marketing

In this post, we've shared many video marketing tips, but that's not everything to know. You'll always need to keep learning and testing, especially when it comes to any type of social media content. Video marketing can be vital for your business success if done right. Make sure that you include video in your marketing campaigns and always analyze what your competitors are doing and what your audience loves to get the most successful outcome.

Check Out All of Our Video Marketing Posts Below!