I'd like to start this blog off with a question!
No 1 To start a YouTube channel to become a YouTuber?
or
No 2 To start a YouTube channel to build your business with video?
Have you ever thought about using YouTube in this way?
I personally, prefer to choose the latter, No 2, to build my business using video on the biggest social media platform in the world, YouTube!
Here are just a few key stats, you might find interesting and collated nicely by Hubspot.com's recent article
- YouTube is the second most visited website in the world. (Hootsuite)
- 70% of viewers bought from a brand after seeing content on YouTube. (Google Ads)
- YouTube has 2+ billion users, making up almost one-third of the entire internet. (YouTube for Press)
- 49.3% of all YouTube viewing time in 2022 will be mobile. (eMarketer)
- Livestreams on YouTube grew 45% in the first half of 2020. (YouTube)
So, here are 6 strategies I wish I had thought about and actioned when I first started out on my video marketing journey on Youtube.
So let's dive straight in.
1. RESEARCH YOUR NICHE – I would recommend that you spend a bit of time researching exactly what it is that you want to talk about on YouTube. You can do your research on Google itself, that way, you gain an insight into what and whom people are looking for at the same time. And also, what video content is being produced by your competitors, and what is working, what is getting reviews and engagement?
2. YOUR CHANNEL NAME – So are you working as a personal brand? Or are you running a business where you have a business name? Deciding what your channel will be called will also help YouTube place your channel in search and how it is found by those searching got you. If someone is searching for you as a personal brand and they type in your name, say, for example, Anita Wong, into the search bar, you will want your channel to come up and represent you as near to the top as possible. However, if your channel content is streamed to a specific topic, then your channel name may be better off being around that topic or a mixture of the two.
3. NICHING DOWN TOO MUCH, TO SOON – Do you need to niche down? And if you are going to niche down, how niche do you need to go? Well, if you niche down too quickly on your YouTube channel, you are at risk of popping yourself into a box. In other words, if you just talk about one specific thing, then you may find that your audience is too limited and you'll get lots of people that want to learn about that one specific thing, instead broadening your niche, will enable your audience to be far wider.
4. WHAT STYLE OF VIDEO DO YOU WANT TO CREATE – What types of videos are you comfortable creating? Do you want to do behind the scenes vlogging style videos where you grab your mobile phone and your microphone and it follows you around your office or your studio? Or do you want to do talking head videos like this one where I'm sitting in my studio and I have a nice background and I'm just talking? What style of video you create is really up to you! As long as your videos are in line with your overall goals for your YouTube channel, then you can pretty much experiment with all sorts of different styles of video.
5. LOOK AT YOUR INSIGHTS REGULARLY – Once you've been on YouTube for a couple of months, go into your insights and check out which videos are the more popular with your audience, and which are not, decide from the stats, whether you want to keep repeating that style of video, or do you need to change something to reach the audience you need to start generating leads.
6. EDUCATE YOUR VIEWERS INTO TAKING ACTION! – If you don't tell your viewers to take action at the beginning, during, or at the end of your video, all they will do is watch and then leave, educating your viewers to take action whilst watching your videos will enable you to direct them to your CALL TO ACTION and ultimately sign up or buy from you. You can do this in your video, using your script, stickers, pop ups, YouTube cards, YouTube end cards, and in more depth in your video description where you can expand on your video content to enable action to be taken.
In conclusion, in 2023 you can build a business using video on YouTube and YouTube makes it easier for you to also grow your business using video across other video orientated social media channels, however, YouTube, with its sister Google, will enable you or your business to stand out, grow awareness, enable action not just when your video is uploaded but for weeks, months and years to come.
If you would like to learn more, (here comes my Call to Action!) about YouTube and growing your business, then please click the link below to register for my upcoming Grow your Business with Youtube masterclass https://anitawong.co.uk/book-webinar-li (link opens in messenger)
