How to Use YouTube for Your Brand

According to Think With Google, about 63% of YouTube users have purchased from a business on YouTube. So, you might be wondering how to position your brand to reap the benefits of being on YouTube. While other forms of marketing such as text and images are still relevant, taking advantage of video content can be useful for your brand.

With YouTube being the second-biggest search engine on the Internet, there’s a huge opportunity for brands to market themselves. Here, we will tell you exactly how to use YouTube for your brand.

What is YouTube Marketing?

Before we dive into how you can integrate YouTube into your brand and marketing strategy, let’s start by ensuring you understand what YouTube marketing means.

YouTube marketing is when a service, product or brand is promoted on YouTube, either through videos on a dedicated channel for the business, through ads, or sponsored posts on other YouTube channels.

Is YouTube Marketing Beneficial?

The short answer is, yes! However, YouTube marketing is only effective when you have put the correct strategies in place to ensure you derive the best value from it. Fortunately, we will take you through those strategies as well.

YouTube marketing goes beyond increasing your brand awareness through large numbers, but there are various additional reasons why this channel is great for marketing.

Six Reasons YouTube Marketing is a Valuable Marketing Channel

There are several reasons why YouTube marketing can be beneficial towards your business’s marketing efforts. These reasons include:

1. Video is the Future of Content Marketing

Video content is increasingly getting more popular amongst consumers, which in turn provides great results for brands. Wyzowl reported that 93% of marketers found that video marketing gave them a good ROI.

Investing in video content can help you educate your audience about your product or service. 65% of the public leans more towards learning visually, thus video content allows them to understand topics better than text or audio.

2. YouTube Marketing is Cost-effective

YouTube at its most basic level will not cost you a thing. This is without YouTube ads and assuming you have all the necessary tools needed to capture and edit videos. YouTube allows you to organically build an audience to market your brand without spending thousands of rands.

3. Boost Your Conversion Rates

Vidico reported that YouTube ads lead to conversions 14,6% of the time. So, with the right strategy and call-to-actions, you can increase your conversion rate by marketing your brand on YouTube.

4. Increase Audience Satisfaction

According to Idomoo, 54% of users say that when it comes to breaking down complex information about a service or program, they prefer that brands do it through video content. Because of the visual interaction in a video, it might make it easier to explain certain aspects of your brand to your audience. Additionally, text might not always be the best form of content when you want to keep people engaged.

5. Boost your Traffic

By optimising your SEO strategy in your YouTube videos, you get to organically grow your traffic. This way, when users search for a topic online, you increase the chances of your videos appearing on SERPs.

6. Build Trust by Establishing Yourself as a Thought Leader

Thought leadership is an effective way to position your business as a trustworthy brand. By prioritising video thought leadership content on your channel, you can increase audience engagement by sharing expert knowledge to educate, as well as to inspire your audience.

While thought leadership is still effective through written content, adding another platform for this type of content exposes you to an even wider reach.

Five of the Best Tips for Your YouTube Marketing

Here are 5 essential tips to ensure you get the best value from your YouTube channel:

Research and prepare for your videos: Don’t make the mistake of assuming your video content needs less preparation than written content. Make sure you conduct thorough research on the topic. Additionally, if you’re speaking in the video, rehearse your script ahead of time, and be prepared to shoot multiple takes.

Shoot high-quality videos: Make sure your videos are clear, audible, and shot in a well-lit environment that your audience would enjoy watching. If you’re adding background music, ensure that it doesn’t overpower the message your audience needs to hear.

If you’re using AI tools for some of your videos, ensure you go through the video to ensure all the information and visuals are accurate.

Optimise your YouTube videos: You need a strong YouTube SEO strategy to allow your audience to find your videos. SEO elements like keyword research, tags, titles and descriptions, and others still apply because, like Google, YouTube is a search engine.

Track analytics: Tracking the performance of your YouTube content is essential as it allows you to identify what is working in your strategy and improve the parts that aren’t. This helps you gain a deeper understanding of your audience’s content preferences.

Post consistently: One of the ways to get YouTube’s algorithm to work in your favour, is by ensuring that you post consistently. Regular content portrays your brand as a trustworthy source of information. Integrate YouTube into your content calendar, that way, you can be intentional and constant in your posting.

How to Create a YouTube Channel for Your Brand?

Creating a YouTube channel for your brand is a simple process. Here are step-by-step instructions on how to create a YouTube channel for your brand:

• Head to youtube.com and sign in to your Google account. Ensure you’re certain about the Google account you use because this will be your official YouTube account for your brand.
• After signing in, click on the profile icon in the top right corner and go to Settings.
• Go to Account, then under Your YouTube channel, click on Create a channel.
• Add your brand’s name, choose a handle, and add a picture for your profile.

How do I Make My YouTube Channel a Brand Channel?

Perhaps, you already have a channel of your own, and you do not wish to create a new one. Fortunately, you can change your personal channel into your brand’s main channel. Here’s how:

1. Head to youtube.com/channel_switcher and click on Create a channel. This is the channel you will use for your business.
2. Go to Settings, then click Advanced Settings.
3. Look for Move channel, and tap Move channel to your Google Account or to a different brand account.
4. Next, under Choose an account to move this channel to, the YouTube brand account you created should pop up, and next to it, you’ll see a Replace option.
5. Click Replace, then select Delete channel to remove your old channel.
6. Lastly, tap on Move channel, then your channel will officially be moved from a personal channel to a brand channel.

Once you have moved your channel, you can control who manages your channel in the settings.

YouTube is just one of how you can market your brand effectively, there are various marketing strategies you can look into for your business.