If you think YouTube is just for posting funny videos, music covers, and other comedy snippets, you’re wrong!
YouTube is more than what you think! You can also use it as a social media marketing tool to show off your expertise, share your knowledge, market your products and connect with customers, colleagues and target audience.
But before you start with YouTube, I want you to decide on a few things first:
- Have you identified your target audience and understand what would hold their interest? If you are running a craft business, your target audience would be more women aged 25 and above. They are most likely interested to know how your products are created and how they can get useful tips from you.
- Have you outlined your business objectives?
- Have you decided whether your YouTube channel is for branding exercise or trying to generate sales?
If you’re done answering those questions above, you can now start setting up your YouTube account.
YouTube Account Setup
You have two choices in starting a YouTube account, registering an existing Google ID or sign up for a new Google ID. Whichever you choose, the Google ID you sign in with will be linked to your new YouTube account. Also, YouTube suggests not using a personal Google account in the signup process. Rather, use a non-personal email address in the YouTube signup so you’ll be comfortable sharing those sign-in credentials with others.
Okay, let’s get started…
Go to YouTube.com and click “sign in” found at the upper right corner of the page. Then click the “New to YouTube? Create an account” link above the regular sign in box, which is for people already registered for YouTube/Google.
You can check this example of YouTube Channel of the White House to get an idea on how to improve your YouTube channel.
Making Your Video
If you think making a professional looking video requires the expertise of a professional photographer, think again!
Making decent videos is now very easy to do even with just the help of your smart phone.
Check this video on how to take great photos using your smart phone.
Pay attention to lighting the area, sound quality and shakiness of the camera. You can use a tripod or put the camera on a steady surface. It is also ideal to make a plan prior to making your video just like writing a script in advance. It should have an introduction, middle and end. Keep it simple and short. It is recommended to run a video for 2-4 minutes.
More Tips:
- If you’re tired of making videos to promote sales and branding, you can make a personal video by taking your viewers to your room, your favourite “You Spot”, your cute pets, and many more to help them feel connected with you.
- Ask other crafters to use your product in their videos (if it applies) and make a deal about promoting their products too.
- Create “how to” videos to help your customers see the quality of your handicrafts.
Uploading Your Videos To YouTube
Uploading your videos on YouTube is very easy as counting 1 2 3.
To get started, please follow the steps below:
- Sign into YouTube.
- Click the “Upload” button at the top of the page.
- Select the video you’d like to upload from your computer. You can also record a video from your webcam, or create a video slideshow.
Once the upload is completed, YouTube will send you an email to notify you that your video is done uploading and processing. You can then forward that email to your friends and customers for easy sharing.
Your Youtube Channel and SEO
YouTube has over 4 billion videos viewed per day and is also owned by Google and that can really work in your favor. If you have noticed, it seems that a YouTube video with proper meta data (tags, title, description etc.) can have an easier time ranking high in the search results than just a blog post.
For successful video marketing, use the Google Keyword Tool to see the most popular keywords related to your business and start making videos pertaining to those topics. Use the keywords in the titles, tags and descriptions of your videos.
Please check this video to learn more about using title, description and tags on YouTube.
- Title – Make sure your targeted keywords are in the first few words of your title. Another trick is to add a colon after your initial keywords and rephrase your title for maximum effect. For example, your video on tips about marketing your beads called “Beads Marketing Ideas: Do’s And Don’ts”
- Description – It is a great idea if you start your description with a full URL of your website. Use the keywords there without compromising its sense. This will help you get found more easily by people searching YouTube for your type of content.
- Tags – Add any and all related keywords in the tags field.
Share your videos on your blog, Twitter, Facebook page and many others for optimization. You can also use your videos on your Facebook business page’s welcome page. This is once again where your thumbnail, tags, title and keywords are important to further encourage interaction with your video and your brand.
Also, focus on creating the best quality and most valuable content so you can effectively link your channel to your website. Don’t forget to add your craft website’s url in the first line of each video description.
Most business owners are easily discouraged after throwing up a few videos and they don’t get any views or subscribers right away. If you encounter this dilemma, you need to keep in mind that now more than ever it takes some time and patience to build your YouTube audience.
There it is. You are now ready to try YouTube for your online craft business. Stay tuned on our blog to learn more about video marketing.
Further help and tutorials on using Youtube can be found at their support channel online here.
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