If you run a business, then promoting it via social media can make a profound difference to your visibility, branding, and - ultimately - your bottom line. It’s becoming increasingly seen as the standard for a business to have a presence on social media, and YouTube is a great platform to engage with your current clients and reach out to new audiences.
If you’ve decided to get a YouTube channel up and running for your business, here are the tips, tricks, and hacks you need to know. From getting to grips with YouTube tags to promotion, use this guide to help make your new channel as successful as possible.
6 Tips on How to Start a YouTube Channel for Business
1. Invest in High-Quality Equipment
As a business, it’s important that your videos look professional, which means investing in good-quality equipment if possible. This is what you’ll need:
● Camera: Look for options with great autofocus and video stabilization that come with a mount and an input for external mics.
● Lighting: Consider an LED set-up with various color temperatures that can connect wirelessly to your devices.
● Microphone: For better quality audio than that often achievable via the mic built into your camera, opt for a separate, dedicated microphone to place on top of the camera while recording.
● Editing software to create some post-production magic!
Other bits and pieces that are likely to be useful include a C-stand, drone, memory cards, and a selection of lenses.
2. Customize Your YouTube Channel
YouTube is a visual channel, so rather than leaving your page blank, customize it to let your audience know your business's name, what it does, and why it’s awesome.
Start by choosing a logo - ideally, this should be used across your entire branding, both on and offline. Next, design your channel’s banner. This should complement the logo, be visually appealing, not be too busy, and feature your business’s website and social media handles. If you can fit in a slogan without overcrowding, go for it.
Finally, why not create a channel trailer? This is an excellent way of converting unsubscribers into subscribers! You’ll need to ensure that your channel browse view is enabled, so check this first. The video you create will be displayed at the top of your channel page, so make sure it brilliantly conveys your business’s message!
3. Create Great Content
You'll need to post regular, high-quality content to keep your viewers visiting your channel and your subscriber numbers growing. So, your business should aim to post to YouTube at least two or three times a week. Creating a content schedule, determining exactly what content you’ll record and when you’ll post it, is a great way to get organized and ensure the great videos keep coming.
The best video content is that which entertains, solves a problem, or imparts information that’s useful to the audience in an engaging way. So, for example, if you’re a florist and setting up a YouTube channel to promote your business, you could post a how-to video guide regarding flower arranging or choosing the best flowers for a wedding or other special event.
4. Use Tags and Keywords
Getting on board with YouTube tags and keywords will play a big part in getting your videos higher up the Google search rankings and driving more organic traffic to your channel’s door.
These are relevant, searchable words relating to your content. Going back to our example of our florist posting a how-to guide for flower arranging, choosing words and phrases like ‘flower arranging,’ ‘seasonal flowers,’ and ‘birthday gifts,’ for example, is likely to be a good idea. Both keywords and tags work similarly, but tags won’t appear in your video’s title or description - although they’ll still be working hard for you in the background!
You’ll need to do a little market research to find the keywords and tags to get the best results. Type into a search engine the phrase or words you’d use to find your video, and see the top-ranking video results - look at the keywords, titles, and descriptions attached to each to see what could work well for your video, too. There are also online tools you can use - some are free - that will generate keywords and tags for you.
5. Promote Your New Channel
Once you’ve signed up to YouTube, created some videos, and started posting your content, you need to find and build your audience.
Firstly, be sure to link your new channel to any other social media accounts you have and your business’s website. If you post to a regular blog, announce the launching of your new YouTube channel; consider having a competition or other promotional event to get readers to visit your channel and subscribe.
If other businesses that you work with or are connected to have a YouTube channel, consider asking if a collaboration would be possible to cross-promote each other’s platform.
6. Be Consistent
As your YouTube channel grows, it’s important to maintain consistency, strengthen your brand and help your business stick in the minds of your customers (and potential customers). This means using the same colors, banners, and logo throughout your channel and maintaining the same overall tone.
Keep posting regular content, and innovate, too: try out new types of guides, invite a guest presenter to make an appearance, or ask viewers to send in content to feature on your channel - constantly thinking of ways to engage your audience will pay off.
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