Top 10 Ways To Maximise Your YouTube Presence

By Scott Ledbury

Online video is ever becoming more prominent and accessible.

YouTube experiences over 800 million unique visits per month, with over 4 billion hours of video being streamed on the platform every month - and there are multiple other video services such as Vimeo which experience similarly high viewing figures.

Here is a guide to the Top 10 ways your business or organisation can utilise YouTube to it's full potential, with the aim of attracting more viewers, potential customers or clients to your door.

Even though this guide is specific to YouTube, a lot of these techniques will also apply to alternative video hosting sites.

1. Brand Your Channel

Your channel should be customised to reflect your brand which can be achieved through assigning a custom logo and background image. You can categorise your videos into Playlists, pointing your customer to videos which may be of specific interest to them and making it easy to watch videos on a similar theme. Your featured is the first video that will appear on the main page of your channel and as such should be chosen with careful consideration. You can also try branding each of your videos by adding a logo ident at the start and end of each video, so even when seen out of context, it is clear who has produced the work.

2. Drive People To Subscribe

Subscribers to your YouTube Channel will get weekly notifications of any new videos you upload which is a great way of keeping your customers up-to-date with any new products or services. Encourage people to subscribe by adding 'Subscribe To Our Channel' buttons and links on your website and email newsletters.

3. Use The Video Description To Your Advantage

Use the video description text to promote your business. Add a call-to-action with a web link where possible as well as any other contact information that may be useful. It can also be of benefit to include your contact details at the end of your videos, particularly if they are to be embedded on sites away from YouTube where any descriptive text is unavailable.

4. Tag Your Videos Correctly With Keywords

A tag is a keyword that is attached to your video and allows it to be indexed by certain search terms. By using the correct or most appropriate tags you can greatly increase the chances of your video being returned in a web search, which in turn helps with SEO or Search Engine Optimisation and raises your website higher in search listings. You should aim to use the most important key words in your title and description, however don't be tempted to saturate your video tags with trendy or popular keywords that are not related to your video, as this can be detected by Google (the owners of YouTube) and may penalise your video's search ranking if you appear to be attempting to mislead it's index.

5. Embed Your Videos Into Your Own Website

While maintaining the appearance of your YouTube Channel is important, it is also essential to pay attention to how these videos will appear on your own website. You can embed YouTube videos into your own website pages, removing any branding, advertisements or unrelated material that can be seen on YouTube's website. Embedding videos in your own website also offers your customer the opportunity to watch without leaving your site, keeping their focus on your business.

6. Reduce YouTube Branding and Related Videos For Embedded Videos

The YouTube branding on the video player interface of your embedded videos can be stripped back. Ask your website developer to add the following highlighted string command to your video source in your website's HTML code:

src="http://www.YouTube.com/embed/qRsj345Ew2I?rel=0&autoplay=1&modestbranding=1"

The 'rel=0' command tells the video player not to display any relevant video links at the end of your video, this prevents any similar competitor videos from popping up!

7. Upload High Quality Video

Aim to upload your original video file in the highest quality possible and at the highest resolution available. YouTube will automatically create different versions at various resolutions to stream to all sorts of platforms, from mobile phones through to HD displays - including non-Flash devices such as iPhone's and iPads.

8. Network Within YouTube

By subscribing to other channels relevant to your area of business and commenting on videos in similar sectors you can drive traffic back to your channel and create more exposure for your company - as well as increasing business networking opportunities.

9. Monitor Comments

Comments are good for videos, but can sometimes be of a malicious or offensive nature. By setting your privacy settings to 'Approve All Comments First' you are given the opportunity to remove any offensive comments and maintain the professional image of your channel and brand.

10. Cross Promote Across Social Media

Use social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Digg to cross promote your material. This helps to create a viral buzz around your new video. If you upload multiple videos at once to YouTube consider staggering your social media announcements, this prevents people being bombarded with lots of videos at one and stops any individual video from becoming lost in a crowd.

This guide was written and published by Scott Ledbury, Co-Founder of Slinky Productions, a video production company based in the UK.

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