YouTube is a unique social platform that offers some cool marketing opportunities. It doubles as a search engine and has its own form of SEO. YouTube also has a vast amount of users, a lot of which use the site daily, and can provide you with some enormous growth potential. And, unlike almost all other social media sites, YouTube’s users cover the entire span of age ranges, giving you a wide demographic range.
Videos
Before it was part search engine and part social platform, YouTube was a place for uploading user-generated videos. This is still the main function of the site. You can find videos of varying lengths on almost every topic and you can easily upload your own. If you set up an account that you do not verify, your videos can be a total of 15 minutes long. If you verify it, you can upload videos up to 12 hours in length. Verifying is pretty easy—you simply enter a phone number and YouTube sends you a code through either text or phone call.
When uploading to verified accounts, you can add a custom thumbnail image (the image displayed next to the title of your video). Custom thumbnails help to give your videos a more recognizable look—yay for branding!—and because most professional YouTubers opt to use custom thumbnails, they add a sense of professionalism to your channel as well. You can also add closed captions to make your videos more accessible.
Livestreams
Verified YouTube accounts can also stream live videos. Live videos can be a fun way to engage your audience in real time conversations. You can use live videos for Q&A sessions, interviews, or company updates. Live videos can convert into regular videos once you have finished broadcasting, and users can watch your video at a later time if they missed seeing it when it was live.
Shorts
YouTube has added a feature for short-form content, similar to what you might have found on Vine back in the day or TikTok now. These videos are 60 seconds or less and can be a great way to share smaller bits of information or funny/relatable content that’s more along the lines of what you might share on other social platforms.
Lights, camera, action
If you are interested in marketing through YouTube but do not have the time or know-how to film your own videos, contact Bold River Marketing. We can help you script, film, and edit your videos, and we’d be happy to help you manage your YouTube channel as well.