Base One blog article

October 26 2010 4:40 PM

There’s no denying the rise of YouTube. The site experiences in excess of two billion views a day, 24 hours of content is uploaded every minute and the average person uses it for 15 minutes of their day. And all this just five years after its conception.

So it’s baffling to consider that many organisations overlook YouTube as a powerful marketing tool. Not just as a platform to upload what you consider to be the next big viral, but more importantly as an extension of your brand, helping to establish or reinforce your identity with your audience.

Setting up a YouTube channel is easy and offers a wide range of benefits for your business:

1.    You can reinforce your brand identity

Simply uploading videos to a YouTube account is much like sending a DM without any branding. By doing so, you’re really missing an opportunity to get your name and your identity out there. Instead, you can customise your YouTube channel so that it fits in with your brand identity. Choose the layout, background colours and include a logo to give your audience a clear indication of what you do and what you stand for.

2.    You can increase traffic to your site

When someone visits your YouTube channel and likes what they see, it’s only natural that they’ll want to find out more about what you do. Giving your audience a link to your homepage means more people will visit your site.

3.    Videos on YouTube reach the top of Google search results

Creating and indexing a new website can take time, but setting up a YouTube channel gives your brand a much quicker route to the top of the rankings. YouTube already has a high level of authority in Google’s ranking algorithm, so your channel will be indexed quicker for target keywords. It’s a bit like having VIP entry to a nightclub: you get straight to the front of the queue because you’re already on the guest list.

4.    Your other videos become more visible

Loading a video to a personal account may get you a few views, but adding it to a YouTube channel means there is a much higher chance that your audience will find your other videos. Once they’re on your channel, there’s a good chance that they’ll stick around to see what else you have on show.

5.    You can organise content to fit your message or aspects of your brand

One channel doesn’t have to be enough. If you have a different type of message or you have videos that don’t fit with your primary content, you can set another channel to keep it separate. It works in the exact same way as the four Base One blogs [see top of this page], which deliberately feature four unique content styles to cater so that the reader knows where to go to find the information they were looking for.

6.    Your videos will have global access

YouTube is a global medium so chances are your visitors will come from all over the world. Of course, this is great news for your brand - unless they don’t speak English and can’t understand your content! Using alternative channels to provide your content in several different languages means your content can be optimised for different audiences and allows you to rank your channels on country-specific search engines.

7.    More people can get involved

It’s easy to get someone within your company to upload your video to their personal profile and then distribute it from the video’s URL. But you can increase company participation with your own YouTube channel. All you have to do is distribute a username and password to whoever needs to upload content and you can start building a catalogue of material.

8.    You can direct your audience to associated content

Your YouTube channel has a box for associated content. You can use this to promote whatever you want that might interest your audience - from partners to sister companies to separate campaigns.

9.    You can advertise your video channel through social media

Each YouTube channel has its own URL, which you can use to promote yourself in as many ways as possible, from your email signature to social media such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. This unique URL works like a calling card for your video content.

10.    Your videos are easier to track

If you upload your videos to someone’s personal account, you might forget where that video is or, even worse, that person might leave the company, denying you access to the video. Uploading to a channel means you and the rest of your team know exactly where your content is.

You hold the remote…

The increased accessibility and widespread use of video sharing sites such as YouTube have led to many dubbing 2010 the year of the video. And with it comes the huge opportunity for marketers to give their brand an edge on their competitors by really harnessing its capabilities as a marketing tool. Using the technology certainly isn’t complicated; and, as you can see by the advantages detailed above, doing so can really give your brand a boost.