Erm, now what?
Some clients think exactly that after we deliver their video…’now, what do we do with it?’. Actually, they’re ahead of a lot who imagine that by simply uploading the video to YouTube and doing nothing else with it, that they’ll suddenly go viral and be inundated with new business. It needs to be seen for that to be possible.
The way to think about your explainer video is as if it were any other marketing material. If you had a huge advertising banner printed, you wouldn’t leave it on a desk and hope that someone comes along to take a peek. You’d find an ideal place, heavily populated with your target demographic and it would hang in plain sight. If you had pens made with your logo and contact details on them, you wouldn’t keep them in a drawer for yourself, you’d pass them out to anyone who would take one. With your video, simply putting it somewhere and hoping people find it is not likely to work. Action is needed.
Needle in a haystack
So, why can’t you just upload it and let it do it’s thing? Let’s focus on YouTube. YouTube has over 1 billion users uploading 300 hours of new video every minute. Expecting someone to just find your video is being very optimistic indeed. Even more so if you’d expect the person who found it to also be your target audience and to then respond to the call to action. It’s no longer good enough to create great video content and let it work for you, you need to promote it yourself. And it’s not as simple as getting as many views as possible either. If you’re selling something that only people in the UK can purchase from you, then getting 100,000 views around the globe won’t actually amount to that much.
Share, share, share!
If you’re a business with multiple social channels, then those are a great place to start (after embedding it front and center on your website!). It’s very likely that the people following you on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook etc. are within your target demographic. So post it on as many of those outlets as you can. Platforms like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter offer users the option of sharing and this kind of interaction with your video is extremely valuable. When someone you know recommends you something by linking you to a video, you’re much more likely to watch it than if you saw it pop up randomly on your feed. And you shouldn’t rely on other people sharing the video, you need to share it yourself in all kinds of different places using either the URL of the video or the embed code. Adding a link to it on your email signature, social media profiles and message boards or embedding it on blogs are great ways to get your videos seen.
Video is 50x more likely to show up on page 1 of Google search results
A big factor as to whether your video gets seen is by making sure people searching for your business, service or product find your video in their search results. There are two big benefits to using video to market your business when it comes to ranking high on Google searches. One is that Google owns YouTube and places video content high on their search results. As mentioned in a previous post, a video is 50x more likely to show up on page 1 of Google search results than text based web pages. On top of that, YouTube itself is the world’s second most used search engine. Youtube is the right place for your video.
Optimizing the video title
So, how can you optimize your video to rank higher in search results? Tags, the video title and the video description. With your video title, think about what you would click on if you were searching for your product. Keep it short and to the point as longer titles put people off and sometimes get shortened in search results (meaning your main selling points may not get seen). What is your target demographic looking for? What would be of value to them? These are the types of things you should include in your title.
Optimizing the video description
With the video description, you want to think about including some relevant keywords and highlighting the main benefits of the product and video. You can link to your website, your social channels and you can ask your viewers to share the video.
Optimizing the tags
Tags have evolved somewhat as of late. It used to be seen as good practice to add singular keywords to your uploaded videos. So, if you run a gourmet popcorn making service and sold your products online, your video might have been tagged ‘gourmet’, ‘popcorn’ etc. However, the best way to tag your video is to use a phrase instead of a single keyword. So, you might use ‘Gourmet popcorn seller’ or ‘where to buy popcorn online’. And don’t use more than around 15 words or phrases as this will hurt you rather than help as Google recognizes that this is most likely someone trying to work the system by using irrelevant keywords. Even if you have a fairly complex or diverse business, 15 words or phrases should be enough.
Optimizing the thumbnail
A thumbnail, in case you’re unaware, is the still preview image that you see before you click play on a video or select it from a list of search results. Choosing or uploading your thumbnail is an often overlooked option but is an extremely powerful one. If you know your audience and what appeals to them, you can create a custom thumbnail to make sure you grab their attention. If your thumbnail is on a page of search results among thirty others, making it stand out is essential. YouTube will create three choices for your thumbnail and sometimes they’re okay but rarely great and never optimised. As long as your YouTube account is verified, you’ll have the option to upload your own. Ideally, you should upload an image no smaller than 1920 x 1080 pixels. We usually send over a few thumbnail images along with the video when its finished.
Just ask
We fully realize that when you download your finished explainer video from us that you might find yourself a tad puzzled as to what to do with it or how to get the most out of it. If this is the case, we’re happy to help. Reach out and we’ll lend a hand.
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