Youtube is a social media platform that oftentimes gets overlooked when it comes time for scheduling out the advertising budget for many companies. As one of the most used platforms on the worldwide web, there should be no argument that a little more consideration given to marketing on Youtube can boost any business’s traffic- especially for ecommerce. According to statistics, approximately one-third of internet users all over the world use Youtube. Along with this, YouTube is available in over 80 countries and available in about 75 languages to cater to all users and demographics. YouTubers watch about one billion hours of video every single day. The content on Youtube ranges from educational to humorous and everything in between. YouTubers have cult followings and people log in daily to keep up with their favorite personalities on the site. Whether it is a quick link that’s being watched for a few seconds or a Youtube series that solicits hours of viewing; the wide range of demographics using Youtube for billions of categories makes it the perfect place for targeted marketing. But to really be able to harness the full potential from this internet superpower’s consumers, it takes more than just launching the company’s channel on the YouTube platform. This article discusses three steps that will ensure an ecommerce company’s success in marketing on Youtube.

Setting Up the Channel

Making a Youtube channel should be done with the same care as setting up a website for an ecommerce business. Keeping the page optimized with a professional and clean look will ensure that potential subscribers do not navigate away from the page once they have found you. Youtube, much like many other social media platforms allows for a banner photo and a logo image. Furthermore, there is an “About” section located on the page which allows for a business description and details about the videos that will be shared. Make sure all of these fields are filled out and looking fresh. Another aspect of keeping a profile looking professional and up to date is posting regularly. A business with a post once every year likely will not gather subscribers as it does not have content about the ecommerce world that an individual would be inclined to keep up with. Instead of one very informational video, it is crucial that ecommerce sites are posting often and keeping up with their consumers. Along with this, the thumbnails of the videos that are posted can be edited to bring in the most visually pleasing and eye-catching parts of the video in order to ultimately drive more traffic. The last step of setting up a channel for success is to move the videos that are posted into playlists or if necessary- multiple channels. Playlists will organize the content so that the business owner can decide what order relevant videos should be watched in. Videos in a playlist also play back to back and therefore it will encourage users to stay active and engaged for longer. Multiple channels can also be created if the ecommerce site has many different specialties or services as it breaks up the content and makes it more relevant to specific users that are coming to Youtube.

SEO for YouTube

Using skills from SEO on other platforms, it is important that business owners choose keywords wisely on Youtube. When working on SEO for Youtube, there are three elements that need to be optimized with content in order to drive consumers to a page. The first of these is the title of the video. This is going to be the first thing that people see along with the previously mentioned thumbnail that pops up as well. It is important to keep the title brief and highlight the most important and eye-catching detail of the video so that individuals are more likely to click on one video over another. Next, is the description of the video. This is approximately 250 words of space to use keywords that will help the video be found and tell users a little more about the content that they will be watching. The last element of SEO for Youtube marketing are the tags. These function much like hashtags and it is important to use relevant keywords to not only ensure that the video ranks higher in the searches, but also shows up in the sidebar as a recommendation for users watching relevant videos.

Getting Subscribers

In using videos as a tool for marketing, it is important to remember that the key is consistency and variety. If the quality and the amount that a company is posting is consistent, then the channel will automatically do better than a non-optimized and non-regular channel. This being said, it is a good idea to experiment with what works. For example, business owners should not make every video 3 minutes long and structured the same way. Changing up length, content, and presentation, but maintaining a consistent sense of output and quality ensures that consumers subscribe and keep coming back to a page to learn more. In addition to this, businesses can ask for Youtube users to subscribe. By adding a subscribe call to action to every video that is posted, companies can prompt users to follow their videos in a more direct manner. Although this is a great way to generate leads, it should not be the only way that subscribers are gained. In the end, it is the quality and consistency of the videos that will keep viewers coming back to a company’s page and from there converting into a customer.  

Conclusion 

Youtube is the place to be for ecommerce businesses because of its large and diverse user base. Getting videos uploaded consistently is not an easy feat but by investing time to create quality content, businesses see a big return on their investment and time through the Youtube platform.