Do you want to leverage the power of YouTube to grow your business for free?
YouTube is a widely-used platform that anyone with a phone can access. When you understand how to make use of it, you can bring in more traffic and engage your audience in a powerful way.
Here are some key YouTube marketing statistics you should know about:
- YouTube has 2 billion monthly active users
- The platform outdoes all of cable content when it comes to reaching 18-49 year olds
- You can boost your website SEO by adding YouTube videos to your pages as people spend 60% more time on a page with a video on it
- 84% of people say that watching a video has convinced them to buy a product
I’ll lay out ideas for how you can make use of YouTube that are free and effective. With a bit of planning and content building, you’ll establish your brand and grow your business for the long run.
Teach an online course
People often go to YouTube to find ‘how-to’ posts. Especially when they need a visual guide to solving their problems.
When building your videos, look for key pain points that your audience faces. What do they struggle with that your business can help solve? But avoid creating promotional videos. Start by genuinely helping people with their needs.
For example, if you have a food blog, then you might help your audience with videos on ‘how to create family meals on a budget’. You can create individual videos or an entire series and set up a playlist that will autoplay content.
With free and helpful online courses and how-to posts, you’ll help people and build a positive reputation for doing so.
Create a giveaway
Do you like to get things for free? I bet you do and your audience does too. If you want to build traction fast, then a good way to do this is to create a giveaway and link it to YouTube.
Start by defining a goal that you’d like to achieve with your giveaway. Do you want to build your YouTube following? Grow your email list? Or drive traffic to your website?
When you have a clear goal, you can build your giveaway campaign and your YouTube content to reflect that.
Here’s a specific example of how you can link your YouTube content to a giveaway.
Using a giveaway plugin, build a campaign where users have to do two things to enter your giveaway: one, watch a video, and two, subscribe to your channel.
Once your user does that, they’ll have an entry in your giveaway and are in the running for an awesome prize.
Make sure to offer a great prize that’s compelling enough for users to take action. With a giveaway campaign, you’ll get a boost in your business growth fast.
Add YouTube to your website
While sharing your videos on YouTube is a great way to tap into a vast audience, you’ll also be competing for their attention with other content creators.
One way to remove this issue is to add YouTube to your website. I don’t mean simply embedding or linking to YouTube on a web page.
Adding a social feed for YouTube on your website with a social feed plugin provides more interactivity than merely embedding videos on your site.
With a social feed plugin, your feed will automatically update when your content changes. And your users can like, share, and follow you right from your web page.
And most importantly, they’ll view your videos right from your website and won’t get distracted by other content.
Work with other businesses
You don’t have to grow your channel and your business on your own. It’s common for businesses and individuals to collaborate to make content together.
When you work with other creators, you tap into their audience and they reach yours. Look for ways to provide value when you’re seeking a collaboration. It’s important to create a mutually beneficial proposal and to have metrics for your marketing campaigns.
A few ways to collaborate with other YouTube Creators is to:
- Ask an influencer to review your product without bias
- Sponsor a video made by an influencer whose followers consist of your target audience
- Create a giveaway and collaborate with a creator to promote it. You want to offer a great prize like free products to attract viewers
An important aspect of collaboration is making sure that the brand or YouTube creator you work with aligns with your own business. You need to study a number of content creators and learn about their audience. It’s important to work with other YouTubers whose brand and content complements yours to grow. It’s a free and effective way to reach people with YouTube.
Create live videos
An important way to connect with people is to create live videos. Because such content is streamed live, it’s exciting and more interesting to users.
It also gives you a chance to engage with people in real-time and answer questions. Here are few specific ways you can use live videos:
- Share surprise announcements, updates, and news with live videos to generate a buzz
- Host events and interact with audience members is real-time
- Host interviews live
- Have a question and answer session
Whenever you finish your live video, be sure to ask users to take some kind of action. Redirect them to follow you on social media or to sign up for your email list.
Engage your audience
One thing that many businesses miss with YouTube and other social media is that these are places where you need to build a community.
The top influencers online develop a strong following because they build high-quality content that’s focused on delivering authentic and useful information.
These major content creators also listen to their audience, engage with them by replying to comments, and go on to create videos that people want to see.
It’s not enough to simply create YouTube videos. You also need to engage with people. Look at their comments, answer questions, and focus on community.
It can be a slow process doing so, but the rewards are stronger than if you didn’t try. As you build a community, you’ll also develop social proof through them and find more success with your marketing.
Conclusion
When used well, YouTube can help you grow your business for free. It’s important to leverage it the right way. You can do this by making useful content, focusing on what people want, and building a strong community.
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Syed Balkhi is an award-winning entrepreneur and online marketing expert. He is the co-founder of OptinMonster, WPBeginner, MonsterInsights, and WPForms.