YouTube's Not Just for Parodies: Small Business Video Hits

Every small business should take advantage of video marketing online. Other small businesses are. Learn more about the importance of online video as a marketing strategy in this quick tutorial. You should be able to make it through the whole thing in about six minutes, which will leave you with the rest of the day to get started. If you have any stories to share about video marketing in your business, comment below and enjoy!

A 2011 report published by Social Media Examiner found 76 percent of marketers said video marketing, specifically via YouTube, was their primary area of concentration for the year. Small businesses can ill-afford to ignore the potential profits video marketing can bring. Since YouTube hosts your videos, neither your cPanel VPS nor any uploaders need to be utilized to make your videos available to the general public.

Starting in Video Marketing

The first thing business owners should do is create a YouTube account and take a look at some of the most popular videos. Sure, you'll see professional videos with massive budgets. These videos are right alongside homemade videos that were shot on a cell phone. Video marketing is about your message far more than your equipment. Business2Community.com details a couple practices to set yourself up for success with YouTube.

Headlines

1.) Spend time creating a searchable title. The video description should give an overview of the video, and provide additional information and links for interested watchers to check out. While your description and title count are in the search results, the tags you can use are incredibly important for showing up in relevant results. YouTube has an annotation tool that you can use to make notes on the video itself. Use this to encourage watchers to subscribe to your channel, provide links to order a product, or simply to add additional content.

Measuring Your Success

2.) Most videos don't become viral sensations. However, video content can be a low-budget marketing method that give you long-term results. Inc. Magazine analyzed 3,000 YouTube campaigns in a recent report, which found that the average production budget for the campaign is $300. Instead of hoping to hit viral success, set realistic goals and track your video metrics. YouTube has an overall daily traffic of a billion views, so the traffic can be significant even if you're only getting a minuscule piece of the pie, according to Wordstream.com.

YouTube Advertising Methods

3.) If you're not ready to take the plunge into video creation, you can simply advertise on other people's videos. These advertisements appear in an overlay on said videos, on search and category result pages, and other locations, as well. These types of ads can be an annoyance to viewers but are undoubtedly effective.

Business Transformation

4.) Video marketing isn't just another marketing channel to take advantage of. It can literally transform your business by increasing traffic and sales substantially, sometimes overnight. The Dollar Shave Club had a video go viral, which resulted in 12,000 orders, in two days, according to the New York Times. Even without a viral hit, YouTube is one of the most visited websites on the web.

Photo by Flickr user Sean MacEntee