YouTube & Your Brand: Video Tips for Local Businesses

When local businesses sort out their marketing priorities, an active YouTube channel may not be at the top of their lists. Compared to building a website, investing in SEO, building a presence through social media platforms and engaging your audience through cable TV and other forms of advertising, YouTube is all too often an afterthought for busy companies looking for efficient, proven ways to grow their customer base through advertising and marketing.

What you may not realize, though, is that YouTube’s platform offers a blend of features and engagement tools that sets it apart from every other ad channel. And if you care about SEO, it’s worth noting that YouTube is actually the world’s second-largest search engine by search volume, after Google.com.

If your reason for avoiding YouTube is that you don’t know where to start with building a business channel, there’s never been a better time to see how this video platform can serve your advertising goals. On the other hand, if you’ve only ignored YouTube because your rival businesses aren’t building a presence on the platform, that means a branded YouTube channel could become the competitive advantage your business is seeking in its local market.

Read on for a quick guide to using YouTube to build your brand’s local presence.

How Does YouTube Fit Into Your Local Advertising Strategy?

Even if you think your resources are too strapped to accommodate a YouTube strategy, it’s worth exploring the ways you might use YouTube to increase the lifespan or ROI of existing video content, as well as how it could be a supplemental, if minor, element in your larger ad strategy.

If you’re already creating video ads for cable TV and/or digital video, for example, these can be repurposed to your brand’s YouTube channel. You might also be able to repurpose existing video footage to make new videos for YouTube, creating more content assets out of your past productions.

Your brand might also benefit from having a YouTube video or two that explains your services and/or introduces your business to your local community. These videos can be shared across your business website and social channels, so you don’t have to rely on YouTube alone to generate ROI from these videos. But there’s a lot of potential reward in diversifying your content: Marketing researchers contend that a single minute of video can have an equal impression on consumers as 1.8 million words of content.

That’s a lot of productivity in exchange for a basic YouTube presence.

Effective Types of YouTube Content for Local Businesses

If you’re new to creating YouTube videos, you might struggle to determine the best approach when creating your first videos. This can be even tougher when you’re dealing with limited resources and want to maximize the value of your YouTube creation efforts.

While the best course of action is always an individual decision for your business, the following content types have proven successful for other local businesses on YouTube:

• Introductions: If you’re new to your community, a straightforward introduction can help put faces and names to your brand.
• Sales Videos: Use this to make a pitch of your products and/or services to your customer base. This is a great tool to re-share during the sales process, and to share on social media.
• Product or Service Trainings: If your products or services are highly technical, an explanatory video can be very helpful to potential and current customers.
• General How-To’s: YouTube is used by many for help with DIY projects, at-home workouts, cooking or crafting techniques, and more. Think of ways you could offer how-to’s related to your business’ products and services in video form. For example, if you are a local craft store, you could do a video tutorial of something made with materials sold at your shop.
• Community Service Highlights: Demonstrate your investment in the community through videos that showcase volunteer and other community service efforts.
• Local Testimonials: Build credibility in your community through video testimonials from satisfied local customers.

Tips to Create Valuable YouTube Content for Your Brand

Even though YouTube serves a national audience, your business can effectively reach a relevant local audience by following the best practices for local YouTube channels. Here are some tips to increase video views among your target audience

• Geotag your videos. Tagging is an important feature to help categorize video content. Along with local geotags, use tagging to connect your video content to its subject matter and the areas of interest for your target audience.
• Use your location in your video title. This simple step can help both the algorithm and viewers assess the relevance of your videos to their interests.
• Use local long-tail keywords in each video’s description field. Mentions of your business location, your service area, and other local long-tail keywords is a great tool to help your videos get discovered in organic search.
• Connect videos to your Google Place listing. By linking videos with your Google Place listing, you help YouTube associate the videos with your local business presence.
• Embed and share to your existing audience. Your business website, blog, social media accounts, and email lists are all great ways to increase video views among your local customer base. This can help your videos gain more exposure among YouTube users deemed relevant by the platform’s algorithm.

As you navigate the decisions involved in creating your first branded YouTube channel and videos, it helps to plan out this video strategy with the help of a trusted digital marketing partner.

Cox Media’s team of advertising experts are ready to help you plan, produce and publish YouTube content that maximizes ROI and helps your local business achieve its growth goals. Contact us today to get started.