Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

By Henry Brown

Video can be a great way to make your business stand out and show that you’re different from your online competitors. YouTube is no longer seen as a site purely for entertainment. In fact, it’s now an invaluable business resource too. With some time and creativity, you can use video to open up new opportunities for your small business. Whether you decide to make informational videos about how to use your newest equipment, or training videos for your staff, YouTube is an easy and effective way to get the attention of your audience. Here is why using YouTube for your small business is a must.

It’s free

Unlike televisions ads or radio spots, YouTube, like most parts of social media, is free to use. To become a visible presence on the internet, it will take and effort, but you don’t need money and connections in order to succeed, like you do in traditional media. Video can be used by a small startup, who has the same potential to go viral as a more recognized brand has, and that can happen very quickly with videos. Videos and images are some of the most shared, seen, and circulated kinds of content on the internet. With just one click, a user can repost something to their own social media accounts, and from there, it can spread very quickly.

Using YouTube for your small business can increase your target audience and marketing abilities with no real cost to you beyond the outlay for the equipment for your videos. You can even make them on your phone, unless you have the budget for things like the best boom microphone. YouTube is the most-watched website for videos, and your channel is like having a second website without the costs.

Drive sales

You can use YouTube to promote your products and services to gain leads. A YouTube video is a great referral back to your website. Your video can be seen by many people, optimized, and shared through different social media like Twitter or Facebook. Each video has keywords and tags associated with it, so it can be found by those who are looking for you and your products.

It’s also interesting and useful to know that Google, that own YouTube, has around of 70% if the search engine market. When you use Google to search, you also have the option to view images, maps, videos, and more. Have you noticed that every video that Google shows you is from YouTube? It is a powerful way to showcase your products and generate more leads that are already in your target audience.

SEO

A YouTube channel is like having a second website and gives you the room to describe your company, products, and services that you provide. Along with your channel, you can describe each video with tags to optimize them and attract the kind of viewers that you want. Tagging your videos for SEO purposes will give you the advantage of being found in a search. Every SERP, or search engine results page, gives results for videos, as well as articles. For example, if you do landscape gardening, that key term will deliver millions of results, but only thousands of videos. Just like the blog articles you produce, you want your keyword to appear in the title of the video, so search engines can index it easily, and your target audience can find it.

Huge audience

YouTube is very popular at the moment, and it has grown a lot in recent years. In fact, around 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. Despite this, very few small businesses actually use YouTube. There is a large market out there that is largely untapped.

Like Google, YouTube is a search engine, and is used by viewers to find useful tutorials, explanation videos, and product reviews. By creating useful videos on YouTube for small businesses to promote themselves, you get access to a much wider audience.

Product support

Provide your customers will videos that are useful, on the most common problems and questions that they have about your products or systems. This will cut your company’s support costs, and empower your customers to troubleshoot problems for themselves. Educational videos are a good way to bridge a gap between you and your customers, and allow them to learn. A video tutorial on the proper way to use your products is better than complicated directions on your website. They can watch and pause as they go, all with free, easy to use video.

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Henry Brown is an online marketing executive. When he isn’t talking shop, he’s roaming the streets of London, uncovering the extra-ordinary in the ordinary.