The use of video to promote a business is not a new phenomenon. In fact, the production of a promotional video which goes viral is still one of the commercial holy grails, one that every business hopes to achieve.
Until your own video goes viral, in fact, whether it does or not, here are some tips and tactics for effectively promoting a new video for Youtube.
We’re making some simple presumptions here. Firstly, that you have a Youtube sales channel for your business, and secondly, that youtube promotion you have produced a fantastic video to promote your business. We’ll be doing an article on how to make fantastic promotional videos for Youtube in the coming weeks, so keep an eye out for that if you want some top tips. While waiting, we’ve had a lot of telephone calls about video promotions, so let’s look at how to promote a video you have ready.
The first and most obvious way to announce a new video is to mention it in your blog. Doing a blog feature on your video and embedding the video within the blog will jump-start the views on it. Launch the video, talk about it and encourage individuals to check it out.
Your company newsletter or email is another perfect place to announce your new video and encourage views and shares. Again, you can talk about the video, encouraging your audience to view it, and you can also embed it into a contact or newsletter.
Posting it on your social media is an absolute must. Mention your new video and post the link or embed it into Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Make sure you use the right hashtags and keywords in your captions and descriptions too. With Facebook, you can embed a Youtube video. With Twitter you can contribute a smallish url link for your video. With Pinterest you can pin a visual and a link straight to your video.
Youtube videos are also worth promoting on the popular creating of social bookmarks sites. Consider promoting your video on StumpleUpon, for example.
Whatever social platform you post a video link on; you are increasing the chance that it will be viewed. Now, as views climb, it will be saw by the Youtube search engine too. Don’t forget, that Google picks up popular and well viewed Youtube videos and google results too. You want as many people viewing your video, as quickly as possible. Videos have a relatively short rack life these days, so the art of promoting them involves getting links to view them out to as many platforms as you can, as quickly as possible.
ADVERTISING is also a great way to legally launch your new video. Releasing a well timed ADVERTISING article to various newswire services and media outlets will also help to get news of your video out into the mainstream. Think artistically about who would be happy to add an article about your video to their blog, newsletter, or regular update email; are you a member of a trade group or organisation? Employing some traditional ADVERTISING tactics will give you a good selection of media outlets where you can promote your video too.
If you have the budget you can also consider advertising your video. Google AdWords, or Facebook advertising with links straight to the video, and advertising on Youtube itself are all ways you can invest in your video. However, for many of us, this can be an expensive option. Consider what’s best for your business. If you can afford to invest some extra cash in advertising your video then it is worth setting a budget and giving it a helping hand for the first while. However, for small to medium-sized businesses, we would recommend you try the free methods first. They take time and effort and it all depends on how effectively you share your business content, but there is no doubt it is effective.