Are You Sleeping On YouTube Marketing?
You will often hear digital marketers like me push Facebook, Instagram, Tik-Tok and even LinkedIn as important tools for building a brand. But with the numbers YouTube boasts, should you shift all of your focus over to Google's video platform?
Recently, I've been questioning my go-to social media strategies after a tough few months of interaction and growth within a couple client accounts. A lot can change within social media very rapidly. What had previously worked in 2020 surely has less of an impact in 2022. Maybe this is a case of the law of diminishing returns, or maybe it's because everyone does the "tried and true" things now. Hashtags, tagging people, sharing your content to stories ... it all feels a bit stale doesn't it?
Recent news backing this thought train was released recently in which #Facebook announced it's numbers for Q4 of 2021. The platform, now rebranded as "Meta" reported its first-ever quarterly decline of daily users on a global scale, along with slow ad growth which translated to a stock plunge of roughly 20 percent. Read more about the Facebook (Meta?) reports here. Thank you to The Verge.
With these sorts of things on my mind almost always, I have begun to look for more efficient ways to serve my clients, and in turn be able to make better recommendations on where brands should put their energy and effort. There is only so much time in the day after all. So, as I continue to learn about social media and how brands can best utilize their time, it has come to my attention (in a Luke discovering Vader was his father, e.g. we kind of have known all along but looked for other answers sort of way) that #YouTube is STILL a massive opportunity.
"No shit."
I know what you are thinking. "No shit." People obviously do well on YouTube, as it has literally become a job title (YouTuber) much like "google it" has become a verb. However, as a brand - the opportunity for massive growth is still as accessible to you now as it has ever been. That is my opinion. You can formulate your own as you read on through this blog.
As someone who learns visually, let's dive into ...
THE NUMBERS
“The available data indicate that YouTube ads now reach roughly 1 in 3 people on Earth, with that figure rising to 37.7 percent of adults aged 18 and above.”
This is pretty incredible data if you think about. Actually, it's still incredible if you don't think about it too. 1-3 adults aged 18+ will see your advertisement. That is a guaranteed figure. So what do we do with this information, knowing that ads reached 271 million new eyeballs in 2021? Simply put - we invest. Invest your time understanding what types of content people are looking for today. It's obviously video, however there are plenty of forms of video you can create. YouTube Shorts for example is YouTube's answer to Tik-Tok's rapid growth and success within the short form video space. However, YouTube also offers a wealth of additional services such as live streaming, learning, gaming, and TV shows/movies to name a few. Invest your dollars, because you know that the reach is there. Invest in someone that understand how to manipulate Google's ad platform to achieve your goals - me :) . Truly, YouTube's accessibility is what makes it so attractive to the masses.
In YouTube's end of year statistics release, they shared that their platform is now the second largest search engine on the internet, behind parent company #Google. Believe it or not, YouTube has more monthly searches than #Microsoft, Bing, Yahoo, AOL, and Ask.com combined. Source: Oberlo
Relevance - Google Search Placement
What's that? You need more reasons to focus on YouTube? Consider that any search you enter into Google in 2022 will be met firstly with various videos from YouTube. The placement is what is desirable here. Imagine that instead of putting any dollars towards advertising, that your content could show up at the top of a search query, just by being in the form of video. Now, take into account that any video you create for YouTube can be repurposed and re used on nearly all other social platforms. You can link, embed, download, clip and share your YouTube videos to any social media of your choice.
So what kind of video content are we talking?
Scared to record yourself? I get it. It can be intimidating pointing the camera back at yourself and talking to ... well who even knows. Hopefully your target audience, maybe a few family members and friends, but definitely someone. Your videos don't even need to be you in front of the camera. How about some footage of your product or service with a voice over from you or another person within your brand who has knowledge to share? Better yet, create one of three types of content that you feel comfortable with. Those types being: Educational (teaching); Entertaining (engaging); or Promotional (highlighting features). Now after you select one of these three, put together 5-10 ideas of videos that you could create under the category you choose. Simply pointing your cell phone camera and shooting video is a highly effective way of capturing content. Remember YouTube offers all different types of services so no video will be too short or too long.
Get To Work!
Thank you for taking the time to read through my regurgitation of my findings on YouTube. I really hope that this can impact someone and help them understand the opportunity at hand! What I really like about creating video is that it helps you understand your product or service in a way you maybe had not thought of it before as you are watching back what you created. It's a great way to look at things differently. I personally need to take a few doses of my own medicine here, and really start engaging and putting effort in again on YouTube. Catch me creating some informational and entertaining content in the next few months time! Thanks again!
- Lee