It is no joke that social media is growing rapidly as a marketing platform for businesses. This is not
just true for big businesses either; small businesses are beginning to see the potential of a strong
social media presence.
The king of social media, Facebook, is beginning to be utilised by businesses worldwide and has
become generally accepted as a good platform for engaging with your audience. I’m not saying that
everyone is doing Facebook well; actually the opposite is true for 90% of businesses using it. At least,
however, business owners have accepted they need to be on there.
There are many more social media platforms businesses could be using to expose their brand but
YouTube has some features which mean it should be a high priority for your brand.
What is YouTube?
If you have been living under a rock and are somehow unfamiliar with YouTube, then here is what
you need to know. YouTube is a video sharing platform. Each and every day over 3 billion videos are
viewed on YouTube. In one single month there are more videos uploaded to YouTube than the 3
major US TV networks have managed to generate in the last 60 years.
YouTube can be used on a laptop or on the go. This makes it simple, easy to use and portable. It is
completely free to use and easy to set up. It offers many wonderful features such as enhancements
to video, for free, and overlaying text and subscriber buttons.
Why should I be using YouTube?
So many small businesses do not have a big budget to spend, or maybe they just lack education in
how to rank themselves on Google. That’s okay! YouTube is now owned by Google, meaning Google
will rank videos from their own network higher on their listing. Is this making sense? To put it simply,
if you put a video on YouTube it is more likely to rank than one of your webpages, because Google
prefers ranking its own sites first.
This makes YouTube very powerful for the small business. Someone utilising YouTube videos is 53%
more likely to see their video rank on the first page of Google, as opposed to a text page. You could
have your small business ranking on the first page of Google beside big name by just uploading a
video!
Of course it has to be said that you should make your videos interesting and engaging. If you chuck
up any old rubbish it won’t be long before you noticed a steady decrease in exposure and most likely
a decrease in followers too.
There are good and bad way to upload video, and depending on your niche and type of business you
need to think properly about how to name your videos to have them rank on Google. My tip is to
think about what key word you would put into Google if you were looking to find your type of
business… for example “social media consulting Scotland” is what I’d look for if I wanted to find a
business like my own.
YouTube can be a very powerful tool if you choose to use it and are willing to put in a small amount
of time to understand how it works.
Article by Jesse Gee Contributor: Natasha Haley is a blogger and business owner at Meldrums on the Move. She has been involved in running social media pages for small businesses for the past few years and has recently created her blog to share social media insights and tips with others.
Natasha Haley – Meldrums on the Move
