Think With Google predicts that, by 2017, 74% of all Internet traffic will be come from videos, increasingly on mobile.
In fact, mobile watch time on YouTube is already surpassing desktop traffic in 2015. Keeping this in mind, it’s easy to see why now is the time to make sure that your YouTube video strategy is optimized to attract and engage consumers. In this blog, we’ll break down Fresh Ink’s top 3 rules for building an engaging YouTube campaign.
The folks at Google BrandLab recently introduced a helpful analogy for creating the right type of video content for your brand: the Venn diagram. On the one side, they suggest, should be what your brand stands for, its core values. Ask yourself questions like, “What is truly distinctive about my brand?”
On the other side, you should think about what your audience cares about. Take into account what your target demographic is searching for online, the micro-moments that engage them, and what they value the most.
The “sweet spot” is where your brand’s signature and your audience’s core values intersect. When creating content for a YouTube campaign, find ways to build your values around what is important to your audience.
Slow and steady wins the race. It is important to understand that creating an effective and engaging YouTube library takes time and effort. The amount of video that is on YouTube is absolutely staggering. More than 100 hours of content is uploaded to the site every minute. Though you
r videos may not whet the appetites of the entire media-consuming population, there are steps that can be taken to make sure that your video content strategy is as effective as possible. Think With Google advocates what they call the “CCC” approach to building your content. This breaks down to “Create,” “Collaborate,” and “Curate.” For an in-depth breakdown of choosing what videos to make, check out our Content Mix blog here.
The Creation phase speaks for itself. This is the stage at which you are creating and developing your videos and all that the process entails. Anything from a 10-second spot to a long form company piece is included in this phase. Keeping in mind what we discussed in “Find the Sweet Spot,” create content that meets your audience halfway and give them videos that fall in line with their values.
Collaboration can pay dividends for brands. This step is, essentially, partnering with an established YouTube influencer who has a loyal following. Their already established viewer-base means a guarantee of more organic eyes on your brand. For e
xample, this past January, Nissan created a batch of videos to tease their Super Bowl campaign featuring the enormously popular YouTubers Epic Meal Time, Dude Perfect, Jabbawockeez, Convos with My 2-year Old, Roman Atwood, and Action Movie Kid. Nissan had not aired a Super Bowl ad in 22 years, and yet their campaign was a huge success.
Roman Atwood
Action Movie Kid
Epic Meal Time
Finally, the Curate step boils down to making sure that your content is as interactive as possible. YouTube allows viewers to engage with your content by commenting, sharing their opinions, liking, and subscribing. Think of YouTube as a platform for creating interactive stories as a dialogue instead of as one-sided ads. Making sure that your audience is participating in your content instead of simply consuming it is key to maintaining authenticity and increases the chances of your content being shared and reaching new, organic eyes.
This can be done in many ways, from simply adding end-cards to your videos (which can be done in the backend of YouTube) to actively making dialogue with your viewers a part of the video by asking them questions and getting a sense from them of what they would truly like to see.
If you are reading this, chances are that you already know that you should be prioritizing online video. It is where the consumers are and presents a huge advertising opportunity. A recent study by Meeker shows that while mobile media accounts for a quarter of all media time, only 8% of ad dollars are spent on mobile video.
Don’t spend too much time worrying exact what you should be making. Video is what you should be making. Simply focusing on making content that creates value for your viewers and utilizing the CCC framework advocated by Think With Google will put you head and shoulders above your competition.
To stay up to date on the latest trends in video marketing, be sure to follow Fresh Ink on LinkedIn. Good luck, marketers!