How to Get More YouTube Video Views: A Fletcher Prince Presentation from Social Media Week DC

Editor's Notes

• #2: Hello, everyone! Welcome to our Social Media Week Presentation on YouTube, and hello to everyone watching this on Livestream and YouTube. I want to thank my Fletcher Prince partner David Hyson for designing my presentation and Tim Fahey from the Dirigo Agency for helping us record it. And you, most of all, because I get to talk about my favorite subject, YouTube video.Who here is on YouTube? Companies? Nonprofits? Lots of YouTubers here, great! Well, you’ve probably discovered -- like I have --that, there’s no more compelling way to tell your story than with video. We respond to video because it’s visual and helpful and authentic. So it builds credibility for you and your brand. And what’s more important than trust? CLICK
• #3: Did I mention search engine results? With 4 billion views per day, YouTube is the 3rd most visited site on the Internet, after Google and Facebook. YouTube viewership increased 25% last year. And as you know, it’s owned by Google, so Google does give it preferential treatment in search engine results. Forrester estimates that a search term is 53 times more likely to get a first page Google search result if it has a YouTube video correlated with it. Wouldn’t you like that to be your video? I know I would!So what’s not to like? Well, using YouTube effectively takes serious effort. In fact, I’ve identified 98 steps to setting up an effective corporate presence on YouTube. But I know that most of all, you want to get the most views you can for your videos. So, today, I’m going to focus on three areas that will help you get there: content, production quality, and search optimization. CLICK
• #4: So here are four of the 16 channels and 250 videos I’ve created on YouTube. I’ve learned something from each one.The importance of good content was really brought home to me when I started making my first videos for Living Well With Autism, I learned that if you offer helpful content that is unlike anything else on YouTube, you can get an global audience, even if you are just starting out.As I got more experience and started working with clients, I learned that how important production quality is as you are building your professional reputation as subject matter expert. Well produced video goes a long way to establishing credibility. With my company channel, Fletcher Prince, and my interview series, Conversations in Public Relations, it’s been a lesson in optimization. From my work on these Channels, I learned how critical it is to tag and describe your videos, so that YouTube will group them with related videos on the YouTube watch page, and increase your exposure to get more views. CLICK
• #5: So here are some avg. view counts for YouTube video. But you have to ask: do views even matter? Views are not the end all and be all. All a view means is that someone clicked on the video, not that they watched the whole thing, and heard your message, or that they’re going to act on it. There’s other ways to measure engagement with a video -- How long it was viewed, what kinds of comments did it receive? You can measure the number of likes and dislikes it got or the number of times people shared it. Or if your subscribers increased after you uploaded the video. That’s meaningful data to examine.While you’re setting goals for your performance on YouTube, look at what is typical for your industry. For example, you might check out 10 competitors who are doing a decent job on YouTube and look at their view counts, channel counts, subscriber counts. That can help you set meaningful goals CLICK
• #6: Since you want to get a lot of views, it will help you to be informed about where your views come from. You can look at your YouTube discovery report (see the blue arrow here) and learn a lot about your videos and the websites and search terms that led people to your videos. Have you seen this report before? Don’t feel bad if you haven’t. I’ve just discovered it myself!Your video could be viewed any number of places, such as on your website, or on Twitter or Facebook. But we know that the most views will occur on a YouTube watch page (this is an image of a Watch Page) where your video will appear in a collection of related videos. The red arrow is pointing to the related videos that YouTube selected to go with this video. So you want YouTube to group your video with good quality, relevant videos that get a lot of views, so people will also see your video, and get curious, and click on yours. The way you do that is through optimization. That’s how you’ll get found in search and discovered on YouTube. CLICK
• #7: You can look at your YouTube discovery report and learn a lot about your videos and the websites and search terms that led people to your videos. For most videos, there will be a mix of where that video was viewed, both on YouTube.com and other websites, maybe your own website. But we know that probably the most will be viewed on a YouTube watch page where a thumbnail and title of your video will pop up alongside the other videos people watch. So you want to get effective collateral views – which you can do with optimization. That’s why I put such an emphasis on optimization for getting more views.
• #8: So getting views for your YouTube videos is hard work. Remember those 98 steps I talked about ? You can see that creating your video is just the beginning. There’s so much to do.For now, though, let’s just focus on the three big areas: content, production values, and optimization. CLICK
• #9: So I think good video content really has two elements. If you’re excited and passionate about your topic, that really shines through and makes for good video. But even more important is creating content on the topics your customers and clients care about. The kinds of videos people want to watch. Everyday, you know what kinds of questions they ask. Their complaints. So you take the answers to those concerns and package them in a way that is right for video. You want to try to tell your customer’s story, not just your own, on YouTube. CLICK
• #10: I’d like to bring up my friend and client, Susan Rink who is an employee communications expert and the principal of Rink Strategic Communications. Susan, you always come up with great ideas for your videos. How do you decide what you’re going to create, in the way of content?
• #11: So, as an example, let’s say you are producing video for a business audience. Well, these are the kinds of videos, according to Forbes, that CEOs and SVPs want to watch, in order of their preference. And they ARE watching video in the C-suite! Three quarters of senior executives watch work-related videos at least once per week and more than half visited a vendor’s website based on a video they watched. Nearly half of senior executives have made a business decision based on a video they had watched. That’s a powerful impact. CLICK
• #12: So an important part of creating content people will watch is motivating them in that first minute to watch and keep watching. The description also helps with this. So make it crystal clear.Identify your Target audience> Who is this video for? Parents of kids with autismTell the big idea>Why should I watch it? So you’ll learn how to communicate with your child with autismSay who’s in the video. Viewers want to know– is this an expert or someone I can trust? Introduce the person (or yourself) A mom of a child with autismSell the benefit to the viewer>What are you going to tell me in this video and how’s this going to help me? You’ll learn an easy and inexpensive way to use picture cardsMake the call to action really clear: What should I do after watching this? Go to my website and print the free picture cards and try it yourselfGive them a way to learn more: In this example, the description and video has links to my website for more tips and contact information. CLICK
• #13: Production values matter! I bet you’ve seen your share of shaky videos on YouTube! As I said, audiences will forgive you for less than perfect video if your heart is in it, but as a rule, you should produce the best possible quality that is commensurate with your resources and abilities. If you are a large agency or firm, you can’t get away with video that has poor lighting, poor audio, illegible titles, or shaky camera work.I looked at 100 leading PR & advertising agencies in September of last year and I found that more than half of them had uploaded poor quality YouTube videos. Just remember, if you wouldn’t produce video of that quality for a client, don’t put it on your own YouTube Channel, because 1) it reflects poorly on your company and 2) people won’t watch your videos. CLICK
• #14: The next step to getting more views is optimization. I’ve found about dozens of ways you can brand and optimize your YouTube Channel -- which is like your homepage on YouTube -- and videos. We don’t have time to talk about them all today. For right now, let’s focus on those elements that are most important for getting views: the searchable text elements.Most corporate Channels I see forget one or more of these basic but important steps. Let’s review them, quickly CLICK
• #15: The first thing you will do is to create a a username for your company Channel on YouTube.This step is critical because it will appear in your URL, so it’s very searchable. We’re lucky at my company, because fletcherprince is a short company name and it’s easy to find in search results. You have a maximum of 30 characters to work with, and the username is one word, no spaces. CLICK
• #16: The next step – Channel Tags – requires more thought. Make a list of 5 to 8 keywords that are most relevant to your company. Think about the kinds of works you think your customers will use online in search. Are they searching for the term “PR” or “public relations,” for example? To find out, use the keyword tool at Google Adwords for ideas. You can also check out what your competitors are using as keywords. You’ll use these keywords again and again, so keep your list handy. CLICK
• #17: The next easy step is giving your Channel a descriptive Title. Use keywords here, too, and the words “videos” if you have room. It will help your Channel get found in search. We’ve used the term “Marketing How To Videos” in our Channel title because we know that, after funny videos, how-to videos are the most popular genre on YouTube. CLICK
• #18: Now the Channel Profile is a strategic area on YouTube where a lot of companies fail to take advantage. Remember the videos themselves are not searchable, only the text associated with them. This is prominent and searchable text. You used to have 1000 characters to work with to describe your company, convey your key message, tell what the videos are about, and insert links. Now, as of March 7, you have maybe 1/10 of that and the linking has changed. So make it count. If you want business leads, don’t forget to put your email address and phone number, so prospects can contact you. CLICK
• #19: Optimizing your individual videos as you upload them is an essential step for getting more views. You can pay YouTube to promote your videos and if the content is great, you can get 100s of thousands of views that way. But those views might cost you a $1 a piece! So if you’re trying to get more views on a budget, creating content people want to watch and optimizing your Channel is just the beginning. There are so many well-produced videos out there that are not getting views they deserve because the person uploading the video didn’t spend an extra 15 min to also optimize the video for search. CLICK
• #20: You wouldn’t believe this but in my industry, close to a third of PR and advertising agencies on YouTube don’t bother describing their videos at all. I hope that’s not true of your industry because that omission almost obliterates their search potential! Use your keywords to compose literal, descriptive video titles, tag, and video descriptions to get found in search engine results. ALWAYS TAG. That’s how YouTube knows how to group your video with related videos. A common error I would like to correct: be sure to put multi word tags like company names and presenters in quotation marks to create a multi-word search term, instead of individual key words. Like “David Hyson” in quotes. CLICK
• #21: A lot of companies don’t take advantage of playlists but they are good in 2 ways. First of all, Playlists organize your Channel like a table of contents. So you want to adjust your Channel settings so playlists display, as they do here. For my Fletcher Prince Channel I’m displaying these playlists: my portfolio, client testimonials, graphic design tips etc.Playlists also help your videos get more views because the text elements associated with playlists tell YouTube what your videos are about. So they will display your videos alongside other videos that are similar, or suggest them to viewers. CLICK
• #22: We’re lucky to haveMehreen Sheikhwith us today. Her team produces the YouTube content for the World Bank. They have more than 1000 videos on their channel, and over 5000 subscribers. Let’s hear their tips.
• #23: YouTube is changing their channels to a new format. At first it was optional but all channels will be switched to the new layout on March 7.IMHO, for YouTube content producers, it’s really a step down. One of the biggest changes is the introduction of a Feed tab. The reason this exists is that YouTube wants to drive traffic to the channels but people aren’t always uploading video. So the idea is that this feed will broadcast everytime you like or favorite a video, upload a video, or create a playlist, with a status update. The stream, in my view, is really not that interesting, and it really doesn’t do anything for a companys or organization’s brand. You can’t update it yourself, like you can with FB or Twitter. So I recommend changing the default view of the new channel layout, which happens to be feed, to a much more interesting view, such as your featured tab (which showcases a single video – much like the old layout) or the third choice, which is the videos tab – that shows a chronological grid of all your uploaded videos. So, just forget about feed.The new Youtube offers fewer cusotmization options that we were used to --- such as the ability to choose fonts, layouts, and certain colors. The layout makes the channels look much like each other.The old YouTube gave you 1000 characters to write an indepthprofile, and you could insert hyperinks. The new YouTube gives you a sentence or two, so you have to make the most of that limited real estate. The old YouTube was a bit more social in my view. There was an emphasis on friends – friends are completely gone now. Channel comments have been banished from their prominent location on the front page to a small nondescript tab in the Feed. There is a number for hwo many subscribers you have but you can’t see who they are (unless it’s your channel). That used to be a way to encourage subscribers – that little bit of advertising for them. And also you could display the channels you subscribed to. Which people really liked. It was just more affirmation. I don’t know about you, but I used to visit other channels and look at who they subscribed to discover more channels, just like we look at who follows who on Twitter. Well, you can’t do that anymore.
• #24: I want to get to your questions so here are a few quick tips for getting more views that you can review later. I would just like to emphasize one that does not get done enough and those are video responses. If you post a relevant video response AS A COMMENT on a high performing video in your category, as long as you stay on message, you can get tremendous views for your videos and Channel. So don’t shy away from video responses. CLICK
• #25: And don’t forget, you can share video in email – you just use an image and link it. Video in an email communication can double your open rate. My clients have had some success with that, particularly around the holidays. And that’s so important – as you may know, email marketing has the highest ROI of all tactics. So when you combine the two, it really is powerful. So talk to me later if you’d like to learn more about that. CLICK
• #26: Thank you for letting me share some of what I know about getting more YouTube video views. I have some more tips I couldn’t get to today on my YouTube Channel.Please take a moment to subscribe. I would love that.Let’s talk about your questions and experiences for about ten minutes and then we’ll take a break before the next session at 12. If you’re on your way out, thanks for coming and enjoy the rest of Social Media Week!