5 Tips to Get Customers Watching on YouTube!

YouTube is massive. It’s the 2nd biggest search engine on the net. Just as you want your business site to be found on Google, you also want people to watch your videos on YouTube.

Trouble is, as Business Insider reports:

• over 53% of YouTube’s videos have fewer than 500 views
• about 30% have less than 100 views

Meanwhile, just 0.33% have more than 1 million views

Here are five tips to maximise your chances of getting past that horrible 500!

1. Put Your Video Everywhere

Don’t just expect people to find you on YouTube. Embed your video on your homepage, Facebook Fan Page, link to it on Twitter, blog about it. If you’ve got enough communication channels in place you can promote your video content to your audience wherever they are. But remember: People get bored really quickly online.

2. Put Your Video on Your Homepage

A school that I’ve been helping to market on a shoestring (their’s, not mine!) wanted to increase the number of people who’d seen their low-fi video on YouTube. I put it on the front page of their website and, BANG, viewing figures doubled in a week. Even though the video was three months old.

Putting the video here doubled views in a week

3. Be Funny or Weird

Okay, you don’t have to be Conan O’Brien, but being funny or weirdly funny helps. A great way to catch people’s attention is to make a video that is a pastiche of something already really popular. Trying to sell more sneakers? Make a Star Trek tribute video with Spock and Co wearing your gear. The following Lost / Star Trek parody got stacks of traffic:

4. Write a Great Title

Get your copywriter in and make sure you give your video a title that’s short, sharp and simple. Less is often more. Remember, every element of a compelling headline has just one purpose — to get the video played.

5. Make Sure the First 30 Seconds Are Awesome

Even if you don’t have the budget of Miramax, think with a director’s eye. Grab your viewers attention from the word go. Again, keep your flick short and snappy. People literally don’t watch to the end. We’re too busy ready to click away.