YouTube has a lot of potential and possibilities. But how do you actually use YouTube for your brand? Every brand has different and unique goals, and therefore different challenges. We’ve gathered the most common questions brands have and would like to help you achieve your brand’s KPI goals with YouTube.
how do I claim a domain on YouTube?
As a brand, why do you want to claim a domain? Today’s crowded media landscape is making it increasingly more difficult for your target audience to see you. YouTube can help you with
this. As YouTube is the most visible domain within Google Search. Additionally, Google is displaying more and more videos in search results because Google wants to give the user the best answer and in increasingly more cases that answer is in the form of a video. And what sort of video? Help content! With help content you answer the consumer’s specific question and therefore you, as a brand, respond to their intrinsic motivation. And you do this just at the right moment: when consumers themselves are looking. In this way you build a lasting customer relationship with your video content while creating a positive brand experience. YouTube’s impact goes much further than just views, watch time and subscriptions.
How do you claim a domain?
You begin with a clear delineation of your domain’s boundaries with one very important rule: the more specific, the better. The pitfall here is that most people try to claim too general of a domain which likely contains many subtopics within that one domain. A domain that is too large simply contains too many possible search queries, causing you to compete with too wide of a range of content. Determining a good, specific domain is therefore crucial if your goal is to dominate YouTube with your content.
Begin with data research
To gain insight into where the consumer is oriented within this domain, you need data research.
In addition to data-driven insights, you then need to map out which content structure is most suitable for your specific domain. With this you create videos that are attractive to your consumer and rank high in both YouTube and Google.
what content should I make?
1) Instructional tutorials and how-to videos
Who hasn’t looked up and watched an instructional video on YouTube? One out of every ten searches on YouTube is for a how-to video. Research done by Google and Ipsos revealed that of all the categories of videos, how-to videos generate the most attention. For example: the views for beauty tutorials and videos with the variation ‘for beginners’ increased 50% in 2021.
2) Purchase advice and help with decision making
YouTube is also used extensively by people who want to learn more about products and brands they are interested in buying. The aforementioned research discovered that 55% of online
shoppers first search Google for a product, then go to YouTube to learn more about it before buying it.
3) Inspiration
In addition to instructions and purchasing advice, people also use YouTube for inspiration. In fact, the number of YouTube searches containing ‘ideas’ has tripled in the past three years.
For most brands, this attention to educational and evergreen content offers the best possibilities for success. The greatest advantage of these types of videos is that they almost never expire and they remain relevant and popular for a long time. We have actually seen this with many of our clients, where these types of instructional videos continue to generate thousands of views and hours of watch time years on end. This is something that is nearly impossible on other social media platforms where the lifespan of a video is often only a few hours.
Create content based on data, not gut feeling
When brands do decide to invest in video content, all too often they decide on topics based on opinions or gut feelings. But this leaves you with an endless list of possible topics and any random brand can choose from dozens or hundreds of possible subjects.
But what if you could better estimate which content has the greatest potential for success? And what if you knew exactly how many videos to create and the best times to publish them? You can do this by allowing data and insights to guide you. At InterSpace we give solid recommendations on which video content has the greatest potential for generating views and watch time. This advice is based on thorough data research and our own proprietary methodology that we call ‘Data-Driven Content Creation’.
how can I generate more views for my existing content?
Recommendations
Recommendations – or suggested videos – play an important role in growing your content’s views on YouTube. The YouTube algorithm focuses on ‘user satisfaction’, hence all
recommendations within YouTube are personalized and aimed specifically at the viewer. To make good recommendations,
YouTube uses three main components:
1) Context: what exactly is the
video about?
2) Presentation: how many clicks,
views and watch time does
the video generate?
3) Personalization: based on
previous viewing behavior
The algorithm works much the same as it does for paid content. YouTube recommends ads that generate more clicks, views and watch time more often and at lower costs. All too often, most brands fail with the first component: context. Without adequate titles, descriptions, subtitles and playlist arrangement, YouTube does not have enough context to properly determine what the video is about. And if the videos lack attractive thumbnails, the second component (clicks, views, watch time) will be negatively affected. For videos you may have already published, it’s advisable to provide more context and better design for these videos.
Distribution
Still, having a good video alone is not enough. Even on YouTube content can disappear quickly. In fact, 80.2% of all Dutch videos on YouTube get less than 5,000 views. How do you ensure that you are in the 19.8%? The answer is smart distribution. Distribution is a component that
most brands forget. And that’s unfortunate since distribution is what provides visibility. In addition to all the optimization opportunities on the platform itself, community management and cross-promotion to/from other channels and platforms are also essential to your distribution strategy.
Not only does this link building provide visibility but it also results in higher channel authority as YouTube promotes you more within the platform. When you combine all the organic distribution
options with paid distribution, you can achieve maximum success. How? By combining the right
content with precise targeting. Not everyone can be reached with organic content. But with paid
distribution, you create maximum visibility within the perfect target group. In short: distributing content both organically and paid will lead to the greatest impact.
how can I increase brand impact?
For insights into the impact YouTube can have on your brand, we perform brand effect
measurements based on the preference of your brand and other brand KPIs. With this, we measure the effectiveness of your video content. The results will show not only if your content increases brand preference, but you will also have insights that will help increase brand preference in the future. An example of this is the research we conducted on the effect Hyundai’s IONIQ 5 YouTube videos had on key brand KPIs – including brand recognition, brand preference and purchase intent. Our research showed that on all brand KPIs there was a significant difference between the target group that had seen the videos and the target group that had not seen any videos. The results of this can be found on the next page.Conducting brand effect measurements allows you to quantify brand KPIs results – such as brand preference – for YouTube as one channel, and compare them with the results from your other media channels. This makes YouTube a full-fledged channel within your total media mix.
how can I advertise effectively on YouTube?
Rethink your definition of a video ad
YouTube is more than just organic content for brands; advertising is another important element of the arsenal to help achieve success on YouTube. But as a brand, how can you advertise more successfully on YouTube? To answer this question we will share three recommendations.
The traditional idea of video ads is that they should be a 30, 15, or 6-second spot – carrying with it high production costs. Although many large advertisers use YouTube in this way, this ‘linear TV mindset’ simply does not apply here. Effective ads can take many forms.
As long as they:
1) stand out
2) generate attention
3) impact the viewer’s memory
This summation leaves lots of space for creative interpretation. Craig Davis, former top creative
at JWT once said, “We need to stop interrupting what people are interested in and be what people are interested in.” This is an excellent starting point for effective advertising on YouTube.
Optimize your creative
Creatives have the greatest impact on the effectiveness of ad campaigns. Research shows that 55% of the effectiveness of digital campaigns is determined by the creatives deployed. Generating attention and emotion are essential for ads to be effective. Until recently, to adequately measure this you would need a laboratory of brain scans, measuring equipment or use expensive consumer panels, but with the advance of artificial intelligence and cutting-edge technologies, this is now much more affordable. We therefore recommend reserving a (small) part of your advertising budget for pre-testing and optimization.
At InterSpace we use a combination of watch time data analysis at the second level (where do or don’t viewers drop off?), AI-based eye tracking (where does the viewer’s attention go?) and neuromarketing research (what emotions does the content generate?). This is to test and optimize creatives quickly and in a scalable way.
Go beyond demographic targeting
In addition to effective ads, you also want to show them to the right target group at the right time: but how and where do you find the right target group? The Google Ecosystem is a
massive database with information about your target group and future consumers at your fingertips. This insight allows you to advertise based on consumer interests and to strategically use the consumers’ intentions and what they would like to see. Combine the signals from YouTube, Google Search, Google Chrome and Google Play! Put the focus on the consumer. By responding to what really interests the viewer and combining that with the information from entities in the Google Ecosystem, you can create targeting that is rock solid. The result? Qualitative targeting with minimal budget waste!
