content marketing

How To Use YouTube End Screens With Your Videos

Videos are an effective way to tell your brand’s story or to demonstrate a product. Add video to an email, and see how click-through rates increase! When they add genuine value, videos increase the amount of time website visitors stay on a page and are associated with higher conversion rates.

If you are you using videos as part of your marketing strategy, you may also be hosting them on a YouTube channel. At least you should be. YouTube has over one billion users! That is more than 30% of the entire internet audience!* If you have not launched your video marketing strategy because you are camera shy, then consult my recent post on Entrepreneur.com, “How to Create Video Content Without Being on Camera”, which demonstrates several ways to help you get your brand on YouTube.

One of the challenges video marketers face is how to deliver the viewer to the conversion with the least number of clicks. Meaning, if someone is watching a video on YouTube, how do you make it easy for the viewer to click over to a website or campaign-landing page to make a sale? YouTube offers several optional features to make videos clickable. These include end screens, annotations, cards, and channel branding watermarks. Each feature is available to all channels.

If you are trying to build your viewership on YouTube, end screens are a feature that is easy to add to any video to help you increase your number of subscribers and watch channel time. YouTube end screens can help increase subscriptions on your YouTube channel, send viewers to your website, sell online, or even crowdfund.

YouTube end screens are both prominent and clickable.[Figure 1] An end screen shows as two overlay images that appear at the end of a video. Content creators may choose to use up to four end screen elements to show to viewers such as subscribe to the channel, suggest the next video or playlist to watch, promote another channel, or link to an approved website (yours or an ecommerce site like iTunes.)

Figure 1 Photo credit: YouTube.com

I recommend choosing the “subscribe” element to encourage users to subscribe to your channel. When a viewer subscribes to your channel, as opposed to just watching videos and leaving, they receive an email notification from YouTube every time the channel has a new video uploaded. The email notification encourages the reader to watch the new video, which in turn, increases your watch time.

Encourage viewers to remain on your channel by suggesting the next video to watch with an end screen. Choose the “video or playlist” end screen to direct viewers to watch another one of your videos or playlists. Don’t let your viewers stray to another channel’s content; suggest what they should watch next on your channel!

Choose to “link to an approved website” to get more potential customers to your website or ecommerce platform. I use this option to send viewers to my own website. If you are selling online with a major ecommerce platform like iTunes, Google Play, or Shopify, then add a link to your store with an end card. This option is also useful for crowdfunding campaigns.

The biggest downside to end screens is that they only appear during the last 20 seconds of any video! That means if your watch time is short and viewers are not staying until the end, then they may never see your end screen. Another negative is that end screens also suppress the channel’s branding while they are showing. That is easily corrected by choosing the “subscribe” option as one of your end screen elements. With three templates available for easy setup, end screens look very professional! Just choose which elements you want to use.

Besides end screens, YouTube offers two other features that are also clickable – annotations and cards. Video creators can opt to use either one to direct viewers to watch another video, to promote a channel, or to link to an approved website.

As with everything, there are advantages and disadvantages. I always recommend using YouTube cards with your videos. Cards can be used in conjunction with end screens, annotations, and channel branding. They appear as a small notification in the upper right corner of a video, as the letter “i.” Like end screens, cards show on both desktop and mobile devices. Unlike end screens, cards are not especially prominent.

The advantages of annotations is that they can be designed to be prominent, they can occur at any time in a video, and they can prompt users to take action. However, annotations only work for desktop viewers, and with over half of YouTube views occurring on mobile devices, end screens may be the better choice!

End screens and cards both work on desktop and mobile devices. They can be used separately or together. However, content creators cannot use end screens and annotations together, as YouTube does not allow both to exist on the same video.

Review your channel analytics to see what devices your viewership uses most. Look at your channel analytics, specifically at watch time reports and devices, to determine what is best for them and what is going to work for you. If you see that your users are not sticking around to the ends of your videos, then an end screen may not be the best choice for you.

Source:
https://www.youtube.com/yt/press/statistics.html

How to Set Default YouTube Upload Settings

by Admin

How to Set Default YouTube Upload Settings

Videos are one of the best ways to tell your brand’s story. It is an engaging form of content marketing that really helps a brand make that important personal connection with viewers. I encourage my clients to incorporate video into their marketing strategy and have been for years. Video marketing content is much cheaper to produce than it was just a few years ago. The only equipment needed is a smartphone and a basic editing app. As you progress through your videography skills, you will add to and upgrade your equipment to include a quality microphone and lighting.

I hope that you are using your video content on your website. Include video in your ecommerce campaign landing pages to help viewers make their buying decision. Videos increase conversions when they are informative and demonstrate your product or brand in a clear manner.

YouTube is probably one of your other video hosting spots. It is after all, the second largest search engine after Google.com. Although the search volume is less, so is the competition. SEO for YouTube is a bit easier too. YouTube creators need to understand how their descriptions and titles help them be discovered. Consulting a channel’s YouTube analytics on a regular basis will also help to grow your YouTube channel’s audience.

Adding relevant information to a YouTube’s video description (the text below the video) helps other people find your content. That means it is easier for you to reach a larger audience through the suggested videos. shown as “Up next” in the right-side column on a YouTube channel or watch page. When you have lengthy information to include with each video, such as your contact information or useful links from the video, filling it out each time can be time consuming and lead to mistakes.

I have a long block of text on each of my Youtube videos that includes all of my social media contact information and a generic description and title that are altered with every new upload. I also have the category set, as well as the language, privacy settings, category, ad formats allowed etc… There are 15 default settings for every video. Use all of them!

Instead of starting from scratch each time a new video is uploaded to YouTube, adjust the default settings so you at least have a base of settings and descriptions to work with. It is a time saver and helps reduce errors. Although a lot of the information must be edited each time, like date and location, it is still a great time –saver.

Figure 1

Here’s How to Set Default YouTube Upload Settings

Go to your YouTube account
Sign in as an administrator
In the top right, select the “Creator Studio”
In the menu on the left, drop down the Channel menu then choose “Upload defaults” [Figure 1]
Set your default settings
Choose “Save”

After the defaults are set, every time a new video is uploaded, these default settings, including description text are auto-populated. I do customize my title, description and keywords for every video and you should too! It is a good idea to set these to match the actual content of each video. It will help your video be more discoverable via YouTube searches. Even though my social media connections remain the same and are listed in the description field, the three-sentence description and title of the video are specific and unique to each situation.

The Top 10 Ways to Promote a Business Online

by Admin

Looking to promote an online business, or to give a brick-and-mortar store a digital advertising boost? Below are ten effective and proven methods to bring more traffic to your website or drive foot traffic to your physical store. Email campaigns, social campaigns and content marketing are all effective ways to advertise online. Pick one and master it, or better yet, choose a few that work well together. Understand how to optimize each technique or hire an expert to help you.

Ten effective and proven digital advertising techniques

Social media: Social media is used to connect with potential customers, vendors, investors, or other stakeholders. Social media is free in the sense that it only costs your time, but a serious social media strategy will require time, creative graphics, a writer, and possibly a dedicated manager to be effective.
Video: Video is my new favorite for promoting businesses, products and brands. Video does not have to be commercial quality to be effective. Audiences are receptive to homemade do-it-yourself videos, shot from a webcam or smartphone as long as the video provides value or entertains.
Blogging: Blogging is a cheap and easy way to promote yourself, products, story, or brand. For under $30 you can get a website setup and begin writing. Everyone has a story to tell, or is an expert in something. This is a way to get started today! Blogs can be added to existing ecommerce websites to add value and give customers information, tips and tutorials. Blogs turn an ecommerce into a resource.
Guest blogging: Guest bloggers write content for someone else’s website. The advantage is that writers potentially get more readers than they would on their own, as long as they can secure a spot on a better known blog. The only downside to guest blogging is that the content does not live on the writer’s website, but the increase in credibility from a carefully chosen website is worth it.
Content marketing: Content marketing is creating and distributing informative and valuable content in the form of whitepapers, studies, videos, and other downloads in order to attract a targeted audience. It encompasses many of the ideas mentioned above, but the content is written to share knowledge, not as an advertisement. Readers usually give their contact information to get the content.
Public speaking: Public speaking is a great way to establish yourself as an expert in your field, to network, and to subtly advertise. Public speaking does take time and practice. You will have to speak for free for a time unless you are amazingly famous. If you can keep your travel expenses down, this is a great way to promote yourself.
SEO: Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of adjusting a website’s content and programming to fine tune it so it is favored by search engines such as Google and Yahoo!. SEO is a skill that has a big learning curve and many businesses outsource this to an agency.
PPC: Pay-per-click (PPC) or paid online advertising can bring new viewers to a website. When done well, PPC is cost effective, but it takes skill, understanding, and monitoring to fine tune a campaign.
Social advertising: Social advertising is paying for promoted spots on popular social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. These ads have different names and a few platforms offer more than one option. For example, on Facebook, users can “boost a post” or pay for a targeted ad in the news feed or right-hand sidebar. Pinterest has two options as well. Social advertising is also useful when you don’t have a lot of followers.
Email marketing: email marketing remains one the most effective forms of online advertising. A legitimate list, cultivated from actual customers and leads, yields the best results. As the list is used, additional information is recorded, like purchase history, preferences, and spending habits.