Optimizing Your Brand's YouTube Channel

At one point or another in your social media marketing efforts, somebody probably told you that your brand should post content to YouTube. So you did. But now you want to up the ante. How can you go about doing that you ask? Follow these six simple steps to optimize your brand’s YouTube channel.

Invest in a YouTube ad buy

I’ve found that a lot of people aren’t sure how to secure a “Brand Channel,” or the paid version of a YouTube channel that has a clickable channel banner on the top, and plenty more customizable options. So, to share a secret of the trade, you don’t buy a YouTube brand channel outright. You buy enough YouTube ads and get the Brand Channel as an add-on. This means that by simply reallocating some of your ad budget to YouTube for a quarter, you can secure you a much better YouTube channel for your brand. Everybody wins. (Obviously, this comes with the giant disclaimer that you must work with a YouTube representative to work out the specifics of this ad buy to make sure you’re buying the right stuff.)

Cross-promote your social assets

There are several ways to do this. 1- When you plan on posting a video to YouTube make sure you leave room in your content calendar for posting a link to that video on Twitter, Facebook, and possibly on your blog (or anywhere else that may make sense for your brand).  2- Link to your social assets in the channel banner at the top of the page. You can easily add image maps to this area. If you’re not sure how to create an image map, use an online tool that will do it for you. I really like Adam Maschek’s Online Image Map Editor because it’s quick and simple.

Turn on mobile

Just recently, YouTube started using HTML5 to display their video content on your mobile phone. But, you must make sure that your channel allows this type of syndication. Under the “edit video” settings, make sure you select, “Yes, make this video available on mobile phones and TV” under “Syndication.”

Add annotations

Branded Channels have the option to link to an external site with their annotations. That means, that when you’re highlighting a product feature, you should be linking to that product. It’s similar to clicking a hyperlink in a blog post to learn more about what that phrase means.

At the end of any video, try to link to a playlist you’ve created with videos that are similar in nature. You can do this even if you don’t have a Brand Channel.

Organize your content

Playlists are a great method for letting your customers know what types of content you have posted to your channel. They may find a great video they didn’t know to look for.They also show up higher in the YouTube search results than the videos themselves. Make sure you take this into account when you create a playlist and make sure it has a search friendly description attached to it.

Optimize your video titles and descriptions for the robots

One of the biggest reasons to post content to YouTube is for traffic based on search. YouTube content (particularly playlist titles and descriptions) can sometimes show up in a Google or Bing SERP before blog posts that have been viewed thousands of times. Make sure you optimize video titles and descriptions for crucial keywords.

These are just six simple ways to optimize your YouTube channel. Of course, there are plenty more. If you’re interested in how you can make the most out of your YouTube account, let me know in the comments. I’ll try to lead you in the right direction 🙂



Ignite Social Media