Adapt your YouTube video strategy with these six things you should keep top of mind.
We all know and recognize YouTube as the OG video-sharing platform, and over the years, YouTube has successfully adapted to the ever-changing digital landscape and found ways to stay relevant all while continuing to dominate the internet. We could all follow their lead when it comes to rolling with the punches, so here are six things you should keep top of mind in your YouTube strategy to get more eyes on your content and brand.
- Did someone say YouTube Shorts?
YouTube rolled out this feature in 2021, and it’s already a huge part of the platform. In fact, YouTube is prioritizing these shorter videos, which are vertical and 60 seconds or less. Content that is authentic and not too produced performs the best. Consider incorporating YouTube Shorts into your video strategy – our clients who have done this have seen an uptick in views/engagement when adding Shorts to their content mix.
Pro tip: If your YouTube Shorts are less than 15 seconds long, you can add music to the videos through the app.
- If you’re not creating awesome thumbnails, what are you even doing?
A video’s thumbnail and title are what viewers use to determine whether your video content is worth watching. Making your thumbnails customized and attention-grabbing is an absolute must. Pick the most appealing shot and relevant phrase to go on the thumbnail.
Pro tip: You can easily swap out a video’s thumbnail, so if a video isn’t performing well, it’s worth seeing if changing the thumbnail makes a difference.
- Subscribers are out; click-through rate is in.
Back in the day, the number of subscribers a channel had was the marker of success. Now, it’s a channel’s click-through rate, which is how often viewers watched a video after seeing its thumbnail. (Again, this is why thumbnails are important!) According to YouTube, half of channels on the platform have a CTR of 2% to 10%.
- Branding, branding, branding.
It’s likely that most viewers are not going to watch 100% of your video, so this is why you shouldn’t wait to have branding only at the very end. Having branding in the first few seconds is major for increasing brand awareness – especially if your video is an ad.
- Closed captions are a win.
Having closed captions on each video is important for accessibility reasons. For regular YouTube videos, we recommend adding them in the back end. (Yes, they can be auto-generated.) And for YouTube Shorts, we recommend embedding them on the video so viewers automatically view them as they scroll through their feed.
- Coming soon …
YouTube recently announced they’ve been testing out a feature that allows creators to dub their videos in multiple languages. This is a game-changer because creators previously had to operate multiple accounts (in various languages) or share multiple versions of a video if they wanted to have them dubbed in other languages. Moving forward, creators will be able to share one video, and viewers can choose what language they want to hear the video in.
Pro tip: Read YouTube’s “YouTube Creators” e-blast to stay up to date on the latest YouTube trends, personalized tips and announcements.
Have you been convinced to take your YouTube channel to the next level? Whether you’re using YouTube for organic or advertising purposes, or even a combination of the two, we can help. Get in touch today.