Wrap Up From Social Media Day San Diego 2018 – Part 1: YouTube Strategies

(Disclaimer: Many factors will be important in determining your actual results on social media and no guarantees are made that you will achieve results similar to ours or anybody elses, in fact, no guarantees are made that you will achieve any results from our ideas and techniques presented in our blogs or videos.)

If you missed out on attending Social Media Day San Diego last week, it’s ok – we’ve got you covered! We’re starting with YouTube since videos should be a huge part of your social media marketing strategy.

Sean Cannell – YouTube Strategy That Generates 344 Leads per Day – How To Leverage Online Video & Have a Greater Impact

Some YouTube Stats:

• Growing quickly with 1.9Billion monthly active users
• Has gone mainstream – used more exclusively in prime time now online
• Is Global
• Creators earn serious cash through ad monetization
• Is a discovery machine & 2nd powerful/largest search engine. No other social media platform has that kind of search power.

Here’s the one strategy to generate leads: Consistently posting videos that are reverse engineered to leverage the search and discovery power of YouTube.

Here’s how to leverage this strategy:

1) Research before Pressing Record. Plan the position/topic of the video, the title, description, etc. first. Search YouTube for keywords & look at the suggestions – the drop down list is *in order* of what people are searching for!! This gives you content ideas to help solve your audience’s problems. When you use these popular topics/keywords, your videos will be ranked higher & be found more often. You can also install a browser extension from keywordseverywhere.com to see how often keywords are being searched for in google.

2) What Gets Measured Gets Improved. Look at your insights to know how to get better. YouTube Studio Beta has detailed analytics. Minutes watched matters more than total views. YouTube wants to see people watch videos longer and will show your video in suggested videos more often to others by minutes watched and if people click through on your CTA.

So how can you increase your click through rate (CTR)? Only 2 ways: Title of your video and the thumbnail image! And *don’t* repeat the title on the thumbnail.

Pro Tip: Design 3 thumbnail pics & post to your FB/Tw/IG and ask your audience which they would be more apt to click on.

The #1 source of traffic on YouTube is suggested videos. Here’s how to hack the suggested videos:

• Identify related channels in your industry cluster
• Identify trending content & topics on their channels
• Create related content to join in on the conversation. Don’t copy! But it helps to dove-tail on to trending topics – ride their wave of momentum.

Roberto Blake – Video Content Creation for Brands

Video content creation is no longer an option. Brands that don’t use video will be left behind. If you don’t want to be the one on camera, find someone in your company who can be charismatic and will do a good job. Opportunity still exists to be the Netflix of your niche – take advantage of that!

How to sell on YouTube? Do not expect your organic content will result in a sale, because it won’t. You need to educate your audience -> Gain their trust which takes time -> Then they will buy. Consumer buying behavior boils down to “Do I know you?” “Do I trust you?”

You cannot do 1-off campaigns. 1 campaign is a test. Then if it works, you can go deeper; if that performs well, then develop the relationship.

Look for the creators – they are the influencers. Creators have creativity, consistency, context that draws people in, and charisma.

Mistakes that brands make on YouTube:

• Content produced is all commercials
• Inconsistent and infrequent video posting
• Videos are entirely focused on selling
• Relying on YouTube to do everything for them
• Paying to boost views on a video like Facebook
• Not putting conversation tracking in place
• Not understanding YouTube analytics
• Using influencers without understanding their audience or how to leverage their skills.

What YouTube Wants:

• Watch time – minutes watched
• Session time – binge watching episodes/videos
• High click through rates 2-10%
• Retention rates (50% or higher)
• Optimized metadata (use Tubebuddy)
• Low session ends (keep people on YouTube – don’t let them leave your channel)
• Frequent uploads (3-5 times per week)
• View/Watch time velocity (most of the views come in the 1st 24 hours)

Tactics for Brands:

• Produce episodic web series
• Consider making a reference channel
• Use creators/influencers as producers
• Develop a strategy for each platform
• Amplify your content distribution with your social media channels
• Focus on educating your decision makers
• Make content that is shareable on social media
• Use video to grow your email list
• Focus on a specific view persona when planning your video content
• Dominate your niche search
• Make content with specific goals in mind

How to Optimize Videos:

• Be sure to match keywords used in first paragraph of description and search phrases created in tags
• Use Tubebuddy to identify titles with high search volume and low competition
• Use long form titles to have an advantage in search phrases
• How to, What is, How much …. are great search friendly titles for education or tutorials
• Analyze your best day & time to upload your videos
• A/B test thumbnail images for what drives views

3 Main subject areas of content for brands:

1) Entertain/Be the hero. Entertaining videos that offer product/brand association are great for awareness & creating a positive association with the brand or reaching a new audience.

2) Motivate. Videos that inspire people to take action & demonstrate the role of the brand/product/service can be powerful & create brand advocates.

3) Educate or Help. Informing & educating your decision maker means becoming the trusted authority in your niche and the one they turn to time & time again for information and the truth.

Other Tips:

• Create 8-10 episode series and label it Season 1, Episode 1. Then release over a couple months. Gets people to go back & watch all videos in the season.
• Use other social media channels to drive traffic to your YouTube channel.
• Do a trailer for your YT video & put ads on the trailer to drive traffic.
• Do a publicly available YT Live Webinar – put link in the description to sign up for something and tell people to stick around to the end of the video for that link. Pin content to different sections of the video that people might want to jump to.

Billy Gene – How to Create YouTube Ads that Sell & Target People Who Will Buy

“If you don’t make video, you will go out of business”

If you think that video “isn’t for my business”, that’s your fault. Video can be used for any industry – it’s your responsibility to take this information and figure out a way to apply it to your business.

Formula for videos:

• 1. Props
• 2. Environment
• 3. Music

People go to social media to be entertained. If you’re trying to sell but you’re not entertaining, you will lose. Entertainment is not an option, it’s a requirement.

It’s a good idea to use a score card to evaluate how well your videos are using the above formula:

• Props:
  • Is it unique/rare/stand out?
  • Does it peak your curiosity?
  • Is it relevant?
• Environment (don’t use the same spot in your office – walk, go outside, etc.):
  • Is it eye-catching?
  • Is it well lit?
  • Is it pleasant to watch?
• Music:
  • Is it memorable?
  • IDoes it match the tone/emotion of the video?
  • IIs it audible & good sound quality? (don’t want it too loud or too quiet)

Cool thing with Facebook video ads: You write the story of the video in the text/ad copy. Cool thing with YT video ads: Your video has to tell the story – needs narration.

To do this, you need douchey stuff that will grab their attention, and then you can use the rest of the video to educate. Some douchey stuff: Using a Porsche/high end cars, explosions, graphic overlays, kids, animals, etc.

If you think your brand/service can change someone’s life, you have an obligation to be douchey in the first 5 seconds to grab their attention. Otherwise, you’re doing them a disservice because they won’t watch your video & learn the important message you’re trying to get across.

Use different camera angles:

• 1. Close up: creates emotion & connection
• 2. Far away: establishes the scene & tells the story
• 3. Alternate angles: keeps attention throughout video

To peak curiosity & keep attention: start walking!

People will keep watching because they want to know where you’re going, what you will do next.

Real Estate: “Hey, follow me. I want to show you the house that just sold for $500K that this person just bought with no money down, 2% interest, and bad credit ….”

Chiropractor: “Hey let me show you who this old lady, who sits down at work all day, got rid of her chronic back pain

Breaking down the 4th wall is everything! Don’t act like you’re not creating an ad – talk to people in your video. The most helpful thing you can do in your videos is stereotype.

Add music to enhance the emotion in your videos, but be careful to match the tone and don’t let it overpower the narration. Go to audiojungle.net or artlist.io  these sites allow you to search for music based on emotion!! Each song costs between $6-12 and you can legally use them in your ads so they don’t get pulled!!

Here’s how to turn videos into sales with a simple formula:

• 1. Ask to solve their problem in the first 5 seconds
• 2. Demonstrate an example of you solving it
• 3. Ask them to solve their problem in exchange for their contact information

Who is your ideal customer? What are the top 5 problems they’re facing? That’s your script – do a video that addresses 1 problem each day.

Don’t *tell* them, show how you solve problems. “Telling is for losers.”

Don’t forget the obnoxious call to action!! Use 10-30 seconds of the video telling people to click the button

• Tell them where it is by pointing in your video;
• Repeat yourself;
• Let them know time is expiring with a screenshot of the time expiring

Use Google Trends to tell you the top thing people are talking about and find a way to do a video that applies to your business in that topic.

Use Google’s keyword planner to find people based on their interests & words they search for. Guess what? They’re not searching for “buy my program”.

Search for popular videos on YouTube & advertise on them; also find specific websites you can put your videos ads on.

You only get charged for views over 30 seconds!!

The most successful videos are memorable….put yourself in your audience’s shoes and appeal to their emotion.

We’ve got 2 more parts to our Social Media Day wrap up –

Part 2 is next week and will be about organic reach, marketing to Millennials, running Facebook ads, and Instagram marketing.

Part 3 is the week after and will cover how to build a better experience for your audience with relationship marketing, influencer marketing, and some of the legal issues surrounding influencer marketing.

Don’t miss out – please come back each week because there is so much information you need to know to be successful on social media. Stay Social!