How to Use YouTube for Event Marketing
As an event marketer, the impact of using video around your events can be significant. It can be a great way to generate enthusiasm amongst your attendees and equally present a good case for those who haven’t yet registered. So if you’re doing it already and doing it well, then you’re on the right track. And if you’re using YouTube, then even more so.
YouTube has experienced enormous growth over the past decade. The site has over 2 billion monthly active users, making it one of the most used online platforms on earth. Businesses are using it too as the importance of video content in marketing campaigns becomes more and more evident over the last couple of years.
With this in mind, we had a chat with the experts at influencer marketing agency, Billion Dollar Boy, to see what advice they would give to event professionals when using YouTube as a marketing channel and what steps they need to take to make their event video campaigns a success. Have a look at what they had to say:
Getting Started
Starting your own YouTube channel is a straightforward process. As with any other social platform, it requires a few personal details to set up an account. Once you have completed the sign-up process and verified your email, you’ll be ready to film, edit and upload your first video. It’s that simple.
Once your YouTube channel is live, your next task is to start growing your brand. With so much competition on the platform, it is imperative that you stand out from the crowd. Put together a well-thought-out strategy that is aligned with your business goals, taking into consideration who your ideal audience is and what type of content will resonate with them. Thereafter, develop a clear plan of action that will help you reach your intended audience, increase your followership and ultimately grow your event’s brand.
Creating the Right Content
There are two main avenues in which to promote your brand and events. For the purpose of this article, these can be broken down into authentic content and promotional content.
1. Authentic Content
Authentic content is a more natural, informative and entertaining approach, which tends to develop more trust among your audience. By producing authentic content you’re doing more than selling products or services. You’re creating a loyal following and building a brand for the long-term.
Read: 3 Content Marketing Tips for Event Planners
Event marketing lends itself to this kind of content particularly well because it gives you the opportunity to use real footage from a past event. For example, INBOUND has consistently produced great promotional content just by editing together clips from the past year’s event into a slick highlight-reel style video.
2. Promotional Content
Promotional content – as the name suggests – is predicated towards directly broadcasting messages about certain products, services or events. While it can be effective in its own right, excessive promotional content is increasingly viewed as self-serving and unreliable. As a result of this, such messaging is being disregarded with greater frequency in the modern environment.
Optimising Your Content with Keywords
Once you’ve settled on the best approach, it’s time for you to start posting to your YouTube channel. You need to make sure that your content is optimised for the platform, however. This will ensure your videos rank higher in search results and that they are reaching your desired audience.
1. Creating Effective Video Titles
YouTube is essentially a search engine for videos that uses complex ranking algorithms for user content. Including keywords in your video titles that are relevant to the subject matter is vital. If you’re struggling to find the right keywords, consider browsing other successful channels that post similar content for some inspiration. What keywords are they using? Are the keywords implemented naturally in a title that entices clicks? Are they related to the content? Alternatively, you can use keyword research tools to aid the process.
2. Using ‘Tags’ to Your Advantage
Now that you’ve figured out the title of your video, ‘tags’ are the next step in the content optimisation process. Tags should also include keywords that are related to your video’s subject matter to help your content rank higher in search engine results. YouTube limits the number of tags per video to below 400 characters and it is therefore imperative that you use them effectively. Consider using multiple-word tags in addition to single-word tags and broad-term tags.
For example, if your video is a guide on “how to host a world-class business event”, you will want to use multiple word tags such as “what to consider for your business event”. You can also use single-word tags like “business” or “event”. Lastly, broad-term tags you can use words relating to the subject matter, eg: “conference”, “convention”. A combination of all three will help your videos rank higher in related searches.
3. Writing a Compelling Video Description
Video descriptions are another way to utilise keywords to your advantage. They must, however, maintain a natural flow. Therefore, be sure not to stuff keywords within the text. Find the right balance between content that is optimised for YouTube’s algorithm but is also easy and enjoyable for humans to read.
Avoid Clickbait at All Costs!
In the context of YouTube, clickbait refers to the use of titles and video thumbnails designed to entice visitors to click on a video. Clickbait is extremely misleading and in some cases completely falsifies what is under the proverbial hood.
Whilst clickbait will almost certainly increase your viewership in the short term, it attracts the wrong audience to your videos. As such, visitors will only tune in to your content for a short period of time before quickly leaving to find more relevant material. This “bouncing” aspect will eventually affect your ranking negatively.
Clickbait in any capacity is not advisable, but even more so in a B2B context. It will tarnish your business reputation and should be avoided at all costs.
The Role of Influencers in Event Marketing
The ever-growing popularity of influencers – with the large followings to match – on YouTube, makes them a great resource for promoting event marketing. Collaborating with influencers who have values and standards that are aligned with your business is an excellent way to generate buzz and attract the right audience. They can extend your reach and increase your sources of traffic by exposing you to prospects who may never have heard of you before.
Read: How to Choose the Right Influencers for Your Event Marketing Activities
Working with influencers in video format presents an opportunity to be more creative and interactive to engage an audience. In 2016, SAP, a business solutions company, used influencers to conduct live-streamed interviews to promote their annual Sapphire Now conference. With these live-streamed videos, SAP were able to generate increased online conversation about their event and reach an audience they wouldn’t have otherwise reached.
Conclusion
YouTube is an extremely useful platform in event marketing. After setting up your channel, establish who your ideal audience is and what type of content they’re most interested in. With that information, you can start to develop material that your prospects will find useful and enjoyable.
When the time comes to publish your targeted content ensure that it is optimised so that more people can find you. Combine elements of authentic and promotional content in your action plan and also leverage the power of influencers to extend your reach even further. Following an informed strategy in this way will help you achieve better results with regards to ticket sales, bookings and event attendees, not just social media reactions.
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