We all know millions of people log on to YouTube to views videos from across the globe each day. YouTube is not just about  viewing/posting  movies trailers, music videos, silly videos of sleepwalking dogs/ children’s, holiday camps  and other funny/ embarrassing moments — it can also be used as a highly effective Business tool. The public relations or social media marketing is built on the foundation of 2 way communication. Whether it’s working with the media, writing a tweet, managing Facebook page or building a website, communications professionals are tasked with raising awareness of their employers’ or clients’ work and perspectives -– and learning from and responding to the conversation.

Video sharing sites like YouTube are an excellent way to break the ice because nothing online is as personal and human as video. And right now, few activities online are more popular. In February there were 139.2 million unique online video viewers in the U.S. who spent an average of nearly 4 and a half hours watching video on computers at work and at home. YouTube channel can not only help in creating rich vblogs around your product, service, company, technology or the CSR activity and it has the ability to increase a brand’s online presence dramatically for a fraction of traditional marketing costs.

YouTube ads are also a cheap source of traffic, and can drive viewers to other social media profiles (like Facebook) or Web sites with clickable call-to-action overlays.

Below are some examples of how brands are using YouTube:-

• Marketing: A picture is worth a thousand words, and thousands of pictures streamed together at 29.97 frames per second is worth a lot more. Demonstrating your product with the help of a video with product data, statistics or any other information that is important for buying decision can help you win customers way before you ring his doorbell. Most of us working comes across regular presentations made my Executive boards, Product teams, marketing teams, financial performance, share information, recognize outstanding workers and so on. While bulk of such presentations are  for Internal/ restricted  audience with a little edition/ deletion we can build a non controversial presentation around it. Also we have the need to revisit the presentations for future reference. YouTube channel is a very simple solution to manage such presentations
  • The United States Navy Channel uses YouTube to attract potential recruits. The Navy’s recruitment-focused channel is organized into playlists that target specific groups of recruits with military precision.

• Intel and AT&T uses their popular television campaigns as the feature reel on their channel, but they also offer a wide variety of other content, including a look at what it’s like to work with them, and video from event and conference etc

  

  • Delta Airlines is another good example of how to drive engagement with the help of some existing ad’s, fresh content in form of product/ service demo and testimonials form the customers

There are multiple examples of companies doing it successfully like Nortel, Google, EMC Corp, Forrester, etc . Some of the other things company can do engage TA on YouTube are:

• Training: Videos can be a great way to train employees on anything from using software, managing their equipment, to work related training, to making a great sales pitch presentation
• Help: Does your help desk get repeat calls from users requesting assistance on the same problem? Create videos of the correct steps to solve the most common problems, and build up a bank of self-help videos for users to check first. Next time when you get a call just direct them to the video which solves their problem and you will see a large chunk of number calls will drop
• Events: Events are something where companies spend a lot. You can extract more value out of your event marketing if you think about ways to co-produce video content. Remember, integrating marketing channels and initiatives is well known for producing a campaign “multiplier effect.” Whether it’s video shot at a trade show or a promo for an upcoming event, just make sure that the video is well produced and edited for length

These are just a few ideas out of endless possibilities. If you have some thing to add for the benefit of the community… please write a comment.

Once you’ve got an idea, plan your shoot, grab a camcorder flip cam, and you’re on.

Happy reading

M