Top 5 Ways Your Business Is Failing On YouTube

Many would say that uploading a video to YouTube is as easy as stealing candy from a baby; however, I’m here to tell you that if you want it done right, it’s easier said than done!

Here are the top five mistakes businesses are making on YouTube:

Failure #1 – Your channel is ugly

If you haven’t put careful thought into how you want the channel art and icon to look, there’s a good chance users won’t want to peruse the channel. It should also be consistent with your other marketing avenues like your website, as well as adhere to brand guidelines for colours, logo use, etc. Another thing: if you haven’t set up playlists, you’re not making it very easy for prospects to navigate through your content.

Failure #2 – You’re not harnessing the power of the platform

YouTube has developed several features to organize videos and make them easy to find. Have you spent time developing proper titles, descriptions and tags for your videos? Have you used Annotations to link to related videos you’ve already posted? There are many benefits to doing so, like moving the viewer through the sales funnel and further educating them on your solution.

Failure #3 – Your video quality is poor

There are many puzzle pieces that go into creating a high-quality video – so much so that we could make them into a series of blog posts on their own. Having said that, a few things to consider: Is the lighting poor? Is the audio distorted? Does your video solely consist of a talking head? If you answered yes to any of those questions, you’re doing it wrong. Also, you can’t expect your viewers to call you, email you or visit your website if your video is missing vital components like a call-to-action.

Failure #4 – You’ve taken the “social” out of “social media”

If you have disabled or are ignoring comments on your videos hosted on YouTube, you’re missing an important aspect of this network. Similarly, if you are not using the share buttons and posting to Twitter, Facebook or Google+ you’re missing out on a potentially wider audience.

Failure #5 – You haven’t monitored or measured the success of your video

Are you familiar with YouTube Analytics? Sure, you may be tracking view counts, but did your viewers stop watching in the first 10 seconds? Do you have any shares in social media? If you don’t take advantage of this feature, you won’t know whether your video has had any success.

Have you made any of the above mistakes? Fear not! Check out our next blog post about using YouTube to learn more about what you can do to improve your strategy.