How To Make Your Marketing Video a YouTube Success

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Many people, even marketing professionals, seem to think that as long as a video is of good quality, it’ll rake in the engagement and impressions it deserves.

Many people in professional video production studios, like those in Los Angeles, seem to rely on this fact and take the YouTube algorithm for granted. With how social platforms work these days, that kind of behavior will be detrimental to your overall video marketing strategies.

While you can quickly post a marketing video on any social media platform, YouTube is still the central stop for creating, uploading, and watching videos. No other video platform has come close. So, it would help if you incorporate YouTube into your video marketing strategies. Furthermore, you have to learn how to do it right. Here are some tips for how to make your videos succeed on YouTube.

Write Your Video Titles and Descriptions with SEO

Writing good YouTube video titles is a delicate balance between being interesting and being search-engine-optimized, known as SEO. Just like when you’re browsing books, you would be attracted by an interesting title. Likewise, if you were in a library looking for books about a specific topic, you’d want to be able to find that book through a database.

Your video title has to serve both functions in the same way that book titles often do. One way you can write a good title is to look at the keywords people will likely search to come across your video. If your video is about fashion, then choose words such as “outfits,” “fashion,” “style,” and so on, and turn them into a title that would make a viewer click.

You may further optimize your video’s metadata by including SEO terms in your description as well. The first two sentences of your video description should contain key searchable words.

Again, it’s important to remember that a good video won’t market itself; you have to do extra work for it.

Also, it would be useful to mention what kind of video you’re showing. A make-up routine? Tips on a particular hobby? A product showcase? An internet challenge? Some excellent video title examples come from Buzzfeed. While they have great video content, they also go the extra mile with their titles.

One example is “Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts Employees Review Each Other’s Coffee.” That would be an entertaining video for coffee lovers and even those who simply love Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts in general.

YouTube Thumbnails Draw in the Audience

Thumbnails are the first thing that the audience sees about your video. While your title works as a descriptor and lets search engines find your video, a thumbnail can be the deciding factor on whether the viewer will tap your video.

Whether on the app or the website, the YouTube thumbnail takes up way more screen space than any title could. We cannot emphasize enough the importance of having an attractive yet relevant thumbnail.

Are you still using YouTube-generated thumbnails for your videos? That won’t do you any good. Creating your custom thumbnail is a skill that will bring you far in the YouTube game. Even if your videos look good at any given freeze frame, we can guarantee that your video will get more clicks if you make a thumbnail that’s creative, representative, and attractive.

There are plenty of tutorials online (especially on YouTube) on how to make a good thumbnail for corporate videos. However, you can always hire a graphic designer to start while you’re still learning the ropes. But here are some things to keep in mind:

As much as possible, go for close-ups of people’s faces and expressions. There can be some exceptions, such as fashion videos or travel videos, but people tend to click videos that feature strong emotions.

The expression of the people on the thumbnail would also give a clue on the video’s mood. Comedic expressions imply a funny video; serious expressions would mean something dramatic. These will automatically get your audience interested.

Another note is to keep the lower right corner empty. Every thumbnail gets a YouTube logo layered onto that corner when uploaded onto the platform. If you place anything there, such as text or an image, it’s undoubtedly going to get covered.

Summary

When it comes to marketing and corporate videos, there’s more work to be done than actually creating the video. People have to arrive at your video first. And with millions of new videos being uploaded onto YouTube every day, you want your video to stand out, primarily through first impressions.

So does it matter at all whether your video is high quality? Is a good thumbnail and title all you need? Of course, a good video is critical; once you’ve attracted enough viewers to it, their engagement will do all the marketing for you. Their likes, comments, and shares will bring in more and more people. All we’re saying is that you need that initial audience to find you first.

While we’ve covered YouTube thumbnails and video titles, you may want to look into tips on sharing videos across social media platforms and how to optimize them. Other factors such a metadata, using YouTube features like end screens, cards, chapters, and more are all techniques that are worth looking into for your brand’s video marketing strategies.

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