According to a recent study, nearly 8 out of 10 marketers rank YouTube as the most effective marketing platform. 62% of businesses are already using it for marketing purposes. However, not all companies using YouTube as a marketing channel are achieving results.
It’s not enough just to create videos that you find interesting, upload them and wait for clicks to start. You need to know all the best practices for YouTube publishing to keep your account in good standing, stay in touch with your target audience, and deliver results.
In this article, we’ll take a closer look at specific YouTube publishing best practices that will help you get the most out of this platform.
Study copyright law
All brands must be fully aware of what copyright law covers. Not only can it protect you, but it can also prevent accidental use of what you cannot use. When you use social media (especially as a brand!), You agree to their terms that you do not use any content that you do not own or have permission to use. They can easily check it. Make sure you are not infringing copyright. Content owners can use YouTube’s own tool called Content ID to find other videos with their content, including audio tracks. YouTube can completely remove audio or video. If your account has enough copyright infringement issues, your account may be blocked.
Here’s what you need to know to avoid copyright issues:
- Do not use audio, images or video clips that you do not own or do not have express permission to use. Just because you bought a song from iTunes doesn’t mean you can use it in your branded video. To do this, you must acquire the right to commercial use.
- If you want to include music or stock photos in your videos, either find the “free for commercial use” options that sometimes come with such tools, or purchase commercial licenses for copyrighted content.
Always enter keywords in the text of the video
YouTube is the second largest search engine on the Internet, second only to Google itself. So, you need to optimize every part of your video for a native search engine, as this can be an important part of helping customers find your content and discover your brand.
Include keywords in the title, video description, and ideally in the subtitles. Include different keyword variations in each location to maximize your search potential. For example, your title might include the keyword “best luggage,” and your description might include keywords such as “best suitcases” and “safe baggage check”.
You can use a tool like Keyword.io to determine which keywords are most used by your target audience. Be sure to use the dedicated YouTube search tool to see what people are looking for not only on Google but also on YouTube.
Create closed captions for each video.
Closed captioning in your YouTube videos is essential for all brands. They make the video available primarily for deaf or hard of hearing users, but they also allow people to watch it silently if they so choose. As the number of people browsing YouTube on mobile devices and sometimes in public places grows, subtitling is becoming an important opportunity for viewers. While you can add subtitles to your videos in any video editor of your choice, we highly recommend adding them using an SRT file or YouTube’s own subtitle feature. When you view a video uploaded to Creative Studio, you will see a “subtitle tab”. From here, you can create subtitles and closed captions for your video, aided by YouTube’s automatic transcription features.
When you edit the subtitle of a video, you can choose which text will be displayed on the screen and when. You can also edit the auto-generated signatures. YouTube’s auto-decryption features have improved significantly over the past few years, but some bugs are still popping up. If you have a quiet speech or have an emphasis in general, editing these signatures will take a little longer. The beauty of closed captioning is that users don’t need to turn them on in any way, but they are there for everyone who wants to see them.
