Welcome to episode 373 of Hit the Mic with The Stacey Harris.
All right guys, let’s talk YouTube. So over the last several months I have raved and raved and raved about Facebook lives and how fantastic it can be to connect and I actually had somebody email in and say, “Well, what about YouTube? Do I still need to be doing videos on YouTube if I’m also doing all this Facebook video stuff?” And so that’s what I wanna answer today. I want to talk about why YouTube is still totally relevant, still totally important and valuable, and wonderful, and how to use it to support what you’re doing, maybe with other video channels.
Before I do that, I do want to jump in and let you know Hit the Mic Backstage is absolutely your next stop after this episode because tomorrow, November 1st … Holy crap, I can’t believe it’s going to be November tomorrow, we’ve got a brand new training launching a new training YouTube best practices, so it’s really going to expand on everything we talk about today. This is going to be your one-stop shop for exactly what you need to do to get the fundamentals of your YouTube game on point. All right, so hitthemicbackstage.com to check that out.
Let’s jump in. We’re going to cover three things today.
The first one is just answering the simple question of, does YouTube still have a place for me in this video content arena?
And the answer is yes. YouTube is the number two search engine in the world. And guess what guys? It’s owned by the number one search engine in the world, and results from YouTube actually pop up in Google results, so yeah, guys it’s still relevant. The power here comes from not saying, “I’m ditching YouTube and I’m going to Facebook video.” But sharing them in both places, because there’s not an exclusive rule here. No one says that just because a video’s a Facebook live originally, it can’t go to YouTube. In fact, any content I’ve put up on YouTube this year has originated from Facebook live.
Don’t skip it, use it.
Facebook is fantastic for video and it’s wonderful for the short period in which you’re live and then the following, slightly longer period in which it can show up in the news feed of people paying attention to your page, then it kind of loses some of its steam. That’s not the case with YouTube, because again, number two search engine in the world, the relevance is still there because it can still show up in search results so if you’re creating content that’s valuable, it’s still findable, it’s still searchable, it’s still reachable, it’s still viewable. That’s why you gotta continue to pay attention to this tool.
Let’s talk about two thing we can do to really up our YouTube game.
Number one, don’t forget to do the SEO work, and when I talk about SEO or Search Engine Optimization, what I’m really talking about is your headline, or your title, your video title, and your description. That’s where you want to make sure that the keywords that your audience is using to find that video. One of things we’ve started doing with some of our client’s videos is actually including transcripts in the description. We’ve seen some great results with that. The best results have really been though in keeping it short and on point, relevant links, keyword packed description, and when I say keyword packed, let me just clarify that I do not mean keyword stuffed. I do not mean inventing a place to put keywords so that we can just shove as much as possible in there. What I do mean is using the words your potential viewer is going to use when looking for that video to describe that video. It really is that simple when we’re talking about the SEO.
Then making sure our tags are on point, now this is where we can start stuffing keywords. This is where we can start … just everything that we think of, put them in there. Again though, they need to be relevant. We’re not putting keywords to just random stuff because we think we’ll show up in the search then, no, we’re putting relevant keywords to the video. Okay? Do your SEO work. Make sure it’s on point. In the video that you … The training we’ve gotten backstage that goes up tomorrow, we’re actually talking about one of my favorite tools which is TubeBuddy and how I use that to do a lot of this stuff, to monitor a lot of this stuff, and to make sure this stuff is on point for our stuff and our client’s stuff. So pay attention to that part of that video because that’s going to be a really beneficial one when you’re looking at this part of it.
Number three, be consistent.
Now, I’m the first one to raise my hand on not being super good at this year. We’ve been really solid with doing Facebook lives fairly consistently. We’ve missed a few here and there, but on the whole, we’ve done it pretty consistently. I’ve been less consistent with making sure that those get up on YouTube, but it’s something we’re doing better the last part of this year and really committing to in 2018, because we are seeing results when we do it. Be consistent. That’s really your best way to get subscribers. It’s really your best way to grow an audience. It’s really your best way to get consistent views on your videos. Make sure they’re going up with some regularity. You also want to be consistent with things like your titles, and your keywords, and the process you use when a video goes up. So have a system. Having a system, being consistent with the tasks and what needs to be done makes it really easy to outsource, to hand off.
Our admin team and the team we recommend most often for handling this stuff, AdminEase, they are fantastic with knowing this process and getting it done because they do it for a lot of their clients, they do it for us. I really encourage you to work with your VA and figure out what is the checklist of things that happen. Where does our keyword research go? What are our sort of standard keywords? Here’s the deal guys, you talk about a fairly specific topic, because that’s your business, so you’re really going to have a good foundation of keywords that are probably going to go up pretty frequently. And then you kind of have a list to pull from depending on the specific topic of that video. There you go, there’s your problem solved.
Build those tools, build that list, and get it going so it’s executable to maintain that consistency. Make sure your editorial calendar is built to maintain that consistency, all right?
Super short ones to end October, if you’re listening to this today, be sure to join us in Backstage so that you can grab the new training tomorrow. If you’re listening to this sometime in the future, go to Backstage, the training is live, you’re not going to want to miss it, all right? I will see you next time, have an excellent week.
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