17. Leveraging the YouTube Community
YouTube is more than just a source of videos; it’s a community. The community aspects of the site help you build viewership and a customer base, and establish your own unique business presence. That’s right, being successful on YouTube isn’t just about creating a great video; you also have to take advantage of the social nature of the YouTube site to build a community of friends and subscribers.
Working the YouTube Community
With all the focus on YouTube as a video viewing site, it’s easy to forget that YouTube is actually a video sharing community. As such, YouTube thrives on social networking—and your channel and videos get more viewers if you fully participate in the YouTube community. You can’t just post some videos and expect to get viewers automatically; you have to make your presence known to inform viewers of the videos you’ve posted.
In reality, this means being an active viewer as well as a poster. You can’t just sit back and wait for customers to come to you; you become a member of the community when you view and subscribe to a lot of other channels. And you become even more noticed when you leave comments with those videos and users that best serve your needs.
Social marketing on YouTube is no different social marketing on Facebook or MySpace; it requires active participation. As you should know by now, social media is a two-way street. You can’t just ask for attention, you have to provide something in return.
In most instances, that something is your own input—comments on other users’ videos or channel pages, subscribing to channel pages, and the like. You have to become an active member of the YouTube community to be taken seriously.
Of course, this means connecting and contributing on a fairly regular basis. You—either you personally or someone specifically assigned to your YouTube marketing efforts—needs to connect often and personally. You don’t want to be anonymous in these conversations; it’s better for users to connect with “Phil from Jascorp” than with “Jascorp Marketing.”
Connecting with the YouTube community involves both your company presence and your presence on other pages on the site. Yes, you need to establish a YouTube channel page, but you also need to view and comment on other YouTube videos. You have to get out there and participate; you can’t wait for your customers to come to you.
For example, if work for a home and garden retailer, subscribe to your suppliers’ YouTube channels, if they have them. Seek out videos that have to do with gardening and landscaping topics and comment on them, as well as subscribe to their producers’ channels. Build a network of people interested in what you do, and establish ongoing contacts with them.
Caution
When you’re participating in the YouTube community, you can’t be blatantly promoting your business. It’s no good to leave a comment along the likes of “Great video! Look for our new widget in stores near you.” That’s self-serving and doesn’t do anybody any good. Instead, you need to contribute relevant and useful comments; you have to advance the conversation, not hijack it.
How does this work in reality? It takes time and effort. You want to search the YouTube site for videos like yours, or users who have something in common with your business. After you find a sympathetic user, view his videos and leave some comments. You might want to mention that you have similar videos in your channel and encourage friends of this user to head over to your channel to see more. At the very least, you want to spark interest in your videos from the person whose videos you’re viewing. If you view his videos, he’ll view yours, and hopefully tell other viewers about what he’s seen.
What goes around comes around; the more comments you leave, the more people see your name and channel and the more views your videos receive. To get people interested in your channel, you have to show interest in theirs.
Posting Bulletins to Your Channel’s Subscribers
One type of community available on YouTube revolves around your YouTube channel. Everyone who subscribes to your channel becomes a member of your own community, and YouTube makes it relatively easy to communicate with (and promote to) those subscribers.
The best way to get a message to your subscribers is to post a bulletin to your channel. This is a short update that you enter on your channel page that then appears not only in your channel but also on each of your subscribers’ home pages, in the Recent Activity module. (Figure 17.1 shows a bulletin on a home page.)
Figure 17.1 A bulletin posted on a channel page.
Bulletins can be text only or include a link to a YouTube video. To post a bulletin, click the down arrow next to your user name at the top of any YouTube page, then select My Channel. When your channel page appears, click the Post Bulletin tab; this opens the new pane shown in Figure 17.2.
Figure 17.2 Posting a bulletin.
You can now enter the text of your bulletin into the large Enter Message text box. If you want to include a video in the bulletin, enter the link to the video into the Enter Your YouTube Video URL box. A preview of your in-progress bulletin appears in the box on the right side of the pane. When you’re ready to post the bulletin, click the Post Bulletin button.
Working with Friends and Contacts
Another way to work the YouTube community is to add people to your YouTube Friends list, and use that list to promote new videos. YouTube Friends are just like friends on Facebook, MySpace, and other social networks; they’re people with whom you can easily communicate and share things on the YouTube site.
You can think of YouTube’s Friends list as a kind of high-tech customer mailing list. When you have something portentous to announce to your customers (such as a new video or a product introduction), you can send out a message to your list. Unlike traditional customer mailings, however, sending electronic messages to your YouTube friends list is completely free.
Adding a Friend to Your List
Adding an existing YouTube member to your friends list is relatively easy. Just go to that member’s channel/profile page, scroll to the Connect With box, shown in Figure 17.3, and click the Add as Friend link. YouTube now sends an invitation to this person to be your friend; if he accepts, YouTube adds him to your Friends list.
Figure 17.3 Adding an existing YouTube member to your Friends list.
Sending Messages to Your Friends
When you want to send a message to someone in your Friends list, click the down arrow next to your user name at the top of any YouTube page and select Inbox. When the Messages page appears, click the Address Book link in the left sidebar.
This displays the All Contacts page, shown in Figure 17.4, which lists all your YouTube Friends. Check the box next to those people you wish to send the message and then click the Compose button.
Figure 17.4 Viewing all your YouTube contacts.
You now see the Compose page, shown in Figure 17.5. Enter a subject for your message and the text of the message itself. If you want to attach a YouTube video to this message, pull down the Attach a Video list and choose a video from your favorites. Click the Send Message button to send the message on its way.
Figure 17.5 Sending a message.
Tip
You’re not limited to sending messages to only existing friends and contacts. To send a message to any YouTube user, go to your inbox and click the Compose button; from there you can enter any member’s username for the message you compose.
Reading Messages from Other Users
YouTube also lets you receive messages from your viewers and customers; these messages end up in your YouTube inbox. To access your inbox, click the down arrow next to your user name at the top of any YouTube page and select Inbox. As you can see in Figure 17.6, your inbox lists all email messages you’ve received. You can view other types of messages by clicking the Personal Messages, Shared with You, Comments, Friend Invites, Video Responses, and Sent links.
Figure 17.6 Waiting messages in your YouTube inbox.
To read a message, just click it in your inbox; the message displays onscreen. You can delete the message, mark it as spam, or send a reply to the message by using the Your Reply box and the Send Message button.
The Big Picture
Taking advantage of the YouTube community is essential to promoting your business or online content. It’s through these community ties that you drive viewers to your videos and then on to your own website.
Of course, participating in the YouTube community requires a real commitment; it’s not something you can do halfway or hire someone to do. (YouTubers can spot a “hired gun” from a mile away.) You have to take the time to learn the YouTube community and actively participate in it. That means viewing lots of videos, entering lots of thoughtful comments, and joining lots of groups. It can be a full-time job.