With all of the different social media platforms available to you today, where does YouTube fit in? YouTube is mostly known for its viral videos, but how does that relate to the business world? Turns out, there is a lot more to the service than funny cat videos—here are three useful ways to use YouTube in the workplace:
Educating Yourself and Your Staff
YouTube is one of the best places to go if you are in a jam on anything. Besides being the number two search platform on the internet (with Google holding the top spot), they have literally millions of how-to videos that can help you figure out a solution to your problem. We use YouTube when we are unsure of how to navigate through software, websites, or new features that we are just getting a feel for, but there are plenty of non-digital topics covered. Whatever you do for a living, there is probably somebody who can help you do it better on YouTube.
Educating Others
Yes, YouTube is a great place to go to learn, but the other side of learning is teaching. If you have some particular expertise you want to share, try YouTube. You can create videos showing step-by-step instructions, or you could record TED-style talks on the ideas behind what you do. You can also post videos of yourself speaking to the more personal side of things in order to help your audience build a trusting relationship with you. It is always good to share your knowledge with others—and who knows, you may even get enough views and subscribers that you can turn your knowledge into cash.
Promoting Your Brand
Video marketing has taken off within the last few years. Telling a story through video is a great way to promote your brand because it gets your audience more engaged. People naturally pay more attention to content that moves, especially if there is also an audio component. Add in a human face, and you have even more immediate emotional engagement. Faces snag attention, engage empathy, and evoke an emotional response in a way text alone, or even still photos, can’t. That’s a lot of power you can harness for your brand, just by posting a short, professional-quality video.
Next time you find yourself on YouTube looking at a funny video, ask yourself, “am I using this platform to its full potential?” Odds are the answer is no. From that moment on, it is time to get to work and start your YouTube marketing journey. You will not regret it.