We all know that YouTube is the number 2 search engine on the Web in terms of query volume.  It sounds impressive, but what does that mean for local businesses trying to reach customers? After all, aren’t most of the 13+ billion clips watched each month on the site Lady Gaga videos?

It turns out that while many views are purely for entertainment, a substantial number of videos are watched by people seeking help and information.  In fact, there are more than 35 million searches each month on YouTube for “how to” videos.  That’s at least 35 million opportunities for businesses to reach people that may need their product or service.  (Not to mention the opportunity to show up in parent-company Google’s search results.) But how do local businesses capitalize on this trend?  Here are 5 easy ways small businesses can make YouTube work for business.

Create Content that Meets a Need

To reach people that need help you need to create content that satisfies their need.  Simply uploading your existing cable TV ad or shaky footage of a walkthrough of your shop is not going to capture any attention or create any interest in your business. It helps to keep the old marketing acronym AIDA in mind when making and using video for your business.  AIDA stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action.  Capture attention and create interest by meeting the information need of your audience.

For example, if you’re a plumber, a how-to video on fixing a leaky toilet is a great way to get the attention of someone with that problem. You create interest in your service by not only showing how to fix their problem but also providing some additional tips that the viewer might not have considered.

Pay Attention to Production Value

You don’t have to be the next Spielberg, but your videos should be professional and easy to watch.  Shaky hand-held camera work, poor audio quality, bad lighting or lack of coherence in the story all lead to viewers changing the virtual channel.  Pay attention to the lighting. Use a tripod to create smooth viewing experience. Use microphones and pay attention to the audio.  Try to tell a story or clearly walk viewers through the video and what you’re doing.  By paying attention to these basics you’ll standout from the massive amounts of poor quality content on the site – earning you more attention and more interest from viewers.

Optimize for YouTube Search

Nearly 24 hours of new video is uploaded to YouTube every minute of every day.  In order to be found you need to optimize your video so that it can be found on the site.  Here are just a few things to think about when adding your video to YouTube.  Include important keywords in the title and be sure your tags include those keywords as well.  Choose an appealing thumbnail that clearly depicts what your video is about.

To continue the plumber example, you may want to title your video “How to fix a leaky toilet. XYZ Plumbing top tips for fixing a leaky toilet.”  Your tags might be “how to, toilet, toilets, leaky toilets, running toilet, plumbing, DIY” etc.  The thumbnail could be a shot of you holding the flushing mechanism (assuming that YouTube gives you that as an option). Your title, keywords and thumbnail all gives your viewers the information they need to decide whether your video will help meet their need and solve their problem.

Give the Viewers a Follow-Up Action

Following the AIDA model you want to create a desire for viewers to take a follow up action.  If you’ve created an informational video about fixing leaking toilets you want to give the viewer a compelling reason to follow up with you and a clear path to do so.  One way to do this is to provide a special offer and a unique web address in the video.

For example a call to action such as “Print step by step instructions and receive 10% off our in-home evaluation by visiting MySite.com/youtube,” gives your viewers an actionable next step with clear value. The unique URL and discount will also provide you one measurable way to determine how successful your YouTube video is.

Let them Know Who You Are

Don’t be afraid to create awareness about who you are and what you do; it’s important to let people know who they’re getting this valuable information from.  You should encourage users to take a step towards a relationship with your company by having them subscribe to your YouTube channel or company email newsletter (if you have one).  By building your YouTube subscriber base you’ll automatically reach a built-in audience of potential customers who have opted-in to seeing your latest videos.

Our plumber in the above example could say “Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more moneysaving tips on how to eliminate leaks around your home,” and include that call to action graphically in the video. Alternatively, driving people to a newsletter is another way to form the start of a relationship with that viewer.

Those are just five quick ways local businesses can take advantage of YouTube.  There are dozens more, but starting with the basics will put you in front of potential customers who need your help.  What tips do you have for making YouTube work for business? I’d love to hear about them in the comments!

About our Guest Author: – Morgan Brown is currently the director of marketing for TurnHere, a leading online video production and advertising company based in Emeryville, CA. Over the past 10 years Morgan has been immersed in various roles of marketing and in particular, online marketing.  Morgan is the co-founder of Social Media Club Orange County and has given many talks on how businesses can leverage new technologies to build customer relationships and increase sales, reputation and loyalty.  You can learn more about Morgan via linkedin or his personal blog

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A recent survey of 100 Asian SMEs in five countries (majority from Singapore and Malaysia) about their usage of social media marketing was published in The Straits Times in November.  The survey was conducted by marketing consultancy NetProfitQuest (NPQ) and they found that 72% have some presence on social media platforms like Youtube, Twitter and Facebook. Of those with presence on the social web, 79% have a Facebook page and it has now overtook blogs as the number one preferred social media platform.

My take is businesses feel that Facebook is a much faster way to reach out and market to their target audience. However, businesses need to be educated about the value of blogging especially for those with great content at their disposal.

A snapshot of the findings:

• 72% have presence on the social web
• of those, 79% have presence on Facebook
• 80% plan to invest more in social media in 2010
• 87% of the managers and executives have account on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn
• Only 12% of firms reported more than half of their sales came from online channels

It is interesting to note that while there are 72 firms have presence on the social web, only 12 report half of their sales came from online channels. That shows that the majority who already are on the social web does not know how to use the platform to generate sales yet. In other words, there are still alot of room for education and training before businesses can start generating sales from the social web.

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First and foremost, I want to apologies for this poorly taken video. I was experimenting if I could use my Omina II to take videos on the go. The answer is no. I think I will stick to my webcam and executive chair. Anyway, this video is to answer a very mysterious question most businesses have. Why are they not getting any results with their Facebook marketing effort?

So if you want to know what you have done wrong, watch this short clip now!

Someone ask what I meant when I say results. So I am going to elaborate more here. The results are what you set before you intend to establish your presence on Facebook. Are you on Facebook to look for more members to join your community? More eyeballs to your website? More sales? What? If you have no idea what you are doing on Facebook and you are on Facebook because it’s cool, it’s hip and everyone is doing it, then the word ‘results’ won’t have any meaning at all.

So figure out what you want to achieve on Facebook first, and whatever you set out to do, remember that socializing and networking on Facebook will be able to help you get there. Good luck!

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Public-relations guru Scott Goodstein was speaking at CommunicAsia yesterday on how Singapore businesses are in a position to leverage on social media platforms to reach to the masses at an effective and fast way.

Mr Goodstein, been the external online director for United States President Barack Obama’s media campaign since 2007, said that in years to come, mobile phones with social media applications in it, will be the weapon of choice for both businesses and polictian to boost ‘brand loyalty’. One of the ways to engage them will be to provide useful information such as health tips or movie ticket status via social media. “Those who can provide people with real value-added services for free can benefit,” he said.

However, he cautious that businesses need to be ready to take the heat from their stakeholders. He believe that executives at the top will need to acknowledge the fact that people are talking about the brand or products and there is really nothing they could do but to participate. At the end of the day, does the businesses have the stomach for it?

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In this article, we will talk about Twitter as the micro-blogging tool and talk about the practical ways for a business to use Twitter. One of the suggestions you can try is publish articles. Article Marketing is one of the best ways of gaining exposure and establishing your expertise, as well as getting you found in search engines. When you publish an article, post the link to Twitter and immediately you tell your community who may be interested in checking it out. If you publish to more than one article bank however be careful not to “over tweet” your followers. Be selective.

Next, do some blogging. Blogging is an excellent way to interact with prospects, clients, and customers – in fact anyone with an interest in what you’re blogging about. With a simple blog application, Twitter enables you to “tweet” each new blog post to your community, driving traffic to your blog.

What about holding a webinar/seminar? You can use Twitter to get input for your seminar, such as questions and then announce the seminar to your followers.

If your company has launched a new product, you can also send out a news release and blogging tell your audience through Twitter.

Lastly, share and comment. Get the most from Twitter by participating not simply broadcasting. So look for things of interest to your community, that aren’t about you, and share by tweeting and “re-tweeting” to your audience. Respond to your followers’ tweets, but go further by visiting and commenting on their blogs. This has the added value of providing back links to your own blog as well as creating more exposure as people visit your blog to find out more about you.

Setting up a Twitter account is free. However many underestimate the time commitment needed to get the best from Twitter and some find themselves quickly overwhelmed. Twitter can be time consuming for a business – exactly how time-consuming depends on how you use it. Be prepared and plan accordingly.

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