7 Ways YouTube Can Brand Your Business

I never would have imagined that Janet Jackson’s famous “wardrobe malfunction” would inspire the creation of one of the awesomest websites in the history of the Internet.

It all started when Paypal employee Jawed Karim tried to find a copy of Janet’s famous wardrobe mishap on the Internet. He tried in vain but could not find any website that hosted a footage of that particular event.

In the meantime, two other Paypal employees, Steven Chen and Chad Hurley, were having troubles sharing a video they had taken at a dinner party. Due to the limitations of e-mail attachments, they could not properly upload and share the video because the size limit was inconveniently constricted.

Faced with these hardships, the trio pooled put their heads together and by November 2005, they had officially launched what we know now as the second largest search engine in the world – YouTube.

Branding Your Business Through YouTube

Since its launch, YouTube has been the host to some of the 21st century’s most loved videos. You must have already seen some of them. From the charmingly cute “Charlie Bit My Finger” (which garnered over 450 million views- making it one of the most watched videos on the site) to the most recent and annoyingly ubiquitous “Oppa Gangnam Style” dance and music video by PSY. If you haven’t watched or even heard about it yet, you would probably be surprised when I say that a lot of YouTube videos have already became a significant part of pop culture, integrating themselves into the hearts and minds of Internet users all over the globe.

After being acquired by Google in November 2006, things really started to pick up for YouTube. Businesses have started to notice the website’s potential for brand development and marketing.

Now, 60 hours worth of video material is uploaded to the website EVERY SINGLE MINUTE.

It is the third most visited website and occupies a 43 percent market share and is also the most prominent video sharing site on the Internet today.

So why aren’t you taking advantage of this?

Here are 7 ways how you can easily leverage off YouTube:

1. YouTube can help define your brand visually

Dove soap promotes the concept of “real beauty” (i.e. beauty that is not artificially altered or Photoshopped). Their “Campaign For Real Beauty” is one of the most recognizable marketing campaigns in the last decade. Part of its success came from the Dove Evolution video, which shows how advertisers drastically alter the face of a young woman for a billboard, thereby distorting the way society interprets beauty.

Notice that the video does not outright sell Dove soap. What it does is show people how the Dove brand would like to be viewed by its consumers – as a company that celebrates real, unaltered, beauty.

2. Your YouTube video can act as a call-to-action.

Blendtec’s “Will It Blend?” marketing campaign was downright hilarious in its execution. It involves having random objects such as golf balls, iPhones and other electronic gadgets thrown in into one of Blendtec’s blenders. Amazingly enough, most of these objects are no match for the immense power of the Total Blenders.

I don’t know about you but after seeing them blend an iPad2, I just felt like buying a freaking Blendtec blender for myself.

3. YouTube can help you educate people

The premise behind Home Depot’s YouTube videos are simple: they teach people how to do stuff. These videos are how-to guides that teach people how to do things around their house, from simple repairs to a full-blown house renovation. The great thing about this is that they give people more value compared to traditional advertisements and other fancy marketing stunts. These videos actually provide viewers with KNOWLEDGE.

Uploading regularly on YouTube can establish your brand as a capable thought-leader in a particular field. People need to know that brands know exactly what they are talking about. It is a way of gaining trust. Regularly putting out updates and other information-laden video material can help a brand gain a thought-leader status in a particular field.

4. YouTube’s users can let you know what works for your brand

YouTube’s comments sections provide users a platform to air out their feedback, opinions, and other concerns. This is a great opportunity for businesses to see what people are thinking about their brand, at the same time, engage and interact with them.

5. YouTube can spotlight your brand’s greatest features

Nothing beats promoting a brand or product on YouTube. Samsung, Motorola and other electronics manufacturers frequently release videos that promote the best features and capabilities of their products. Nikon has videos that showcase the picture and video quality of their cameras, while the aforementioned Blendtec boasts the extreme durability of their blenders.

6. YouTube is social

The dynamics behind YouTube is more than the idea of sharing videos of cute cat antics and random people doing funny things. YouTube is not just a video sharing website, it is also a community – a group of like-minded individuals that come together, network and even collaborate on projects. This is still relatively new and most apparent between the musicians of YouTube, but that doesn’t mean you can’t start making friends with famous YouTube celebrities to endorse your brand. (For example, Ryan Higa aka Nigahiga)

7. Marketing on YouTube is amazingly cheap

I lied. It’s practically FREE. All it takes to start a marketing campaign on YouTube is an Internet connection and a video camera. Since YouTube content can be easily shared on social networks, there is no need to start a new campaign for each of these networks. Social signal generation can be maximized by easily sharing one video on Facebook, Twitter and even Google+.

With all the hype that you can generate and the marketing costs that you could save, why aren’t you including YouTube in your social media marketing campaign yet?