Once upon a time, YouTube was the only worthwhile home for video content and many brands struggled to produce any video content at all. Today, video is one of the kings of digital marketing, and the competition for delivering that video has changed the best practices for how brands should deploy and promote their video content.
Here are the high points:
- The YouTube search algorithm is more competitive than ever and the platform itself is becoming less friendly to creators as time goes on
- Social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram give priority to content uploaded directly to their platforms. If you have a video, do not link it to YouTube, upload it natively. Otherwise, you face an algorithm penalty.
- Many video viewers, especially on social media, watch videos on mute. Use more text and include subtitles for your videos to maximize engagement.
- YouTube is still relevant and is useful for organizing content libraries or for embedding video into websites. If you do a lot with video, you might consider using a service that gives you more ownership and control of your video content, such as an AWS or similar service.
As always, send me a message if you have questions.