One third of Internet is on YouTube.
It’s crazy.
But I remember when YouTube first came along it was a revelation. All of a sudden there was all this video online.
I loved it because people, who knows who or where they were, were uploading all these old country music videos. All of a sudden I could watch all these videos from my childhood. I’d get lost for hours.
Anyway, it’s still like that. People look for all kinds of information on YouTube. Educational. Entertaining. All kinds of things.
And it’s true that video is becoming easier to create and upload, but it’s still quite the effort. Especially to make good video with good sound and visuals.
And that might be the biggest reason that YouTube might be the best online marketing opportunity for local businesses.
Here are some ways you can reach your local audience with YouTube videos…
Documenting Daily Life
One of the easiest things to do is to take kind of the vlog approach to posting videos. This would be creating a video that just documents what you do throughout a day or week or month.
You film all that goes on and then edit it down to a certain time. Perhaps five minutes or ten or whatever. You kind of show the highlights.
Maybe there is a theme. Maybe there is a lesson or moral to the story. Maybe it’s entertaining or educational.
I’m a fan of quantity. I think quantity leads to quality and documenting your work life or even your personal life is a good way to build your quantity.
That’s another item that holds people back with all content including video. It’s challenging to get quantity and thus quality.
But if you commit to posting one video a week and document your workday everyday you should easily be able to come up with a 10 minute video each week.
Why will local audiences care?
They’ll see you working. Perhaps even with people you know. Chances are you spend time in the community. At restaurants, events, etc. Add these local items to your descriptions on YouTube and local people will find them.
The odds are good that there isn’t enough local content to feed people’s demand.
Case Studies
I love golf and some of the best golf teachers are on YouTube using a combination of documenting and case studies. They’re teaching students in real time.
These are more like case studies. It’s showing viewers what you do, how you do it and they can kind of put themselves in the customer’s shoes. They will want to work with you.
Obviously you’ll want to get permission from anybody that you use as a case study, but it’s a great way to get great content. Doctors, chiropractors, insurance, restaurants and so much more.
Tips
Another way to create video is to create tip videos.
Find the questions local people are asking as it relates to you and your business and record your answers with video.
That’s it.
Mechanics are great at this. They collect questions that local customers are asking and they create videos. How to check air pressure. How to check oil levels. How to change a flat tire. How to change windshield wipers. How to wax a car.
All kinds of things. People are looking for this information and they’re looking for it on YouTube even more than Google.
Evergreen
Two final tips for you…
I like to focus on evergreen content.
For example, the idea of a mechanic creating a video for changing a flat tire. That’s something that people will be curious about for a long time. The video can help people immediately, but also in the future.
It’s easy in our world today to focus on short-term content. News. Holidays. That kind of thing.
For example, you might want to post a Merry Christmas video one day. That’s fine, but it will become dated very quickly.
Focus on each video as if someone will see it five or even ten years from now.
Hire Someone
Also consider hiring someone. They don’t necessarily need to be an expert with video, but it will be good if they’re curious about learning video.
Have them follow you around documenting what you’re doing. Some of the best golf teachers use this method. The teacher teaches and the video person documents, edits and publishes to YouTube.
If you’re serious about this strategy then hiring someone will probably be the only way you get it done.
You’re too busy. You probably don’t want to learn about video.
Hiring someone takes care of those issues.
Final Thought
You’d be surprised at how localized YouTube can be. You can bet that most of the people in your community are looking for content on YouTube. And you can also bet that many of your local competitors aren’t using the channel to earn attention.
Use the strategies above and you can take advantage of an overlooked opportunity.