People often go to Google and search for solutions to their problem or just randomly browsing for whatever they are interested for. If you can create interesting ideas and information, people will find you automatically. They will share your stories and if it is a problem or a unique idea, they will try to solve them or to understand them. They are advertising for you. They tend to be more trustworthy for other customers than the advertisements made by the company.
With YouTube13, companies can easily upload Audio & Video publications. Those publications can be easily accessed by the customers through a few clicks. By clicking the subscribe button, they receive them automatically every once an upload has been made.
Creating an account on YouTube is the easiest thing ever! The only steps are to enter the required information and click on some buttons. This is also the reason why there are so many users on YouTube posting millions of videos every day.
So how exactly do we stand out in this huge crowd?As talked earlier, as long as you provide something interesting onto the web, people will maintain their interest on you. However, if you think back to the Five NOTs talked about earlier, there is this last one which talks about how we shouldn’t have a strong commercial intention. This is true and should be taken into serious consideration when ever videos and audios are to be published onto the web. People go online to look for interesting videos, not some advertisements to force them into buying products.
13 http://www.youtube.com/Nalge Nunc International is a world known company for its famous polyethylene plastic water bottles. The company publically claims that their Nalgene water bottles are impossible to be destructed. This lead to a continuous wave phenomenon where people all around the world upload videos on how they can or cannot break the water bottles. If you would search “Nalgene” on YouTube, you will find hundreds of videos each of them with different method to break the water bottle.
These videos become a mean of advertisement for your company and your product. If the appearance rate of your product is high and is always bonded with a positive message, then your reputation will improve and will definitely lead to more sales.
I do not know if this is truly their marketing strategy at the time, but I can say that it would be a really successful one if it is.- The Best Job in the World15
- BlendTec Experiment16
14 http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Diet+Coke+and+Mentos&aq=f
15 http://islandreefjob.com.au/about-the-best-job/
16http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=BlendTec&aq=f
YouTube also allows customization of channel pages.
Therefore everyone can optimize their background, the header, the avatar and personal profile. As a company’s marketing team, the YouTube page for the company has to be designed for their customers.
Pepsi as pointed out earlier (In
Pepsi as pointed out earlier (In Internet Vs.
Traditional Marketing), has a theme of “Energetic”, “Creative”, “Young” and “Local”. Their YouTube channel page has expressed this theme through the use of background, header and personal profile.
Figure 4- Pepsi Channel PageThe immediate sense of “Energetic”, “Creative” and “Young” can be felt by looking at the background and the header graphics designed by Pepsi (Figure 4).
So what IS the point of showing their theme?Well, we can spot its target audience according to the theme that its brand is trying to present. Obviously, they are the people from younger generations who may/ may not be energetic and creative, but Pepsi wants to promote the idea of “If you drink Pepsi, Your Cool, Energetic and Creative” There is no doubt that Pepsi has chosen a good theme for the company, but the marketing of its products is the force behind it that drove the idea to everyone’s mind.
Pepsi’s Channel Profile:Pepsi’s channel profile (Figure 5) is simple and does not include much
information. However, they included links to their official website.
Well, the reason is very simple. First of all, the personal profile section on the YouTube channel has limited space for them to express who they are. Second of all, the background and the theme of the channel page already hint who and what kind of company Pepsi is, but not so enough. Pepsi
Figure 5- Pepsi ChannelWANTS MORE ATTENTION from their viewers. So they choose not to include any more information to extend your stay on this YouTube channel. They incorporated links that links to their website which includes more information. The increase of stay period (period of time that is stayed on the website) on their official website can; lead to a higher ranking on search engines, better establishment of loyalty and creates more business opportunities.
However, it is not necessary that you follow Pepsi’s method exactly. There are other instances such as Coca-Cola’s Channel18 and IBM’s Channel19 You can decide upon the significance of using this method on your company.
18 http://www.youtube.com/user/cocacola 19 http://www.youtube.com/user/ibm