By: Michael Stelzner

Do you create videos for your audience?

Are you curious about what works on YouTube?

To discover more about YouTube video strategy, I interview Owen Hemsath.

More About This Show
The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It’s designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.

In this episode I interview Owen Hemsath, a YouTube consultant and president of Videospot, a YouTube consultancy that helps authors and brands succeed on YouTube. Owen also writes on YouTube strategy for ReelSEO.

Owen will explore how to put together a smart YouTube plan and how to monetize your YouTube videos.

You’ll discover the importance of video today, as well as the biggest mistakes marketers make with YouTube.

YouTube Strategy
Owen’s story

Owen explains how he decided to pursue his dream of doing video.

When Owen began making videos for his ecommerce website and started making money, he realized he could be more successful helping other business owners leverage YouTubethan he could doing his own product demos.

Owen is now a YouTube specialist and has a YouTube course that teaches the process of building a YouTube channel for business.

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He currently spends 60% of his time working with clients in a group setting and 40% of his time acting as manager for bigger channels that are looking to connect with brands and monetize.

Listen to the show to learn about Owen’s early experience making videos.

The importance of video today

Owen believes that because relationships can be formed through digital communication and social media these days, the value we place on face-to-face interaction has been minimized. Video brings that face-to-face interaction to everyone, since people can use video to develop a one-way relationship with their viewers.

He shares that this type of interaction can take place on YouTube, Snapchat, Facebook video, the live-streaming apps (Meerkat, Periscope and Blab), Twitter and Instagram video.

Owen explains the relationship between Google and YouTube, and why you’re more likely to be found on search if you’re leveraging a video content strategy in your overall marketing plan.

Mistakes marketers make with YouTube

The first thing Owen cautions against is using YouTube as a compilation channel, a holding ground for every video you’ve ever made. For instance, you may have a couple of Q&A videos with your staff, an old commercial and some home video of the company picnic. All of these videos have low views, and there’s no real cohesive strategy.

The second thing Owen calls out is violations of what he refers to as the 3 Ps: Platform, Purpose and People.

Marketers often violate the Platform when they repurpose their non-YouTube video content (Google hangouts, Meerkat videos or portrait videos) for YouTube.

Repurposing leads to a violation against People. YouTubers want to engage with your content, comment and be a part of your community. He says that when marketers repurpose, such as putting their Meerkat videos on YouTube, they’re telling their audience they don’t care enough to create content for them.

The third violation involves Purpose. Marketers need to have a purpose for their videos. They must figure out what they’re trying to communicate with their video and the business objective of that video, whether it’s to build subscribers, get more shares, grow a list or sell a product. Marketers who don’t consider purpose when developing their content strategy are less likely to succeed on the platform.

YouTube strategy

Owen says the first thing marketers need to consider is what they’re going to do on YouTube: what they will talk about and the brand’s message. To figure out the content strategy, Owen has his clients come up with potential video titles, using the 5 Ws: who, what, why, where, when and how.

Start with “who” and make a list of the big names in your industry. Then, go over to “what.” What is the best way to do something, as it pertains to your business? Work your way down the rest of the list to get a full range of ideas for your videos. Come up with the biggest questions asked by your audience and answer them in video. Owen has his clients come up with 100 titles before the even buy a video camera.

The types of videos you make should be specific to your company. If there’s someone who’s comfortable on camera as your spokesperson, that’s great, since communicating eyeball to eyeball is the best way to build a relationship with your audience. If there’s no one to participate on camera, just use audio and graphics.

Owen shares how TubeBuddy publishes tutorial videos without a single face in them. Instead they use screen captures, PowerPoint and typography to answer questions from TubeBuddy software users.

Monetization of YouTube

Owen believes that the point of being on YouTube is to carve out a very specific audiencethat you can serve through the video medium.

He says that rather than trying to build a huge channel with millions of views and subscribers, marketers should create a funnel that takes viewers from their video to a clickable link that leads to an opt-in or product for sale.

Owen stresses that you should know the purpose of the video from the beginning. Do you want people to subscribe? To share? Focus on one call to action per video. You might make 10 videos that are all designed to build a list, and then 20 videos that are designed to get new subscribers.

Is your purpose to drive sales? Owen shares that a lot of YouTubers sell to their subscribers or a non-subscriber base through both in-display ads and pre-roll ads. Both options are 10-second ads that appear in front of the video that’s queued for viewing.

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Owen talks about partnering with YouTube ads pro Jake Larsen when he runs YouTube ads for clients. He says that if you use YouTube ads, you need to remember to focus on selling one product. Then target the ad’s delivery through the ad system to push your video out to a prequalified audience.