Understanding the sources and structure of traffic to YouTube videos can be incredibly helpful when developing an online video promotional strategy. Despite this, many businesses fail to make proper use of the tools available; as such, they are missing out on an opportunity to fine tune their campaigns. Two simple YouTube tools – traffic sources and playback location – can provide all the necessary information for developing a much more effective approach.
Traffic sources provide two key pieces of information: how people are finding videos and how long they are watching them for. Knowing the former makes it possible to identify where the best value for money/time spent is coming from when it comes to linking. Areas that are not proving productive at all might be dropped, especially if further research reveals that they are not delivering effectively for others in that business sector either. In other cases, looking at comparative statistics might suggest that a particular market is being approached wrongly; for instance, that by taking a different approach on Twitter – perhaps by telling more jokes, sharing more useful resources or responding to followers more often – it might be possible to get more attention paid to links posted there.
Knowing how long videos are being watched is important for getting a more meaningful perspective on number of views, as people clicking on a link, immediately deciding it is uninteresting and going away again is worth nothing in marketing terms. It is also useful as a comparative tool, allowing businesses with several videos to determine which are most attractive to viewers and thereby what angle it is most useful to take in future. These viewers can be examined in two groups – subscribers and casual viewers – so that a business can effectively balance the need to hang on to people with an existing interest, including repeat customers, with the need to attract new people.
Playback location is also useful in terms of understanding how best to promote video content, especially when the embedded player option is explored in depth to see, for instance, how well videos viewed on Facebook compare to those placed elsewhere. This is helpful in determining overall returns from any one area of social media work, and it can also help a business to estimate how much time spent on its website is spent watching videos. To find out more about how to use online video effectively as part of a larger campaign, contact Xcellimark.
