Making Friends with YouTube and the Myriad Magic of Algorithms.
Video is Critical. Knowing How to Use it and Measure it is the Competitive Edge.
- Almost half (46 percent) of viewers say they’ve actually made a purchase as a result of watching a branded video on social media, and a third (32 percent) say they’ve considered making a purchase as a result of watching a video.
- 81 percent of consumers say they currently interact with brands on social media, and 43 percent say they’ve done so through watching branded social videos.
- When asked for their favorite type of branded content on social networks, video was the most popular answer, with 31 percent of respondents listing it as their number one choice.
- Optimize the Algorithms.
YouTube is essentially a search engine for videos. Not surprisingly, it uses a sophisticated ranking algorithm to surface content to viewers. If you want to gain a following and rank your videos higher in YouTube search, uploading fresh content is extremely important. With our in-house virtual and standard content production, we ensure you have consistent fresh content. And that newly uploaded content (as well as the latest actions taken by the users) is taken into consideration by YouTube when ranking videos.
“Watch time” is a very important ranking factor as well. YouTube wants to surface videos that viewers will find enjoyable, so high user engagement is a great signal for the algorithm in identifying such videos. In addition to user signals, YouTube also relies on input from the video owner to feed their algorithm. That means YouTube is counting on you to tell it what your video is about. What we do to optimize your video in the first 48 to 72 hours is critical to the success of your video and how it ranks. When we nail it, your video will shoot to the top when people search for your video topic.
- Maximize the Metadata
Metadata includes information about a video such as the title, description, tags and annotations. Metadata can help your video stand out and get found by the algorithm, so we optimize metadata to maximize visibility. Now, this first tip may sound counterintuitive, but we research what types of videos your competitors are doing before we create your video. The best time to optimize your video for SEO and get more views is before we even record it.
Once we have a feel for what your competitors are doing — the type of videos they’re producing, how engaging they are, how many views they have, what metadata they’re using and so on — we create content that “one-ups” them, both in terms of having better content and being better optimized for YouTube’s algorithm. After we’ve created your video, it’s time to think about uploading and optimizing. Again, the best time to optimize your metadata is before you upload your video — have your keywords, tags, title, description and custom thumbnail ready to go before we press the upload button.
- Do the Keyword Research
At Entourage Media, we find keywords that will drive traffic to your video. The best place to look for keywords is on YouTube, but we also use more traditional keyword research tools. YouTube allows the use of “tags” to help categorize your video by keyword, but it limits the number of tags you can include. We look for multi word tags (i.e., long-tail keywords) that specifically relate to your video’s topic. We also use single-word tags and broad-term tags that relate to your video’s broader topic.
One great way that we have proven success with is to get tag ideas by looking at the top-ranking YouTube videos that directly compete with your video. However, YouTube hides the video tags, which makes it more difficult to “spy” on your competitors and see their keyword/tag secret sauce. We know how to unlock those doors. There are also numerous free and low charge tools that give insights into what competitors are doing, and we put them all to proper use.
- Gain more Eyeballs for Your Video
Zero in on the most used tags the channel used when setting up the SEO for your YouTube channel using “Channelytics”.
We perform an initial and constant “Deep Dig” into tags used on your competitor videos and those applied to your content. 
Along with initially producing your video content, Entourage Media leaves no stone unturned to ensure your content rises to the top of the YouTube ladder.
We’ve been pioneers in these analytics for more than 20 years.
No one does it better. No one.