Wednesday evening saw more than 120 beauty executives gather at Google’s New York headquarters to attend a workshop on optimizing brand presence on YouTube. Hosted by Google’s Ericka Mendez, Global Insights Manager of Beauty, and Charlotte van der Smeede, Beauty Brand Lead, the two shared best practices on developing impactful content, leveraging influencers and managing a YouTube channel. Here, some insights from the evening.
- YouTube captures 90 percent of the online population in the US*. YouTube has realized more than 80 billion views related to beauty content on its platform**.
- 52% of users view video before making a purchase. This is not only millennials or younger buyers, it includes a spectrum of ages ***.
- Beauty viewers like YouTube because of the access it provides them with brands; it features the influencers they want to follow; it has the latest trends; they’re able to relate and make connections with an audience.
- The best way to build community is to tell your brand’s story. Get personal. Make sure you’re authentic with your content; embrace cultural change and know the lingo. Enable a two-way conversation; think of your consumer first.
- It’s critical to hook users into your video content within the first five seconds. Watch your content on a smartphone, and other mediums, to see how it reads.
- Follow your favorite creators, see how they manage their channel and engage with their audience. Review your channel and see where you can optimize.
- Content creators shouldn’t think in terms of how long a video should be but rather what the ultimate objective is for the brand. Creators should ask themselves what their key messages are that need to be delivered. Also, think about breaking up longer videos into shorter ones, each with a key message, versus a longer video with many messages. If the shorter video is well received, it might be the right time to then deliver the longer content, which is now captive. Lastly, test and learn.
* ComScore 2018
** Pixability 2017
*** Forrester 2018
