We’re revisiting the topic of marketing through YouTube which we briefly covered in our Social Media 101 article with more information on how you can create engaging videos that will help you sell.

Yes, your clients watch YouTube.

The growth of online video has picked up pace in the last few years. In May of 2008, 13 hours of video were uploaded every minute, and by March of 2010, that reached the astronomical number of 24 hours of video uploaded per minute. In May 2010, YouTube exceeded 2 billion views a day. An Emarketer survey on video viewership found people of generation y views about 5-6 hours per day.

With so many videos out on the web, it’s really important to stand out. You can do that by being entertaining,informative, or both. Being entertaining is hard, so don’t think you need to come up with something as clever as this recent OldSpice ad to stand out. 19 million views is great, but your better business bet is to engage a more select audience by catering to their interest. What can you do to engage your target audience?

1. Education and instructional videos are popular on YouTube. In fact, YouTube has a whole how-to section dedicated to tutorials of all sorts. Some have even launched careers in this arena like Michelle Phan, makeup guru. Try your hand at a how-to video.
2. Do a review of products, accessories, or services related to your own. Ask yourself, what are my customers interested in?
3. Create videos that answer a Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) about your product or service.
4. Make it personal and reveal something about yourself, your business, or your community. YouTube exists at the intersection of traditional content and social user-generated content. Often, personal is more engaging. Does your business have a history? Your product? How have you shaped your community?
5. Indulge those most passionate about what you do. Create content fans will love, not a sales pitch.

Tips & Tricks

These guidelines should help you not only boost traffic, but also conversion rates on the videos you create:

1. Similar to Animoto’s Call-to-Action button, YouTube allows you to add a button to the end of your video that links back to your site or your YouTube home page. Also, don’t forgot to add a subscribe button to the end of your videos so fans can follow your channel. Explore YouTube’s advanced features and add text boxes and captions to your videos
2. Encourage sharing of your videos. Start by simply emailing your video to family and friends, maybe even a list of your clients, with the hope that word-of-mouth marketing and email forwarding takes hold to launch your business to the next level.
3. Maintain an active profile on YouTube. Remember, that YouTube is not just somewhere to post your videos and hope that people watch them; rather it’s like any other social media site and requires maintenance and time on your end in order for it to be an effective marketing tool. Regularly monitor your YouTube account — if people comment on your video, respond.
4. Remember the little things! Choose your thumbnail image wisely because it will be the first thing viewers see when they are directed to your video player page — and you want it grab their attention so they feel compelled to press “play”. Also think about the keywords you use in the title of your video, the description, and tags. Keep search engine optimization (SEO) in mind and choose words that will make your video one of the top results in relevant searches. Relevance is the key, don’t shoot for the biggest category you might be relevant in but a narrow one your content is perfect for.

For other awesome tips to propel your business with YouTube we recommend this article on Mashable.