.png?width=200&height=50&name=Untitled%20design%20(21).png "Untitled design (21)")
I’m not sure I need to convince you that people love watching videos. But just in case, did you know that YouTube users consume more than 1 billion hours of video every day?
With nearly 2 billion people (yep, that’s how many users YouTube has— that’s almost one-third of the internet) using the platform to upload, watch and share videos every month, why do so few recruitment firms have a strategic approach to YouTube? After all, YouTube is the world’s 2nd most popular site, if you’re not leveraging its power— you are missing out.
What is YouTube? Just in case you live under a rock and this trend has passed you by, YouTube is a worldwide video-sharing platform. Three former PayPal employees created it more than a decade ago and it was acquired by Google (the actual most popular site in the world) soon after. According to Alexa, users spend more minutes per day on YouTube than Google and 11% of YouTube’s traffic is from search.
Recruiters love social media. We’re comfortable with LinkedIn and Facebook to source talent and promote opportunities, we confidently leverage Instagram to build our company and culture profile, we follow hundreds of thought leaders on Twitter to keep up-to-date with the latest trends (and gossip). But YouTube … that’s for gamers and crazy cat ladies, right?
Err, no. It’s time to learn how to navigate the brave new world of video and effectively use this engagement channel to drive business objectives.
Drive traffic to your website
YouTube is less crowded than Google, as a search engine, so there’s a lot more opportunity.
Just like Google, the YouTube search bar will predict phrases based on common searches. So position your agency videos on the other side of job seeker and client questions.
Great! What does that mean, exactly?
Start with the top 10 FAQs your recruiters and business development reps field on a daily basis, make a video answering each question. Position the videos to leverage search by embedding them in your agency blog or linking to your agency website. Create playlists for your different target markets (job families, temp vs perm, clients etc.) on your YouTube channel, for easy linking access.
Video content is powerful. It builds trust, empathy and ultimately relationships. Video is most people’s preferred content format, which leads to a higher level of engagement and can help grow your agency!
Humanize your brand and build trust
Follow the advice above, add video job ads, candidate testimonials, interviews with key clients and hiring managers and you will begin to reap the rewards in word of mouth referrals, positive candidate feedback and new business.
The latest research from Indeed reports that a lack of online presence provokes automatic suspicion in 77% of job seekers. Make it easy for them to trust you, show the faces of the people who work at your company. Put yourself, and your people, out there. When you put faces to names, it creates empathy.
The average consumer in today's market is exposed to more than 5,000 advertising messages per day, and can make a decision about your website in 1/20 of a second. Consumers are overwhelmed with images, and sales pitches and desire a more emotional connection from the companies they do business with. Being authentic and genuine isn't something that companies can fake, a strategic mix of employee-generated video and professionally produced ‘hero’ videos will give you just the right balance of professionalism and authenticity.
Increase quality backlinks (without trying)
Backlinks are a crucial factor for organic search ranking. According to Brian Dean of Backlinko, the number of referring domains is one of Google’s most important ranking factors.
A quality backlink is a link that comes from a high domain authority (DA) website that is well-trusted by search engines and searchers alike.
YouTube has a flawless domain authority (DA) score—a 100, meaning, something posted on the domain has a greater chance of appearing higher on the search engine results page (SERP) than lower ranking domains like Wistia with a DA of 80 and Vimeo with a 96.
This authority comes from the massive amount of backlinks, interactions and views the website gets a day, way above any other video hosting platform.
YouTube is free and packed with features to help you grow
Yep, totally free. It costs nothing to create a branded YouTube channel, add playlists and start acquiring subscribers. There is no limit to the number of videos you can host (for free) on your company’s YouTube channel.
In addition to the low (no) cost entry. YouTube is the most mainstream video hosting platform out there. Everyone knows what YouTube is. Everyone knows how to use YouTube. Everyone has watched a video on YouTube and everyone is comfortable with the platform.
YouTube also provides unlimited bandwidth and file size, and you can now upload videos longer than 15 minutes. Other features you can expect to see are:
- Basic analytics such as total views, link referrers, views by location
- Target your audience with display, retargeting, bumper, overlay, skippable and non-skippable video ads
- Social sharing; LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook support YouTube
- Easy embedding of videos and playlists to job boards and career sites
- Engagement such as commenting, liking, and rating
- Responsive design
- Subtitles and closed captions
- Live streaming
- Unlisted and private video settings
- Custom URL (brand your channel’s url i.e https://www.youtube.com/c/VideoMyJob
- YouTube Creator Academy (learning centre)
When it comes to online video, you simply can’t ignore YouTube. It has the most content and the most viewers of any video host on the web. Are you ready to jump into this brave new world and use video to grow your business?
If you thought employee-generated video and peace of mind were mutually exclusive, you should explore VideoMyJob’s branded video features and discover how household names like Siemens and Randstad are leveraging the power of employee- generated video!
