Many businesses upload their videos to YouTube but fail to take advantage of the analytics provided. You can learn a lot about your videos and your business by knowing who shares and watches them. Because YouTube has become the second-largest search engine behind its parent company, Google, people are watching and sharing online videos now more than ever. Your business may be getting earned media (publicity) and not even know it.
Here’s how you can see what websites are sharing your videos using YouTube analytics. Log in to your account and go to your “video manager” (in the upper-right corner drop-down menu on the home page). Click the “analytics” tab (left-hand column) and select “playback locations” under the “views reports” section. Then select “embedded player on other websites” in the center of the page. This will provide a list of the websites that have embedded (are showing) your videos. If you want to view this report for a specific video, use the “Search for your videos” field at the top of the page and type in its title.
If you find videos that have generated earned media, take the next step. See what it was about them that created buzz and try to recreate that in future videos. Was it the content in the video, title, description or tags? Read the comment sections and go to the websites that picked them up. Are they being shared by distributors, retailers, industry publications, news sites, blogs or forums? Determine what demographic reads those publications or websites and see if you can find the specific articles that reference your videos and read them (sometimes it can be tricky to find the exact page). The more you know about where your videos are being shown on the Web, the better you can ensure your brand is being presented in the best possible way.
Marcus Owens is the digital media manager for The Cube Productions and EMG Inc. in Santa Rosa. He manages a successful YouTube channel with more than 19.6 million views and has more than 10 years of media experience ranging from radio and print to website consultation and digital video. Find out more at. www.thecubeproductions.com or www.youtube.com/emgpickupstv .
