It’s a little hard to believe that YouTube is just ten years old. Nowadays, this video sharing and streaming site is at the heart of absolutely everything, and is officially the second most popular search engine in the world (just behind Google).

If you’re looking to market your brand, it seems absolutely crazy to ignore the enormous amount of traffic that pours in and out of YouTube every single day. Nonetheless, very few brand owners take advantage of the opportunity to advertise on YouTube. Unless you have the right kind of skills in-house, it can feel a little daunting to upload a video to the site, and several companies swerve it completely in favour of trying to create brand awareness by means of social media channels like Facebook and Twitter. These guys are missing a trick. It really isn’t that scary or difficult to market your brand on the world’s biggest video sharing site. Indeed, you can actually do it extremely effectively by following these four simple steps.

1.  Create A Tip-Top Channel That Reflects Your Brand Image & Values

First things first – create a YouTube channel that reflects your brand’s image and values. There are plenty of customisation options available for tweaking a channel, and in order to create a lasting, recognisable brand image you’ll need to be consistent right across the board – from your webpage to your video hub. Design your channel carefully, pack it with content and update it regularly. After all, there’s nothing worse than stumbling across a YouTube channel that’s been gathering dust for months.

2.  Master YouTube SEO

An incredible amount of traffic flows through YouTube each and every day. Whilst this opens your brand up to a huge number of potential new customers, it also means you’re left competing against thousands of competitors. In order for people to find your content, you’ll need to master YouTube search engine optimisation (or SEO for short). Think long and hard about the keywords that represent your brand, and integrate these keywords carefully into your video titles and meta tags. Writing detailed video descriptions is also highly recommended, as this will create more opportunity for you to cram in a few extra keywords (but don’t go overboard, Google’s algorithms can detect this and you’ll be penalised).

3.  Create An “About Us” Video

People like to put a face to a name, and by creating a short “About Us” video for your brand you can encourage customers to identify with your company. It only needs to be a short, simple piece about why you created the brand, what customers can gain by interacting with you, and what sort of products you have on offer. Be sure to introduce yourself, and any key players in the team, in a swift and friendly way. It might take few practice shoots, but it’ll be totally worth it in the long run.

4.  Integrate Your YouTube Into Other Social Media Channels

Finally, don’t forget to share, share, share. That really is the best way to help get your video content out there on the web and make sure it’s seen by as many people as possible. Throw in some hashtags on Twitter and get embedding videos on your Facebook brand page. It’ll redirect traffic to your channel and allow customers to stumble across all the great content you’ve created.