If you're a saavy evolving marketing guru, you understand how important YouTube is to growing your company. Video-based marketing has become such a commodity that it's now on an even playing field for everyone and even small companies can compete with the big dogs. However, you still have to obtain a bottom line and you want to show that a YouTube channel is worth the investment by showing real results. YouTube makes our job easy by offering a large range of reporting and analytics for each channel. Their Analytics suite is one of the best out there, but it can be a bit challenging for newcomers. Here's a few tips to help you enhance your visibility and grow your social media marketing business campaign using YouTube.

Pay Attention to Audience Retention

In the views section of YouTube's analytics, there's a sub-report called Audience Retention that breaks down videos by total views and average view duration. The main number, average percentage viewed, serves as the best available indicator of how viewers truly feel about your material and overall content. One of the best examples is when someone is watching a video - if the video has over 10 million views but only 15 percent of viewers make it through the entire thing, there's a problem. 

Growing Subscribers Isn't THAT Important

There's a lot of YouTube channels that make a living (or die) by the number of subscribers they have, especially if you're putting out entertainment and media-based content where the creators rely on everyday viewers for ad revenue. However, from a YouTube-based marketing standpoint, subscribers aren't overly important compared to overall views over time. That traffic is driven by social media shares, embeds, keywords and other external links, and that rarely shows in huge subscriber growth. At the end of the day, having growing numbers of subscribers is okay but it's not the greatest indicator of campaign effectiveness. 

What IS Important Are Traffic Sources and Device Reports

Traffic Sources and Device reports are one of the most important tools you can have because they give you answers to where your most effective online video marketing channels lie. They'll give you data on how viewers are finding your videos, how they're searching for your content and whether you're getting more views through traditional desktops or smartphone apps. It's a phenomenal tool that could send your campaign into the stratosphere if identified and applied properly.

Use A Social Media Dashboard

YouTube reports are valuable, but they don't exist in a vacuum. Most video campaigns will be promoted via other social media platforms so the most meaningful trends from Facebook and Twitter won't be visible if you're only tracking performance through YouTube itself. To understand the trends, and then properly take advantage of them, you'll need a larger comprehensive dashboard option. 

ImageWorks, LLC

We understand that social media can be overwhelming, and it's not always easy to change with each update or refresh. If you are looking to boost your social media marketing then you may want to take a step back and reevaluate the online presence you already have.