Social DR – How Simple Chemistry Can Help You Win With YouTube
It’s been said that stainless steel is an amazing alloy because it doesn’t oxidise or corrode. Many things that make our life easier are made out of stainless steel. Buildings, parts of cars, cutlery, it even helps keep some kitchens hygienic. As you can see many manufacturers have taken advantage of this “fact”.
However, in reality the surface of stainless steel, otherwise known as Inox steel (from the French “inoxydable”), has had just enough chromium added to the mix so that it oxidises on contact with the air. This corrosion creates a coat of oxide that completely and utterly covers its surface.
Aside from just busting the myth about stainless steel (and perhaps showing that I should get out a bit more), what makes this so useful is that the chromium oxide molecules are of a similar size to the steel molecules so they bond very strongly to the surface preventing corrosion spreading to the metal’s internal structure.
This is a great improvement to steel which, due to its higher concentrations of carbons, ends up forming a layer of iron oxide on its surface. This layer tends to flake and fall away due to the molecules that are attempting to bond being of a dissimilar size.
So what’s this got to do with YouTube and Social DR?
To answer that we have to look to how Google have been improving their ad targeting technologies. In essence they have added their own version of chromium into the mix. It comes in the form of the ability to link our different Google properties together.
Specifically I’m talking about linking our adwords accounts to our YouTube accounts. This is huge for those innovative marketers that are benefiting from using Social Direct Response techniques.
It’s very simple to set this up, takes about a minute to do, and once the steps to link adwords to your YouTube account have been completed Google allow you to start building lists based on how people that have interacted with your videos and/or whether they have subscribed or unsubscribed to your channel. This is essentially remarketing on steroids as it allows you to remarket to those that haven’t even been to your website yet!
Imagine the power of having lists like these at your disposal:
1. Users that view, shared, liked or commented on your YouTube video
2. Users that visited your brand’s YouTube channel
3. Users that engaged with your masthead
4. Users that subscribed or unsubscribed
If you then add in the ability to use Google’s remarketing tag on your external website you then have the ability to create lists such as:
5. Users that have visited product page
6. Users that have visited your websites purchase path
7. Users that have added an item to a shopping cart
8. Users that seen your websites thank you page.
As I’m sure you’re beginning to realise, this is where the chromium oxide meets the metal and the Social Direct Response marketer in us all starts jumping up and down in excitement. Even the Social Media Managers that have been concentrating on branding, customer service and engagement scores are happier. After all, having something extra to show for all the fantastic work that they’ve been doing can only be a good thing.
Using the lists in useful ways
Now all this is in place we can take full advantage of our YouTube channel by targeting prospects that haven’t ever touched our main website but have engaged with our brand.
The level of engagement is up to us. We might want to just target those that have viewed a video or perhaps go after the more engaged folk that have liked, shared or commented on a video. One of the most powerful things is excluding people in particular lists so remember to keep that in mind.
We can also change our messaging so that it suits the audience and catches them when they’re in a more “buying mood”. The old adage does still apply. Sell to people when they want to be sold to.
From YouTube to Paid Search
Let’s say that someone has seen information about your widget or service while in Social Media Land, enters Paid Search Land and enters in a relevant term. With all that being the case we can pay more for that click as we know we’re targeting the right person, in the right place, at the right time. This means we can target our copy better, bid more aggressively and ensure that we have 100% impression share.
From YouTube to Display
This time someone has interacted with your YouTube channel and is now looking at one of the websites that Google has in its content network (80% of known internet users). Bam, we can target them again with a display, text ad or a Video ad.
From your Website to YouTube
Of course a more traditional remarketing approach could also be used. Someone might have already visited your website. Perhaps they even started down the route to purchase before abandoning their cart. If that person appears in YouTube we can now target them with a True View pre-roll ad, featured ad or text ad.
When you consider the following, this is particularly powerful;
- Users are forced to watch 5 secs of a True View pre-roll ad before skipping it.
- You don’t pay for a view until someone has watched a minimum of 30 seconds (or watched to the end of the ad)
Further innovation that delivers results!
I’m sure that we’ll see many more innovations as the marriage of Social Media and Direct Response progresses in the coming months. As with all relationships they’ll be a little bit of toing and froing as they figure out what their strengths are and how they can support each other, but all in all it’s a very exciting time.
The growth of Google+ is particularly interesting as the word on the street is that there won’t be Facebook style advertising within the platform. I have some thoughts on that for conjecture and discussion, but that subject is for another blog post.
In the meantime what other ways can you think of ensuring that our branding and engagement audiences are prevented from flaking and falling away. Is Social Direct Response the answer?
James Lawson, Consultant