Building A YouTube Channel

My YouTube Story So Far...

I have been thinking about building a YouTube Channel for my company CIBN for probably 5 years. Then Google bought YouTube. That made up my mind. Google is the largest search engine in the world and YouTube is the second largest. Google bought YouTube, and that is just more proof that they love videos. It is well known that they love fresh content, so videos will be the next big thing.

Before we started our YouTube channel Francois Alphonse, my beloved who is a videographer and I did a lot of research. We could see YouTube had made huge strides at the end of 2018 to make their platform more desirable. One can actually edit videos right in the channel now. We watched dozens of videos on how to build a channel. We followed some big players to see what they were doing. We read books, and we subscribed to some gurus. We could see that some local people were making money from having ads on their pages after only 18 months. We could also see that most people were doing nothing with video and that would create a huge opportunity for those who did something.

Our plan was to launch our CIBN TV YouTube Channel and get 100 subscribers as fast as possible so we could customize our URL. The CIBN has a few thousand people on an email list so a few email announcements got us up to 100 in no time. Step 1 accomplished.

The second 100 came over time. People found us, they liked us. We shared videos, it was not that difficult. We would really like 1000 though, and that does take a concerted effort. So we are still working on that.

Why YouTube Is Better Than Facebook

If you have put in the effort to make a YouTube Channel, you have to take the time to also populate it with more content. There are lots of good reasons to do so, including improvements to your business bottom line. The fact is, on Facebook or LinkedIn you can now do live videos, and you can post videos you made there as well. However, people don't watch long videos on those channels. They don't go to Facebook to watch videos; they go to YouTube and they watch videos there for hours. I was not the only one who figured this out. Social Media Examiner had a huge following of over 300,000 on Facebook and in the Spring of 2019 made an announcement they were moving all video to YouTube even though they only had 20,000 followers there. Why? People watched the whole video and they bought things. That was not happening on Facebook. Not that they are looking for my approval, but I totally agree.

We have not made much money in our B2B business from Facebook. Occasionally if we can get someone to sign up for the email send outs from one of the Facebook Groups we get a member but that only accounts for about 3% of our marketing return. LinkedIn still gets the highest at over 80% of the return but we can see YouTube is coming in as a player. All we need is the 4 Cs of marketing that I am always going on about: Content, Connections, Consistency, and Call-To-Action.

By the time we had a mere 200 followers on YouTube we were exceeding our Facebook returns, and I have over 15,000 followers on all of our Facebook groups and pages.

How To Get Weekly Video Content

That pesky second C is Content. That is important. One must have content and it must be consistent on YouTube to get any traction. You can do it yourself, but generally that will look like crap, even if you think it doesn't, and it won't be consistent. It also is going to take your valuable time as a business owner to get it done.

I use Francois at Exposure Video. He has a great plan to do 4 videos a month for only $1000 a month. He makes sure they all have a phone number and website and a call to action. He also posts them to your YouTube Channel and keeps the channel updated. Then even if I do get creative I can add more, but at least the basics are covered. It is a great deal! Now we put out new videos each week, usually on Monday and that really helps keep new people subscribing. Every month now we are getting a few calls because of the videos, so it is bringing in a solid return on our efforts.

What Is The Point Of Having A YouTube Channel? 

Of course we want more business. That is the main reason we have a YouTube Channel, but there are lots of other reasons:

• Our company The CIBN is getting found more.
• Our online offerings and masterminds are getting found more.
• My personal name Kerry George is getting found more.
• Our members are liking the extra material. It is a value add for them.
• We feature our Members and our Sponsors on this channel giving them more reach and exposure.
• The sales team is liking the videos, because it is making their job easier.
• I am repeating myself way less often because now we have a video that describes all of the things that I had to keep saying over and over for our team, our members, and our prospects. That is worth it all by itself. If one is trying to build processes into their business, I don't know how you will do it without creating videos.
• When we reach 1000 subscribers we should be able to monetize the whole thing by allowing YouTube to sell ads on our channel. In no time it will pay us back all of our investment of time and money.

Don't Wait To Start A YouTube Channel

Seriously, don't wait. Right now, many of your competitors are having a video made. Most however, do not have a YouTube Channel to post their videos. If they do, they have only created a graveyard where they parked their one or two projects. It is empty. Remember those Cs. That is how you get any marketing to work. Your competitor is not making ongoing content, posting consistently, to a growing number of connections, while using a call-to-action. The sooner you do, the sooner you steal the market!

Here are a few different kinds of videos that Exposure Video has done for me. We have had a lot of fun doing this and using different tools, but best of all, it has been profitable.

Some Video Examples

This video was filmed in front of a green screen. Sometimes I have him put a very nice lead in on the front of these or use nice music. This one however, was created with the intent of educating the network and/or our sales team to be able to network properly at a large event, so I had him not use so many bells and whistles. It gets it done and it is nice and simple.

This video is done with a drawing tool. It is mesmerizing. Even my 3 year old grandson is captivated for the whole thing.

This is called a Promotional Video. It is short and sweet. It runs nicely on Facebook as well when people are scrolling and don't want the sound on.

There are lots more on our YouTube Channel. Please Subscribe while you are there and ring that bell thing so you get notifications when our new videos go live.