By Abe Disu • Part 1 • 

With 3.2 billion people logging into social media every day, it’s hard to find a digital marketer who doesn’t understand the power and reach of the social universe. Savvy marketers also understand that social commerce — selling products directly through social media networks — has become too big to ignore.

Consumers scour social media to discover new brands/trends to follow and products to buy. But navigating how to advertise and sell on each platform can be confusing and time-consuming.

What are the strengths and limitations of each social media network? What are all the available ad options? Which platforms are better at building awareness versus fueling e-Commerce? Where can marketers get the most reach for their advertising dollars and target specific audiences based on their campaign goals?

This article is part one of a series that will will help you navigate the social commerce maze. Today, we're looking at;

YouTube

It’s hard to believe, but the social media giant has been offering advertising on its platform for more than a decade. With 2.38 billion monthly users on YouTube, there’s a good reason why 42% of marketers report that the platform is critical to their business.

Best Fit

BUSINESS-TO-CONSUMER

YouTube advertising has traditionally attracted B2C companies offering sales, promotions and discounts or online retailers wanting to retarget users after they’ve abandoned online shopping carts.

BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS

While B2C is still the platform’s core strength, 48% of B2B marketers now say that YouTube is their most important platform for social media advertising and marketing. If you’re targeting mixed-age, U.S.-based audiences, YouTube still gives you the most bang for your social marketing buck. The platform excels at generating leads and growing brand awareness.

E-COMMERCE

It’s also possible to sell products directly to users by setting up shoppable YouTube Ads that connect to your e-Commerce platform or an uploaded product catalog. You can tag products directly in videos of organic video posts and paid video ads.

LIMITATIONS

The surge in advertising and user numbers on the platform has meant stiff competition for eyeballs and overall, the algorithm favoring organic reach.

Advertising Display Options

ACTION CAMPAIGNS

e-Commerce advertisers can show a selection of products that appears below a video. The right photo, paired with engaging content, can be a very effective way to promote a product, event or brand by driving traffic to a designated website or landing page. In fact, according to a YouTube study, shoppable ads routinely outperform other formats.

VIDEO ADS

Nearly 80% of all data consumed on mobile devices is expected to be video by 2021, so this is a format digital marketers need to embrace and master. YouTube now offers a vast array of video ad options, from the snackable to the immersive. A featured video is ideal when you want to bring your product or brand to life either by deepening the emotional connection with users or by merely demonstrating how a product works. There are currently three types of video formats for Youtube ads:

In-Stream Ads - allow advertisers to deliver 15-second video ads to people watching videos on Facebook.

Video discovery ads - facilitate the transition from discovery to purchase, with a primary video and a grid of images below, ideal for showcasing products.

Bumper Ads - attention-grabbing, non skippable, 6 second video.

Stories Ads - Customizable, edge-to-edge experiences that immerse users in your story and products. Focused on mobile to target people during everyday moments, this format does exceptionally well with User-Generated Content, enhancing a sense of authentic engagement.

Available Targeting - When you create an audience for your ad set, you can choose from location, age, gender, and language parameters, as well as detailed criteria like interests and how the user is connected to your business.

Success Stories

YouTube has curated hundreds of customer success stories on its website, allowing marketers to filter the database by business size, campaign objective, industry, type of Youtube advertising product and geographic region. The result is a treasure trove of innovative tactics and strategies that have driven tangible results for businesses in every imaginable industry and niche.

Tuft & Needle is one example of a brand making smart use of the platform, leveraging a mixture of organic posts with User-Generated Content, high-value product videos and photos and link ads that drive to product pages on the company website.

Abe Disu

Sales, Vyrill Inc.

Vyrill is a user-generated video content (UGVC) discovery, analytics, licensing and content marketing platform powered by our proprietary AI technology to enable social commerce and product marketing.

Vyrill has trained machines to watch millions of videos on social media and web, and videos captured directly from customers to help brand marketers increase revenue and find new customers by leveraging user generated video such as video reviews, feedback, unboxing, how to videos etc for insights, demand-generation, licensing and content marketing.

With 70% more growth in video content and 50% to 500% growth in online sales in some categories due to Covid and with over 85% of consumers mentioning that videos influence their purchase decisions, user generated video has become essential to grow brand revenue and growth. Vyrill is developing the industry’s first video ranking and video reviewing system for commerce.