Journal of Financial Planning: July 2014
Bill Winterberg, CFP®, is a technology consultant to financial advisers. His comments on technology and financial planning can be viewed on his blog at www.fppad.com.
As I speak across the country, I encounter a growing number of financial planners who are excited about the benefits of using video to connect with clients and prospects. Creating video content and uploading it to YouTube is a great way to increase your online profile, demonstrate your knowledge and experience as a financial planner, and differentiate yourself from the competition, as not all planners are regularly creating videos.
Certainly a lot of work is involved in creating compelling videos, but that work isn’t finished once your content is uploaded to YouTube. Here are seven opportunities you should take advantage of to increase the odds your YouTube video will get discovered by those who are looking for answers to their financial planning questions.
1. Use a Descriptive Title
Just like any email subject line, your video’s title needs to explicitly tell viewers what they’re about to see and learn. Your YouTube video might be packed full of useful financial planning information, but if it has a generic and unassuming title, its chances of being discovered will be very low.
Your video’s title is also what Google uses to populate listings in its search results, so your title must be descriptive and enticing enough to compel someone to click through and watch.
Here’s a quick example to illustrate the importance of a good video title. Your video might discuss tips to maximize Social Security by taking advantage of the file and suspend technique. Consider the effectiveness of these two titles:
- Maximize Social Security Income
- How the File and Suspend Strategy Can Maximize Social Security Benefits
Both titles identify your video as a way to learn about strategies to increase Social Security income, but the latter is much more specific to one particular technique, the file and suspend strategy. The former title doesn’t really communicate what a viewer might learn, but the latter clearly identifies that the viewer will learn about the file and suspend technique (a topic with which they may not be familiar) and how it may apply to their personal situation.
All YouTube video titles are limited to 120 characters, so be sure to choose your description and key words wisely.
2. Create a Custom Thumbnail Image
Next to its title, your video’s thumbnail image can be the difference in viewers deciding to watch your video versus moving on to something else. Thumbnail images are the pictures YouTube uses to preview your video in a variety of places, including the list of videos on your YouTube channel, recommendations in the right-hand side of the YouTube website, and embedded videos located on external web pages.
For each video you upload, YouTube automatically selects three random frames from the video to use as the video thumbnail. Unfortunately, these random frames might catch you making a funny expression on your face or not include your face at all.
Instead of allowing YouTube to select random video images, get in the habit of making your own custom image to use as the video thumbnail. This can be as simple as grabbing a screenshot of your paused video and adding gigantic, easy-to-read text in the image’s blank space. You don’t need to limit your thumbnail image to a frame from your video; your image can be anything as long as it effectively describes your video’s content.
Not only can you copy a frame where you have a smile on your face, but the text you include should reiterate the video title used in tip No. 1, because not all viewers will watch your video on YouTube where the title is prominently listed. This gives potential viewers another opportunity to quickly determine what your video is about, and some may see your smiling face as a warm invitation to watch.
3. Add a Transcript
Even with a good video title, YouTube doesn’t completely understand the content of your video. One simple way to feed YouTube’s algorithm with details about your video is by uploading a transcript.
Transcripts can be added by uploading a text file that YouTube subsequently matches with the spoken words in your video (it’s nearly a magical process). Transcripts not only allow viewers to turn on captions for your video, but YouTube (and by extension, Google and other search engines) indexes your transcript to better understand your video’s content.
If your video transcript is loaded with key words about Social Security, incentive stock options, and other important financial planning strategies, chances are YouTube will display your video as a relevant search result when potential viewers are looking for answers to their related questions.
4. Add a URL to the Description
A box exists beneath every individual video on YouTube where you can add a description about the content in the video. Once again, this is your chance to give potential viewers a snapshot of what they will learn by watching your video.
An opportunity is missed when no website URL is included in the description box. If viewers like your video and want to connect with you for more information, give them an easy way to do so by listing a URL for your website, your newsletter sign-up page, or other online content in the video description.
The description box supports up to 1,000 characters, and the first 20 words or so are visible before YouTube inserts a “See more” link to expand the description. Remember to include the “http://” syntax or YouTube will not make the URL an active hyperlink.
5. Tag Your Video
YouTube provides multiple ways to clearly identify the specific content of your video. Each video can be described using tags, which are important words and phrases relevant to the content you cover.
YouTube tags are limited to 500 characters, and as you begin to type in tags for your video, YouTube will automatically recommend frequently used tags from other videos as candidates for your content.
I recommend you consistently tag your videos with your name, the name of your firm, and the key topics you cover in your video. That way when someone searches for your name on Google or YouTube, you increase the chances that one of your videos will appear near the top of the search results.
6. Use Annotations
As YouTube videos are played back in web browsers, annotations and pop-ups are often used to make your content more interactive. You can use annotations to link to other videos you have on your YouTube channel, encourage viewers to subscribe to your YouTube channel, or even click an annotation to navigate to your website.
Note that if you want to be able to direct viewers to your website using annotations, you will first need to complete a website ownership verification process with YouTube. Also, annotations generally do not work on all mobile devices, so viewers using tablets and smartphones are not guaranteed to see your annotations.
Even so, you’re offering more ways for your viewers to find out more about your content, connect with you online, and even reach out to you to talk about financial planning questions they have.
7. Include a Call to Action
Finally, consider the ultimate purpose of why you want to upload your video to YouTube. What do you want viewers to do after watching? Do you want viewers to subscribe to your free newsletter? Watch another related video you created? Contact you by email? Start a conversation with you on Twitter?
No matter what you’d like viewers to do, you should incorporate that call to action directly into your video content. This prompts viewers to take immediate action based on the content you shared in your video.
As described earlier, you can provide hyperlinks in your video’s description box or use pop-up annotations in the video itself to make it easy for viewers to follow through and take action after watching your video.
No matter what kind of content you upload to YouTube, you can increase potential for your video to be discovered using these techniques. Creating videos on their own can be an involved process, but remember that your work isn’t completely finished once your videos are uploaded to YouTube. These seven tips should help you maximize your investment of time, energy, and money to create compelling and informative financial planning videos for your target audience.