Why Every IT Consultant Must Start A YouTube Channel

Could your business pipeline use a good, healthy shot in the arm? Would you like to hear your phone ring more often from inquiring customers, and drive more traffic to your website?

Most IT Consultants would like more business inquiries, but as a provider of professional IT services, do you have a Youtube channel that’s live and full of helpful, informative content?

Content that helps your customers, and potential customers learn more about the services you offer, those available within your industry, and how they compare? 

If you don’t have a Youtube channel, you’re probably missing out on a huge opportunity to drive more traffic your way, and to help establish you, and your company, as a recognized expert in your field.

Being recognized as an industry expert alone can cause prospective customers to reach out to you for advice or to establish service. 

Why having an active, growing Youtube channel is valuable to you, and your Consultant business.

Up front, allow me to say that I’m in no way an expert in this area. However, by sharing our company experience, and what we did to create a Youtube channel, videos and blogs, I believe you’ll find value in it. 

I’ll also share with you how our channel grew from nothing, to being among the top 5% of all Youtube channels within one year. This is something that I believe you can do too, if you put in the work to build your channel, and approach it with a helping frame of mind. 

But, before I begin, I did want to let you know that I recorded a Youtube video on this. I know there are a ton of people who don’t like to do a lot of reading, and instead, prefer to consume content via video.

If you happen to be one of those individuals, then I’ll post my video immediately below for easy access.

The top two search engines as you probably know are: 

1. Google 
2. Youtube (owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet)

An enormous amount of searches are being conducted by individuals, and business customers through Google, and Youtube every day. Knowing this, it stands to reason that you want to be found on page one search results on both.

Though this may sound daunting, and even improbable, it is possible. And, it doesn’t have to take a decade to get there either. I can say this confidently based on the results we saw ourselves. 

Our business, Headset Advisor, as the name implies, provides headsets, and professional headset advice. We operate in the B2B space, and our customers, and potential customers, are all searching Google and Youtube for information to help them make buying decisions.

It’s been estimated that over 60% of all research has been done before a prospective customer engages with a Salesperson. Prior to the internet, the customers relied on their business contacts to obtain critical information.

Though the sales contact remains important, they’re generally coming into the discussion at a later point. This underscores the importance of having content, and having it get viewed by those looking for your products and services. 

Where do you start?

Keywords 

Keyword research is a great place to start, but the subject of keywords could easily be a discussion all by itself. The keyword research tool we use is free; Ubbersuggest, or Google Keyword Planner.

Knowing what keywords to include in your content helps it to be viewed by search engines as being relevant. The more relevant your content is, the better chance you have for it to get good rankings, and ultimately, be seen. And, being seen is the first step towards attracting new prospective customers to you. 

Helpful Article & Video on Keywords 

Here’s a good article that discusses keywords, what they are, why they’re important and more. I think it would be very useful for you to pause reading this blog for a few minutes to read this over.

In doing so, you’ll have a much clearer idea of keywords and their importance. The article is provided by MOZ.com, and includes a short video. I’m confident this will help shed light on what can be a complex topic. Here’s the link to the article and video that’s contained in it: 

Videos 

Starting a Youtube channel may sound like a difficult task, but it’s really a lot easier than it might appear on the surface. Once your channel is set up, you then need to create some videos that cover topics you feel your viewers would find helpful and interesting. 

There are those who think that you need to set up a studio with a lot of equipment such as: 

• Lighting 
• Multiple cameras (for several camera angles) 
• Studio quality microphones, and booms for optimum sound 
• Editing software 
• Tripods for cameras 
• Green Screens 

The truth is, when starting out, you really don’t need all that stuff. You can begin very simply, and affordably by using a device we all carry with us throughout the day; a mobile phone. 

The mobile phones today have built-in cameras that are not only convenient to use, but deliver an ever-increasing level of video and audio quality that can work fine when first starting out. 

As time goes on, you can always make improvements to your audio and video tools, but starting out, using your mobile phone can be an affordable way to get you started.

There’s nothing wrong with selecting your preferred background, setting up your phone, hitting the record button, and then begin sharing your thoughts, ideas, tips, comparisons or whatever message you’d like to deliver. The main thing is to begin by taking this very important first step; taking action. 

How long should your video be? 

One thing that most people who are new to video creation ask is how long should my video content be? There’s no one size fits all answer to this question. Video content can be posted to many platforms such as Tik Tok, LinkedIn, Youtube, and others.

Each of these platforms have limitations on the length of videos that can be uploaded, as well as statistics on the length of videos that garner the most attention.

Youtube, though videos posted there can range in length from 10 seconds, to as long as 10 minutes, it’s believed that video content that runs under 5 minutes gets the most attention. There are exceptions to that, but in a general sense, 5 minute videos tend to perform best. 

As an IT Consultant, you want to talk about topics you’re knowledgeable about.

For example, someone familiar with Zoom might create a video that talks about: 

• The features of Zoom video conferencing 
• How Zoom compares to Microsoft Teams, or WebEx 
• How to use Zoom features 
• How Zoom allows business professionals to be more productive 

Or, if you provide a specific brand of voice service, such as RingCentral, you could create content that might include: 

• RingCentral standard, and optional features 
• How to use RingCentral features 
• How RingCentral compares to DialPad, 8X8 or other services 
• RingCentral troubleshooting tips 
• RingCentral FAQs answered 

The point here is to take an inventory of those topics that you have good knowledge of, and make a list. The topics on this list can then be the subject of your videos. 

How often, or how many videos should you record? 

If you want to shortcut your way to higher search engine rankings, my suggestion is to approach this with the mindset of more is better. When I say more, that doesn’t mean more to the degree where the quality of your videos are compromised.

If you want to establish yourself as an industry expert, you’ll want to always focus on creating good quality, and helpful videos that leave your viewers with useful information. 

In our business, for example, it’s not uncommon for us to create between 5 to 15 videos in a day, though we have days when we don’t produce any. This can be due to vacations, sickness or some other high priority event that takes priority. 

Not all of these videos we produce are long. Some are short, and can be created quickly, such as troubleshooting, or how to videos for example. Other videos might require you to invest a little more time to prepare before you hit that record button.

Editing 

When you look at many of the videos found on Youtube, it’s evident that those videos were edited. Video editing can be quick and easy, or editing can be time consuming and more complex. Starting out, you really don’t need any editing. In our first videos, we didn’t edit them at all.

We just turned on the camera and started talking. My suggestion would be for you to get your keyword ideas solidified, along with your thoughts on the content you want to produce, and then get everything organized. Once organized, you should then be able to begin recording without having to concern yourself with editing.

Naturally you’ll want to select a background that doesn’t distract the viewer. A simple background without clutter would work fine. Also, don’t overlook the importance of lighting.

You should try different lighting and do some test recordings to find the lighting that’s best. Just like Goldilocks and the three bears, you want the lighting to be just right. 

Will your videos look somewhat simplistic? Sure, but that doesn’t mean that the content you’re providing isn’t useful, and of interest to your viewers.

You might be surprised at how much value others may find in the content you produce. I know we were. I think that many of us undervalue our knowledge, and how that knowledge would be valuable to a lot of people.

Then, getting views, likes, comments, and even better, subscriptions to your channel, all help to give you the motivation to continue producing more video content.

In time, you’ll begin to establish loyal followers, and for many, you may even develop a sort of celebrity status, which is pretty cool. 

Over time, you’ll find that your videos will progress from being simplistic to those with more variety and visual appeal. A term that you’ll encounter when you enter the world of video production and editing, whether you’re doing the editing yourself, or you have someone else doing it, is “B Roll.”

This may not be a term you’re currently familiar with, but B Roll footage can take your videos to the next level. 

In short, B Roll, or Broll, is secondary video footage that’s been added to your primary video, often referred to as A Roll. If you’d like to know more about B Roll, here’s a good place to start to learn more. This is a good article titled “B-ROLL 101: The Complete Guide for Beginners (With Examples) posted by Invideo.

Blogs 

Once you begin producing video content, I’d highly recommend that you write a blog post that mirrors the videos you produce. In other words, let’s say that you create a video for your Youtube channel on the Top 5 desktop video conferencing applications.

It will help to further circulate that message (using all the good keywords, right?), when you combine it with a written Blog. By doing this, you provide search engines more opportunities to find your content and begin ranking you accordingly. 

Here at Headset Advisor, we create the video, and then after it’s posted, we watch it, take notes on what’s being said, and then write up a Blog using the notes as a guide for the blog content.

The blogs we write also include the same keywords used to create the video. Additionally, we try to link to other sites that are relevant to the topic, and incorporate our images (not stock images, or those provided by others), and embedded videos to help reinforce points, or to provide more detailed information. 

Speaking of links to other sources, here’s one that speaks to the benefits of blogging for marketing and business. This article was produced by Corey Wainwright at Hubspot, which is a company that’s a well-known authority in this space. 

At this time, you might be thinking that this all sounds like a mountain of work, and something that will take you away from your main focus.

The truth of the matter is, this shouldn’t consume that much of your time, and the benefits will far outweigh the investment of time. 

If you’ve planned your video before the start of the day, shooting it should only take a half an hour. The blog to mirror your video shouldn’t take you more than an hour, to an hour and a half. This means that you’ll be investing a couple of hours into creating this content, at least to get things started. Once you begin to see results, and experience the engagement from potential new customers, it will give you the motivation to create even more content. I know, because it happened that way for us. 

Following this path, what results did we get? 

As I mentioned earlier, we’re by no means experts in this area. Without a doubt, we’ve made a lot of mistakes along the way. But, we stuck with it, learned from our mistakes, and worked to get better along the way.

In doing so, our video content not only got better, but our blogs did as well. And, seeing dramatic upticks in our results have been energizing and motivating to say the least. 

We started this process about one year ago. At that time our website traffic was very low, our inbound inquiries were also less than we wanted, and we constantly struggled to get customers to engage with us.

Our voice messages for call backs were left unreturned. Our outbound emails were unanswered, email blasts too were ho hum, and getting through to people on the phone, we’ve learned, isn’t the easiest thing either.

So,our dilemma was, how do we get more customers to engage with us through email and phone, and ultimately sell more? What we learned by following this video and blog process not only surprised us, but has led to more sales, easier sales and a notable increase in customer engagement. 

Now that we’ve produced video and blog content for about one year, we’ve seen some positive results; 

1. We are nearing 10,000 subscribers to our channel. This figure places us in the top 5% of all Youtube channels, and there are a ton of them. We started at zero.
2. In the past, we could only hope, and even pray, for Google first page ranking. Today, we’re found on page one of Google for most all search keywords, and phrases used in our industry which we credit largely to our videos and blogs.
3. Our website sales have been skyrocketing, growing by no less than 5X because we have a lot more inbound traffic. 
4. Our Youtube channel views has received nearly 2,000,000 views
5. We’ve monetized our videos, which earns us monthly recurring revenue, currently at $1,500.00 and growing. Though not a hefty sum, it is growing and it requires nothing more from us than to produce our normal content one time. 

We’ve created about 600 videos in total, and we continue to produce more. It’s surprising how much content you can amass if you work at it each day. Investing a couple of hours each day can not only result in the accumulation of content that can be seen by those searching online, but that same content can help to drive more inbound traffic to you.

We all want more leads, but getting them is very difficult. Rather than grinding your way using traditional outbound sales methods, why not consider creating content to help get customers coming to you?

I can tell you with complete confidence that following this path will pay dividends, and help to make finding new customers far easier than things like cold calling, direct mail, email blasts etc...

That’s not to say that traditional methods don’t have their place. But, what I am saying is, creating a Youtube channel, and populating it with helpful content, and then creating a blog on the same topics will go a long way towards making you more successful. 

At the time of writing this blog, the year 2022 has just begun.

It’s customary in January to make New Year’s resolutions. Why not make a resolution to create a Youtube Channel, and brush up on your writing skills to create informative and helpful blogs? If you embrace this idea, you should expect to see several positive outcomes that include: 

1. Being seen as an expert in your field by those looking for your products and services
2. Experience more inbound traffic to your website, live chat line, phone calls, emails and more 
3. Gain new customers easier than you can imagine. They’ll literally come to you, rather than you having to “hunt” 
4. Creating the content once, but it will live on and continue to inform others, and continue to get them to engage with you today, and in the future. 
5. A rise in online rankings against your competition, even to number one with some good effort. 
6. You’ll be seen in many of the search results. Not only your videos, but your blogs will help you to rise in the rankings. Your audience will begin to see you as an expert in the field, and even a celebrity. 

Why this free information? What’s the catch? 

Typically whenever a company provides free information, there’s always a catch, right? We’ve all been there. You know, you’re reading along and then at some point, you’re hit with buying a book, attending a webinar among other things.

With that in mind, what’s in it for us, Headset Advisor, to provide you with this free information, and the other growing list of content you’ll find on our Headset Advisor Partners channel? 

The answer involves the idea of win-win-win. Here’s what I mean by that. 

Win #1 

When you’re more successful, you’ll have more customers that you can refer to us to assist them with their business headset needs. When you simply refer, we do all the work, and you collect a growing, monthly, recurring revenue check that can increase your monthly revenue by as much as 33%. 

Win #2 

Your customers will get a great headset buying and support experience not found anywhere else in the headset industry. They’ll receive expert advice and recommendations, as well as one-on-one personal help in getting their equipment set up. Beyond that, they receive free lifetime product support for anything they might need. This is the best headset support program in the industry, bar none. 

Win #3 

Headset Advisor gets a new customer to work with, and to help with their headset needs. When assisting your customers, we keep you in the information loop so you’ll know what’s being discussed at all times. We respect the fact that this is your customer, and we will always treat them with respect.

As you can see, this makes sense for everyone. So why not get your new Youtube channel started today? I can say from personal experience that you’ll be blown away if you follow the advice I’ve laid out in this blog, and my video. 

If you’d like to get started with our headset referral program sooner, you can find more information, and a sign up sheet here.

Thanks for reading this blog, and be sure to reach out to us if you have any questions about your new Youtube channel or blogging. We’d also love to hear how things go for you.

Hopefully 2022 will be the year you discover this new way to drive new business to you, and help to establish you as the leading authority in your industry.