Running a small business usually starts (and sometime stays) with a lean team of people that boast very flexible job descriptions and duties. Often the one in charge of the company’s marketing will need to be familiar with copywriting, graphic design, video editing, social media management and digital advertising. Doing a multitask job can get very overwhelming, and it’s not like you have the luxury of time and money to run back to university or college and pick up the latest skills on marketing plans and content creation. Thank goodness for YouTube and the masses of talented humans that share their trade skills and tips with us, all for free.
Today we’ll have a look at some of our favourite YouTubers to keep an eye on. We have 6 marketing categories we’re looking at, and ideally prefer YouTubers that share tons of industry tips and tricks without numerous subscriptions and excessive payment gateways to go through. If you love marketing and building a brand’s awareness to increase revenue, then be sure to subscribe to the following YouTube channels.
Learn Copywriting with Alex Cattoni
Alex Cattoni is a copywriter, marketer, and founder of The Copy Posse. If you suck at putting words together to make your products or services sound all majestic and magical, or elegant, or strong, then you must subscribe to Alex’s channel. Her bubbly personality and short-style videos are perfect to watch during lunch breaks – upskilling for your next advertorial or marketing presentation while snacking on a sarmie. Alex’s videos focus specifically on copywriting to boost sales, so if you’re looking for someone to help with your next fantasy novel, her channel may not be for you. However, if you’re looking for what swims and what sinks in the world of sales copy, then Alex has all the secrets, and she loves sharing them. Psst – don’t forget to subscribe to her super useful newsletter.
Learn Graphic Design with Bring Your Own Laptop
If you want to give your website, social media accounts, and all your marketing material that sexy branded look, you’re probably going to need to pick up some Adobe Creative Suite skills. One of the best teachers out there is Daniel Scott who started Bring Your Own Laptop (BYOB), an e-learning platform that offers courses in a variety of visual design fields: Illustrator, InDesign, Graphic Design for Beginners, Dreamweaver and an intro course of Web Design, as well as one for UX Design (user experience), Photoshop, and more. BYOB shares a huge chunk of each of their courses on their YouTube channel, enough to walk away with the best of the basic layout design skills. If you want more, you can subscribe on the e-learning site for a measly $12 a month, and you can stop once you’ve learned what you needed to…until his next or updated course comes out or you need a refresher. His lovely Aussie accent and clear course curricula will take any beginner to intermediate designer in less than a month (with proper commitment to the courses).
Check out Bring Your Own Laptop
Learn Video Editing with Film Riot
Videos always win against stills when it comes to marketing your brand online, and apps like Canva and InVideo really takes the edge off of having to know complicated cinematography skills to create a lovely video advert or services showreel. If you want to go the extra mile and learn some cool film effects to give your branded videos that extra custom look and feel, and if you have a bit of coin for the nifty camera and baseline filming gear, then the Cannolly Brothers at Film Riot has got you covered. Film Riot posts videos that teach viewers how to create cool video effects like teleportation, fake fires, slow-motion, and epic scene transitions. You’ll also learn about the magic of a greenscreen and how to apply everything you learn using Adobe Premier Pro and After Effects. You’ll also get to see how much hard work (and budget) goes into video projects. While Film Riot’s tutorials are aimed at educating prospective filmmakers, their tips and tricks can be used on any video creations including brand adverts and promotional content.
Learn Website Development with Traversy Media
Traversy Media is a channel run by Brad Traversy, a freelance web developer that found a love for teaching coding and programming to others. He posts weekly videos that vary from full to mini courses, industry and programming tool updates, latest web developing trends (there are some great ones on how keep code short for faster website loads and workarounds for common errors). He also offers more complete courses on Udemy, but for getting a better understanding of how websites work just to get your small business site on the digital map, his free YouTube tutorials are more than sufficient. We recommend starting with Web Development In 2021 – A Practical Guide, to ease you in.
If you really want to get stuck into the coding side of website development, we’ll throw in an additional top channel to follow: SimpliLearn. They offer so many, full, free coding (and other, but mainly coding) courses on their YouTube channel. Be sure to take a peek if you have a desire to become a master of the Matrix.
Learn Social Media Management with Influencer Marketing Hub
Influencer Marketing Hub offers short 4-to-8-minute videos for Social Media Influencers, Influencer Marketing Platforms and Influencer Marketing Agencies. While technically aimed at supporting Influencers and based in the United States, their content is still relevant to South African brands that want to use their social media pages to promote brand awareness, be recognised as an industry authority, and ultimately increase revenue. Influencer Marketing Hub offers oodles of videos that includes topics on about each social media platform, how they work, what tricks and trends have been on the rise, and a variety of app recommendations to help streamline your social media management duties.
Check out Influencer Marketing Hub
Learn Digital Advertising with Surfside PPC
There’s so much to be said about online advertising, from Social Media Ads to Google Ads, from Ranking to all the acronyms (PPC, CPC, CPL, SEM, SEO, the list goes on). Luckily, you don’t need to dash back to university and cough up a couple a thousand Rands to become a pro PPC Specialist. Surfside PPC (PPC stands for Pay Per Click, just in case you didn’t know) offers meaty, but not overwhelming, videos each week featuring tutorials on advertising strategies, keyword planning, optimising your existing ads, and more. They also share the latest do’s and don’t when it comes to online advertising, as well as tips on how to boost your website for improved ranking on Google’s search results pages. They also have a lovely collection of videos for beginners, explaining what all those acronyms mean and why certain metrics matter more than others when depending on the marketing goal at hand.
You can also learn how to prep your first Facebook dark post (aka. advert) from one of our other blogs, Setting up Facebook Ads for your Small Business.
Remember to create a self-study schedule. Don’t get distracted!
Learning new skills will still require time commitment and attention. If you haven’t already done so for your small business, be sure to subscribe for a Real Receptionist, a virtual assistance that will answer all your incoming business calls, assist with taking messages or transferring calls, help your sales team by taking telephonic orders, and even answer frequently asked questions – leaving you to focus on doing what you love and learning new marketing skills to boost your brand.
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