MTN launches YouTube custom channel in Africa

YouTube has long been known as the place where anyone with a video camera and an internet connection can share their life, art and voice with the world, with 6 billion hours of video watched every month. Yet YouTube's power for advertisers in Africa is still in its early stages, helping advertisers build a presence and connect with an audience that is interested in discovering and engaging with video content.

Custom channels allow brands to customise their subscriber engagement: MTN has customised the look and feel of their channel to increase brand awareness and control their content discovery to suit the type of campaign, event or location.

Customise and localise content

By making the YouTube channel their own, they create their own branding and user experience. YouTube Insights Analytics provides information to channel owners about who is engaging with their content so that the owner can better customise content generation and track the effectiveness of the video content. Custom channel owners can also use YouTube Ad Products to drive traffic to their channel or individual videos.

Google SA Country Director, Luke Mckend said "YouTube is a great place for companies to build their brands, innovate and test their creativity. MTN is leading the way as the first brand in Africa to create a custom channel. Even though MTN is a pan-African operator, YouTube gives MTN the flexibility to custom and localise their content for different parts of the continent".

Fresh and current content

Serame Taukobong, chief marketing officer at MTN SA, said: "The digital age has broken new ground in the way brands can effectively communicate to their customers. Today, brands battle for instant and constant relevance in the digital village. As MTN, we're excited to be first brand in Africa to launch its own Youtube custom channel, bearing testament to our commitment to delivering a bold new digital world to our customers. Our excitement not only stems from the fact that the MTN brand will take pole position in terms of visibility and presence, but also because we will be able to feed the hunger for fresh and current content to the bustling online community. Our new custom channel means we can really engage with customers across Africa and build an audience."

Building relationships

YouTube enables a two way dialogue that allows MTN to build relationships and get feedback from its customers on a continuous basis. There are also sophisticated tools in Google Analytics to help MTN understand who is watching and how they're watching, allowing the telecommunications brand to continuously improve its content strategy.

Stand out from the rest

With YouTube becoming a standard buy for most branding campaigns, advertisers need to be sure their ads stand out. Here are a few tips and tricks for advertisers of all sizes to take advantage of YouTube:

Tell a story

Engage the Community - Be part of the conversation. Enable comments on the channel and videos and engage users through platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Google+.
Create original content - Create the type of content that has proven to be successful online - think humorous music videos, short-form series, kittens.
Promote your videos - Consider paid media options. Trueview ads and YouTube masthead promotion can be an effective way to start getting views.
Be clear and concise - Have a clear and accurate title, meaningful description and good keyword tags so the audience can find you through search.
Make it interactive - One of the best things about the web is that often viewers aren't just passively watching the content but can participate in it, combining the best of technology and creativity.

View the channel at www.youtube.com/mtnza