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YouTube has a free, easy-to-use ad tool perfect for small businesses
Everyone is feeling the financial crush from the COVID-19 pandemic these days — and businesses are not immune. The loan program recently launched to help small businesses retain employees and get through the tough times ran out of money in a matter of days, even as business owners waited in line for help.
Clearly, businesses are struggling right now and millions of Americans have already lost their jobs. But don’t give up hope, there are still companies out there that are hiring. Tap or click here to see a list of available positions.
One company trying to lend a helping hand is Google, which recently launched a program to help businesses who don’t have the resources to create video ads from scratch. The tool can be used to create ad content and more.
What is YouTube Video Builder?
Businesses have been feeling the economic fallout from coronavirus and are running, in many cases, on very reduced budgets. Even if they had the funds, a lot of businesses don’t have the manpower to craft their own animated ads right now with the majority of the country working outside of the office.
Google recognized these issues and launched the YouTube Video Builder as a way to help businesses build their own animated video advertising without having to spend a ton of money doing so.
In fact, the tool is free — so small businesses won’t have to spend ANY money to create videos that can be used for advertising campaigns, emails, websites or to keep customers informed on social media.
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Who can — or should — use YouTube Video Builder?
The tool is geared toward people running a business: either small or larger business owners who need to be able to create their own video ads. Ali Miller, director of product management at YouTube ads, explained how the new tool could work for a number of different businesses in a recent blog post, stating:
“Different businesses have different creative needs. A restaurant may want to communicate changing hours or promotions, while a supermarket may highlight new services like curbside pickup.
‘For brands or agencies with existing video resources, Video Builder can help bring agility and experimentation to the creation process by generating supplemental, lightweight videos.
‘For smaller businesses and those with less creative experience, it can provide an efficient, low-resource way to create videos, perhaps even for the first time.”
How does YouTube Video Builder work?
Not only is the tool free but it’s also really easy to use. Video Builder has tools that allow you to animate static assets like images, text and logos. You can even set those animations to music from YouTube’s library.
It offers a variety of layouts that you can choose from based on your message and goals, and you can customize font and colors. Once that’s done, the tool will generate a short six- or 15-second video.
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You have a few options for what to do from there, including:
- Upload as unlisted: The video can be uploaded as “unlisted” to your business YouTube Channel by simply selecting the “unlisted” setting option.
- Made visible: If you want your video ad to be visible to the public browsing the channel you can simply change the settings in your YouTube account.
- Run through Google Ads: You can use your video to launch a Google Ad campaign if you need or want to.
- Use on other channels of your choosing: You can use the video any way you please, whether that’s to advertise on YouTube, launch an ad campaign, get information out to your customers, post on social media, or to communicate via any other channel you please.
The YouTube Video Builder tool is still in the beta phase, so if you’re interested in taking advantage of it you’ll need to sign up and be approved for access. Once you’re accepted, you’ll need to either create a YouTube business channel or use one you already have to get started.
To get going on the creation of your own video ads, you’ll need:
- To apply and be approved for access
- A YouTube business channel — you can either create one or use one you already have
- Either a) Google Account so that you can log into Gmail and YouTube, or b) a non-Google email address that you link to your Google account
It’s nice to have companies looking out for others in these troubled times. If you need help creating ads and you’d like to check out YouTube Video Builder click here. We’ll make it through this together.
Tags: access, coronavirus, economic fallout, Gmail, Google, Google Ads, pandemic, settings, small businesses, social media, unemployment, YouTube
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