NCET Biz Tips: Metaverse and YouTube

Have a business or technology question?  Send it to ask@NCET.org and if selected, NCET’s panel of business and technology experts will answer it in our monthly column.

What is the metaverse?

Wes McQuillen

With Facebook changing its name to Meta and musicians like Justin Bieber announcing metaverse concerts, you might be wondering, what is it?

Simply put, it's an immersive internet, open to everyone. It isn't a singular walled garden with one set of rules, like a platform like Twitter or Instagram, although it may contain many such places.

Some general tenets of the metaverse have been described by Tony Parisi as:

  • There's only one metaverse

  • No single person or company owns it

  • It's open and for everyone

  • It's device-independent

  • Anyone can add content to it

  • It's the next evolution of the internet 

In real life, how would you experience it? Well it's not only through VR headsets, although that will be the most immersive way for now. It includes familiar devices like phones and laptops, as well as new devices like AR glasses - where you could feasibly wake up in the morning, put on your glasses, and as you look out the window, the outside temperature and daily forecast appear in the window; as you glance at your smart TV, you are prompted to turn it on because a creator you're subscribed to has a new upload in queue.

Of course, with increased openness, there is increased responsibility. You'll be responsible for defining what you do, and do not, want to see and participate in, versus now, when those choices are made for you by platforms through algorithms. It's exciting and empowering to those who want to actively create without gatekeepers.

Wes McQuillen is Principal of ALTER Strategies (www.alterstrategies.co) and NCET’s VP of Email Services for Tech Wednesday. ALTER Strategies offers alternative marketing approaches for the hard-to-advertise – age restricted, highly regulated, and stigmatized products and services – sometimes using novel early-metaverse tech like VR and AR.

What’s the most effective way to use YouTube to promote my business?

Cinammon Davies

You’ve claimed your YouTube Channel, you have it linked properly with your website, and you are creating content! Let’s look at some more advanced ways to promote your business via YouTube.

1)      Organize your videos into playlists. It’s ok for a single video to live on multiple playlists if the groupings are logical. Your fans will appreciate that you have curated your content into tidy lists that are easy to access and consume for the information they desire about your business, products, and services.

2)      Crosspollinate! Video to me is create once, use many. Share your videos across your social media channels to help drive traffic from those spaces to build your YouTube channel. You can also feature your videos on your website to help educate your customers. As a bonus benefit, adding video content to your website, helps your SEO.

3)      Use subtitles by adding transcripts to your videos so users can see the closed captioning. Not only will you widen your audience’s watchability of your video by making it accessible to those who are hearing impaired, you will be accommodating people who may be in an area too noisy to hear your video well, or it may not be appropriate to let the video play at full volume in the space. If your business has international appeal, consider translating your closed captions into other languages. Google indexes each language you include, which helps your YouTube channels SEO.

4)      Ask your happy customers for video testimonials, then post them to your channel. This takes the pressure off of you for creating content, and it raises the level of authenticity as prospective clients can hear and see real stories from real people, on how they have benefited from your products and services.

Cinammon Davies is an Account Executive for LOCALiQ, Part of the USA Today Network (www.localiq.com/markets/nevada/), NCET’s VP of Social Media & Newsletters, and the Co-Coordinator for the Public Awareness Committee for Soroptimist International of Truckee Meadows.

NCET is Northern Nevada’s largest member-supported non-profit that produces educational and networking events to help people explore businesses and technology. (www.NCET.org)

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