The days when YouTube was exclu­sive­ly a place for one-hit viral videos are gone. So, senior mar­keters who are inter­est­ed in build­ing suc­cess­ful chan­nels on YouTube have to con­sid­er their channel’s long-term plan for grow­ing an audi­ence. And that means devel­op­ing a viable pro­gram­ming strat­e­gy.

Anoth­er one of the sev­en ways to improve your video mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy is to devel­op a YouTube pro­gram­ming strat­e­gy and then sched­ule your con­tent for the year.

“Pro­gram­ming” means cre­at­ing a cohe­sive view­ing expe­ri­ence across videos on your brand’s YouTube chan­nel, where each video fits into the larg­er chan­nel vision. It encap­su­lates both pre-pro­duc­tion and pro­duc­tion activ­i­ties; what type of con­tent to pro­duce and how to pub­lish and share it.

For exam­ple, Bran­don Tar­tikoff took over pro­gram­ming duties at NBC back in 1981. He is cred­it­ed with turn­ing around NBC’s low prime time rat­ings in that era with such hit series as “ALF”, “The A‑Team”, “Cheers”, “The Cos­by Show”, “Fam­i­ly Ties”, “The Gold­en Girls”, “Hill Street Blues”, “Knight Rid­er”, “L.A. Law”, “Law & Order”, “Mat­lock”, “Mia­mi Vice”, “Night Court”, “Punky Brew­ster”, “Rem­ing­ton Steele”, “Saved by the Bell”, “Sein­feld”, “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”, “St. Else­where”, and “Wings”.

You also need to take over the pro­gram­ming duties for your YouTube chan­nel in this era. How­ev­er, instead of cre­at­ing TV sit­coms and dra­mas, your pro­gram­ming strat­e­gy should be artic­u­lat­ed around three dif­fer­ent types of online video con­tent.

Video Type 1: Hygiene Content

Although this sounds like a col­lec­tion of social hygiene films from the late 1940s and 1950s, it’s kin­da, sor­ta dif­fer­ent. Let’s see if I can explain.

You know who you want to reach. But to draw view­ers to your chan­nel, you need to under­stand what they’re search­ing for when they come to YouTube. After you find their most fre­quent search­es, then you can fig­ure out which queries your brand can cred­i­bly answer.

When you start mak­ing videos that quick­ly and clear­ly answer these queries, YouTube calls this “hygiene con­tent.” These could include tuto­ri­als that answer the most pop­u­lar search queries in your con­tent area.

For exam­ple, the YouTube Help Chan­nel has cre­at­ed videos which answer queries like: “What hap­pens when you update with Google+ on YouTube?”

See what I mean about this kin­da, sor­ta being dif­fer­ent from one of those social hygiene films from the late 1940s and 1950s?

Video Type 2: Hub Content

Hub con­tent is reg­u­lar, sched­uled con­tent that pro­vides a rea­son to sub­scribe to a chan­nel and return on a reg­u­lar basis. Episod­ic and for­mat­ted series work best as hub con­tent.

For exam­ple, after Orabrush cre­at­ed its most pop­u­lar video, “Bad Breath Test — How to Tell When Your Breath Stinks,” which has more than 19.4 mil­lion views, the com­pa­ny launched a series enti­tled, “Diary of a Dirty Tongue.” The series fea­tures Mor­gan, the Orabrush tongue, mak­ing a week­ly vlog about what tongues like to talk about.

Why?

Even though the com­pa­ny had cre­at­ed a one-hit viral video, it want­ed to pro­vide a rea­son to sub­scribe to their chan­nel and return on a reg­u­lar basis. And today, the Orabrush chan­nel has more than 190,000 sub­scribers. And “Where’s Mor­gan” now?

I don’t know. It’s a mys­tery.

Video Type 3: Hero Content

Hero con­tent refers to the big, tent-pole events that are designed to pro­vide a mas­sive step-change to your audi­ence growth. Hero con­tent could be a live-streamed event, a viral video, a Google+ Hang­out with top tal­ent, a cross-pro­mo­tion with a YouTube influ­encer, or even a made-for-YouTube ad. It may revolve around a large cul­tur­al event like Hal­loween or the Super Bowl, or it may be a major event that you insti­gate.

For exam­ple, the Dis­cov­ery Chan­nel cel­e­brates Shark Week every year in July or August. Shark Week was orig­i­nal­ly devel­oped to raise aware­ness and respect for sharks. Since then it has evolved into more fic­ti­tious pro­gram­ming, called “docu­fic­tion.”

For exam­ple, the faux news clip enti­tled, “Snuffy the Seal,” has been called the “fun­ni­est com­mer­cial of 2013.”

This year for Shark Week, we dis­cov­ered that “Snuffy Lives!”

Create Your YouTube Programming Schedule

After you’ve orga­nized your con­tent into one of three cat­e­gories – hygiene, hub, or hero – then you’re ready to cre­ate a pro­gram­ming sched­ule. Although YouTube isn’t TV, some of the prin­ci­ples that dri­ve tele­vi­sion view­er­ship apply to the web. Reg­u­lar release sched­ules and time­ly pub­lish­ing are both impor­tant for online video.

• Release videos on a set day of the week, if pos­si­ble; audi­ences like struc­ture.
• If your chan­nel hosts mul­ti­ple shows, cre­ate a pro­gram­ming sched­ule.
• Com­mu­ni­cate your sched­ule to your audi­ence so they know when new videos are released. Inform them in the video, on your chan­nel, and in video descrip­tions.

Next week, we’ll look at how to opti­mize your con­tent and chan­nel to ensure that you reach your audi­ence. That’s anoth­er way to improve your video mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy.

Does your video mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy include hygiene, hub, or hero con­tent as part of a YouTube pro­gram­ming sched­ule? Has it grown your audi­ence? Tell us in the com­ments!