When you think of it, your small business and YouTube have something each other needs. Your business needs exposure, a place to establish your brand and a way to easily analyze how your target market ticks – all at a reasonable cost. YouTube needs content, viewers and business partners willing to advertise to its growing audience.

The best way to make this relationship work for you is to set up a business YouTube page. We’ll show you how to set one up and get what you need in six easy steps.

Step 1: Understand the Need

Having a presence on YouTube may have once seemed a novelty. However, there’s nothing frivolous about it now ­– in fact more than one billion visitors to the site each month consume over six billion hours of content. Somewhere in this mass is a target market that’s right for your product. Having a business YouTube page guarantees you’ll have access.

Step 2: Create Your Account

There are two ways to set up your business YouTube page. If your business is on Google+ you can use it to create a YouTube account. (Google owns YouTube, which makes it simple.) Otherwise, you can create a YouTube account directly, which in turn creates a Google+ page automatically. Step-by-step instructions can be found here.

Step 3: Take Care of the Basics

Once your account is set up, you can complete some initial steps to begin fleshing out your page. The Home tab allows you to upload a photo that identifies your business. The About tab lets you add a description of your business (hint: keep it simple), links to any of your other online business profiles and channels that identify different aspects of your firm, like employees.

Step 4: Get Creative

The YouTube Creator Studio puts a variety of resources at your disposal:

• Dashboard – a customizable platform that lets you keep the pulse of your page
• Video Manager – where all of your content can be accessed and utilized
• Community – the interactive repository of audience feedback to your page
• Channel – allows you to personalize and monetize your page, if desired
• Analytics – A suite of measurement tools you can use for marketing purposes

Step 5: Get Analytical

The Analytics function in the YouTube Creator Studio merits special mention. Mainly because it gives you a range of statistics and data that few other mediums can deliver so succinctly and quickly. These include audience demographics, playback locations, traffic sources, devices watched from and audience retention. Virtually everything you need to know to see if your YouTube page is effective can be found here.

Step 6: Develop Content

With your YouTube business page developed and a working understanding in play, you’re now ready to add content to your page. While the prospect of creating pre-roll ads, trailers and promotional videos can seem daunting. There are several resources that can guide you through the process.

A business YouTube page is more than a digital novelty – it’s a necessity if you wish to remain relevant with today’s consumers. The sooner you create yours, the better off you’ll be.