It appears that YouTube has been very busy. Apart from talking about potential deals that will add full-length feature films to the site and adding features to their embeddable videos (like a searchbox), they have partnered with Lowe’s on a project entitled the YouTube Holiday Solutions Center.

On the surface, it seems to be nothing more than a Holiday YouTube channel hawking Lowe’s products. But to me, it represents a good example of how businesses can use social media and online video in their marketing.

Yes, it helps that Lowe’s is already a huge brand and is able to officially get YouTube on board for this. They can afford to have prominent display ads featured on YouTube, and co-sponsor a project with them. Unfortunately, not all businesses have these resources. That does not mean, however, that there aren’t elements of this project that could be incorporated into any business’s strategy.

What this channel does well:

1. Holiday Marketing – For one, it’s a smart play on the holiday season and potentially a great way to drive traffic to the Lowe’s site.

2. Features how-to videos that can directly and indirectly promote the purchase of items they are selling.

3. Prominent (but non-intrusive) Display Ads that are relevant. In this case, they’re clearly selling Gift cards, which is a timely and easily discernable marketing message, and they only display off to the side while a video is playing (this might even be a good example of a different advertising strategy for online video in general, but that’s a different discussion altogether).

4. The social element - They’ve got the standard social YouTube profile box, which has options for messaging, commenting, sharing, adding as a friend, etc.

And People Do Engage:

5. Direct links to products in an organized and visual (with pics) way:

6. Store Locator – Obvious, but often-overlooked element to drive customers to the brick and mortar version of the store (this could even be an embedded Google Maps App for some businesses):

7. Useful Content Featured Prominently – this might be the most interesting part to note of the whole thing. When users go to this channel, they are greeted with content that will likely interest them and they are able to digest this without being bombarded by Lowe’s trying to sell them something. Still, Lowe’s makes it very easy to buy something from the same location.

Again, you might not have the resources of Lowe’s but the basic strategy illustrated at this YouTube channel (or at least elements of it) can certainly be applied to your own channel, or even other social network profiles or blogs.