YouTube’s not just for posting funny videos of samaurai cats and other entertaining moments — it can also be used as a highly effective business tool. You can use it to show off your expertise, share knowledge, market your products and connect with customers, colleagues and prospects.

Here are 34 ways to use YouTube (and other video hosting services) for business.

Expertise and Thought Leadership

Marketing and Advertising

Customer Service

1. Upload recordings of presentations you’ve given, to demonstrate authority and public speaking skills.
2. Share slides from presentations that weren’t recorded.
3. Create short videos of valuable tips of interest to your clients and prospects to show off your expertise.
4. Conduct an interview with an expert.
5. Turn your podcasts into videos, to expand your reach.
6. Engage with the YouTube community by leaving comments and uploading video responses to videos on topics related to your business or industry.
7. Enhance your videos using YouTube’s special features, such as annotations, audioswap, insight, language options and quick capture. Also see what’s cooking in the YouTube Biz Blog and TestTube for more  upcoming features.
8. Record an important meeting to share with employees, shareholders and others, as appropriate.
9. Set up a channel to reflect your brand and engage with others. Here’s an example from The White House.
10. Choose a user name that reflects your brand for your channel URL.
11. Add your channel URL to marketing collateral and social network profiles.
12. Post customer video testimonials to add to your credibility.
13. Put together a creative video explaining your product or service.
14. Show your product in action using movie trailer-style: fast, creative and catchy.
15. Show the results of someone using your services.
16. Promote your events using recordings of previous events.
17. Introduce your staff to add authenticity.
18. Take viewers on a tour of your offices and city to help them feel connected with you.
19. Ask others to use your product in their videos (like product placement in movies) and cross-promote each other.
20. Post links to your videos on various social networks.
21. Look into YouTube Promoted Videos to reach your target through contextually-relevant search results.
22. Use Google AdWords on Google Content Network, which includes sites like YouTube. These use text-based ads and don’t require a video from your business. Research the Placement Tool to identify the best placements for your ads.
23. Earn money from your videos by entering into a partnership with YouTube.
24. Run a contest.
25. Add Call-to-Action overlays to your videos to drive traffic to your web site.
26. Study your channel’s performance with the integrated Google Analytics and YouTube Insight to make the most of your videos.
27. Display company information in every video including name, URL, phone number and email address.
28. Create “how to” videos to help your customers use your product or service.
29. Post solutions to common product or service problems.
30. Answer customer-specific questions using videos. Imagine how surprised a customer will be when you point them to a video with the answer!
31. Embed videos on your web site on appropriate pages, including customer support and product tours.
32. Post a blog entry discussing a problem and include a video for visual support.
33. Go the extra mile by adding closed-captions or subtitles to your videos. Remember that not everyone can watch or hear videos in the same way.
34. Show a work-in-progress project to a customer for review and approval, without the need for a face-to-face meeting or in-person demo.