If you've logged into YouTube in the past day, you may have noticed the video-based social network has undergone somewhat of a makeover. While sleek new designs for the site as a whole, your YouTube homepage, and individual video channels are the main focus of YouTube's changes, there are a couple of new features that should excite you as a marketer, especially if video content is one of your business' fortes.

Trending & Popular Videos

Your new and improved YouTube homepage now features a tab for 'Trending' and 'Popular' videos. Clicking these tabs will reveal the most popular video content from the YouTube community.

Marketing Takeaway: Just as it's a marketer's dream for their campaigns to make it as trending topics on Twitter and Google+, it's now also an appropriate wish for video marketers on YouTube. Creating a wildly successful, viral video now has the potential to get in front of the eyes of even more viewers, as these videos are now featured more prominently.

Facebook & Google+ Integration

The videos you share on other social media sites now have an increased reach as well. By connecting your Google+ and Facebook accounts to your YouTube account, you can also view videos posted by your connections in these other channels directly within YouTube.

Marketing Takeaway: Facebook and Google+ are social networks that lend themselves to visualized content, especially video. Now marketers will automatically extend the reach of the video content they share on their Facebook and Google+ business pages to the YouTube audience. While a YouTube user (i.e. a potential customer) may not subscribe to your business' YouTube channel, they may be fans of your Facebook page or followers of your Google+ page. So if they click on the new tabs in YouTube showcasing video content from their Facebook and Google+ connections, they'll see your video there even if they're not subscribed to the videos your company publishes on YouTube.

As a result, as a marketer, you should share your video content in all three of these channels -- via your YouTube channel, on your Facebook page, and on your Google+ page -- for maximum video marketing reach. Furthermore, to get more out of this extended reach, you should also make sure you're optimizing your marketing videos for lead generation by adding calls-to-action to each video you share. This will drive viewers back to your website and create more opportunities for conversion from video content.

Want to learn more about YouTube's design updates? Check out the video below:

What do you think of YouTube's more robust social media integration?