Thursday, June 10, 2010

Using Youtube Effectively

Affiliate marketers have been raking it in with Youtube videos. Unfortunately, many are missing out, either doing it wrong or ignoring it completely.

Below is an excellent article talking about some of the right & wrong ways you can profit from this virtually unlimited traffic source. Take a moment to read the article. I'd like to hear your thoughts, any tips of your own that you would like to add, success stories, etc.

YouTube Video Marketing Advice And Expert Tips

by Grant C. Roberts

Let's face it, online video is the future, no, it's the here and now. YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine, video viewing online is on the rise and you need to be there, getting your brand and products out in front of the viewers. How to do that? Well here are some steps to take in order to increase the success of your YouTube Marketing Campaigns.

All videos are auto-captioned now at YouTube. That means when you upload it the system will pick out the dialog and create captions for it. This used to be a time-consuming endeavor that many video marketers suggested doing. Why? It expands your video's content outside of just the standard metadata. It creates text that can be searched by all search engines and that means more results or better results. Subtitles also work to help with it as well and if you can create a subtitle set for your video you should certainly do that as well. That will help your video be seen as much as it can.

Youtube Marketing is a tricky thing. You can't just throw a video up there and think it will go viral. It might, but if there's no call-to-action in the video you're losing potential customers and sales. You have to at the very least include a clickable link to a website with more information or a buy now link if you're selling a product. This has worked wonders for many products and services and showed remarkable sales growth.

YouTube is more than just a place to share videos, it's a living breathing community. What comes around goes around in the community. If you subscribe, comment, share and take an active interest in the community, it will do the same for you. This is invaluable because YouTube rankings do not only take into account views, title, description and video age. In fact they use almost every facet of YouTube interaction available including visits,comments, subscribers, playlist additions and inbound links. They track how many times your video is embedded and watched and it all counts toward your ranking. If you want higher rankings you need to be an active member of the community and it will help boost your videos as well.

Of course you have to have good content. If your videos are dull, drab and uninformative, you most certainly will not be getting a load of views. You need to take your information and present it in a compelling way. A way that will make others want to watch the video, share it with friends and click on any links you provide. This is more difficult than you might think. Overproduced videos generally don't fare well on YouTube and the ones that are successful are the ones that are realistic. The ones that speak to the viewers more than widely aimed television commercials and other videos do. By making your information and content accessible to the masses, you'll be more likely to get some interaction from them.

These are simple steps but difficult to implement properly. Online video marketing is rapidly expanding and if you're truly interested in getting results you might need some help. There are plenty of places online to get help with YouTube marketing you just have to know where to look. Information is power and when wading into the turbulent waters of YouTube Marketing you need to be sure you know which way the current is flowing or you'll get pulled under.

These are some tips to get started, but if you want more information on (http://www.reelseo.com/video/marketing/youtube-marketing/) Youtube Marketing, visit ReelSEO, the internet's authority on (http://www.reelseo.com/) VSEO and Video Marketing information, tips, advice, and best practices.