Courtesy of overgovideo.com

The Basics of Youtube Marketing

There are three important ingredients involved in creating a successful video on Youtube. For the purpose of this post, the definition of success would be a video that truly goes viral, and gets millions of views. This is no easy feat. Even the best social marketers know that sometimes a video just won’t take off, no matter how much time you sink into it. Let’s examine these vital ingredients.

#1 Optimizing Your Video

Don’t skimp on the optimization process. It’s not a guessing game! If you really want your video to stand a great chance on Youtube, then you need to do some serious research. Find out which head keywords and secondary keywords best suit your video. Include long tail keywords, and both low and high competition keywords. Optimize every little piece of content you can – from the title to the description.

#2 Advertising on Youtube

Paid advertising will get you more views, and the more people that see your video, the higher your viral potential becomes. Youtube has many different ad opportunities – all of them PPC-style so you can scale to fit your budget.

Use promoted video, to get your video suggested when viewers watch similar videos on the platform. There is display ad space just below popular videos, or the new pre-roll ads that play a 15 second clip before someone else’s video. These are all useful if you want to promote your video, or video feed.

The reality is, if you want to get lots of views, you have to shell out some ad cash.

#3 Driving Traffic To Your Video

Ever heard of content marketing? Anything online that wants to be successful needs a content network to do it. That means your video needs exposure on social sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. You need an article marketing, backlinking and social marketing strategy to drive traffic to that video. Social bookmarking sites are also a great place to source additional traffic.

Viral Videos!

No-one knows if their video will ever go viral, until it does. Sometimes it happens with no effort at all. Other times it takes thousands of dollars and a comprehensive Facebook marketing plan. One thing is clear. All viral videos have the same thing in common. They are enormously entertaining. If you can nail this down, then you may have the next big video on Youtube.

The trick is to get the three essential ingredients just right. Fully optimize your video, use the Youtube advertising programs and drive traffic to your video from beyond the platform. If you get these right, then you’re well on your way to becoming a Youtube legend. If your first few tries don’t work, keep at it. With tracking and analysis, you’ll learn a lot you can use the next time round.

How do you market your videos on Youtube? We want to know, so please leave your comments for us!

Courtesy of ieplexus.com

Usually, these ‘instant viral hits’ are accompanied by 50 failed attempts that the same marketer was working on, in exactly the same way. So what is it that makes a picture, an article or a video go viral?

There are some clear underlying pointers you have to know about, if you ever want the slightest chance of being responsible for a viral sensation.

Having said that, there are also different levels of viral success. For a Fortune 500 business, 2 million people watching their Youtube video is a hit. For a small barbershop in an even smaller town, 8000 people checking in on their style pictures every few days is an incredible accomplishment.

The first lesson is – be realistic. Even if one of your articles is read by 400 people in the same day, a little bit of magic has happened. It is now up to you to discover why. Now, let’s get down to some must-have features in your next viral attempt.

1. Pick The Medium, Pick The Right Subject

A video is the most likely medium to go viral, then a picture, and then content. If you really want your subject to take off, then figure out a way to present it in the right medium.

It’s also a good idea to pick a popular subject and exploit it. Either that, or come up with something so entertaining, so funny, or so cute – that no one will be able to resist watching your video a million times.

It’s called the ‘Cute Cat Formula.’ Marketers realized that most of the insanely popular viral videos were of cats. Don’t literally go out and film a cat, just realize there’s a lesson here.

If something is good enough for one person to watch over, and over, and over again – and still be entertained, your chances of that subject going viral skyrockets. And remember that entertainment doesn’t necessarily mean funny or good, it can be bad as well. Ask Rebecca Black.

2. Do The Leg Work By Putting Your Medium Out There

If you’re going to spend 3 months on a video and then only upload it to Youtube and that’s where your involvement ends – it’s NOT going to go viral.

You need to make finding and sharing your medium as easy as possible, by canvassing the internet with it. Upload to every video site. Promote it on every blog, micro-blog, social network and social bookmarking site you can. Connect it to a competition.

Ask people to send it to their friends. And please, please make the experience simple. It has to be easy to link to, or be compressed properly if it’s a video! Don’t put roadblocks up that will stunt your viral progress before it’s even happened. Promote your medium as a Twitter trending topic. Plan to succeed.

And finally, learn this one single truth – marketing content, videos, adverts, anything that tries to sell something will almost never go viral. You’re better off creating something relevant and incredibly entertaining, and then slapping your business logo at the beginning of the video.

What elements do you believe are 100% necessary for something to go viral? Let us know!

Our next topic of choice in our niche social networking sites series are sites dedicated to video sharing.  Each of these can help you do some pretty incredible things with the videos you create – for business or for fun.  Know of any other video sites that should be included?  Leave us a comment at the bottom of the post!

blip.tv

blip.tv is dedicated to making independent web shows sustainable.  In addition to providing analytics and insight to videos you upload, there are also options for monetizing and distributing to 80% of the video internet.

Viddler

Upload videos or use your webcam to record directly to Viddler.  Brand yourself by placing a logo in the corner of the screen and have the video link back to your website no matter where it’s embedded on the web.  Users can interact with your video by placing timed comments inside it.  Apply for iTunes syndication and revenue share, or pay a monthly fee to access analytics and more.

Revver

Videos can be paired with targeted ads and tracked across the internet, or even syndicated through their network consisting of iTunes, AOL, Facebook, and more.  Install a WordPress app to start your own vlog.

How?

Say, for example, that you have a short video giving your customers tips on making their own floral arrangements.  Simply by posting this video on YouTube (which is regularly indexed by Google), and filling in the appropriate keywords, you can increase the chances of it to popping up at the top of a search results page.  From there, the user who was searching for a florist, can follow a link trail back to your website.

Posting a link to the video on your other social media profiles is another good way of generating conversation about your business.  A catchy video can spread like wildfire as friends, and friends-of-friends, decide to post a link to the video on their pages.   But it doesn’t end there, embedding the video on your blog, or positioning it on the landing page of your website, can increase the chances that a customer will stick around longer to see what you’re about.

So What Kinds of Videos Could You Make?

• How-to use your product (or, for a fun twist, how not to use it).
• How-to make an informed decision about buying this type of product or service.
• Introduction to your business – who you are, what you’re about, etc.
• Behind-the-scenes look at your business (a great way to connect with your customer’s personal side).
• Interviews, establishing yourself as a thought leader.

And the opportunities are endless.  For best practices on making and optimizing your videos, click here.

When posting their video online, most people will hope for the viral hit – the video that generates hundreds of thousands, if not millions of views online and is passed around so much that blogs and TV shows alike are buzzing with coverage.

But the truth of the matter is that your video doesn’t have to garner these kinds of numbers in order to be effective for your business.

Rather than aiming for your video to be an instant hit, shoot for making a video that garners a few hundred or thousand views.  The most important thing is that your target customers see it, and if a few others see it in the process, then all-the better.

How to Generate Exposure for Your Video(s)

First of all, it really helps to build up your social network.  The larger your fan base on Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace, or the higher the number of connections in your group on LinkedIn, the more likely it is that your video will be viewed by your target audience in higher numbers.  Start by focusing in on who your target customers are.  Narrow this down as much as you can so that the connections you build are the highest quality.  Then, go out and find ‘em!

Secondly, you’ll need to do some…

Optimizing

• Use a catchy title for your video.

• Add a short description of the piece using as many as your keywords as possible, while still sounding normal.  Your description is also a good place to type in your web-address.

• If the majority of your target audience uses Twitter frequently, make it mobile-friendly. (This is because most Twitter users access the site from a phone or other mobile device.)

• When choosing a thumbnail picture, try to use a still that looks intriguing.  Not every site will allow you to choose your own still, however.  In this case, try to make your first or last picture an interesting one.

Now What?

Lastly, go for the big push during the first twenty-four hours.  If you load your video onto YouTube, for example, there’s an option to have your video shared on Facebook and Twitter as well.  From there, embed a copy on your blog, and post a link in a group discussion on one of your other networks. If you have an email blast you send out, include a link in there too.  Without sounding overly spammy, make sure that your networks know you’ve got some new material to share.

Easier said than done, right? Well let’s start by talking about…

Video Production

An interesting, business-generating video doesn’t need to be an incredibly fancy thing with eye-popping effects.  You can make a catchy video simply by recording your message over a collection of pictures and still images.  Or, grab a flip video camera and someone to operate it while you deliver your message.

Filming Tips

If you go for the video camera route, here are some tips for making it look good:

• Choose a well-lit area. It’s important to make sure your audience can see you clearly on-screen.

• Find a background with minimal distractions (you want people to focus on your message, not the person making crazy faces behind you).

• Rehearse your message beforehand so you can deliver it in a confident manner.

• If you have time, do a trial run and watch it on the camera. Many people think they are very expressionate, only to find out that what they thought was a wide grin, was in truth, a barely perceptible smile.

• When there are two or more people being featured in the video at the same, be sure to sit (or stand) very, very close.  It’ll feel like you’re practically sitting on top of each other, but in the video it will look natural and there won’t be a gaping hole between you two.

• Try to avoid facing the camera dead-on.  Instead, turn yourself slightly, so that one side of you is just a bit more visible than the other.

What’s Next?

After you’ve shot the video, don’t worry about fancy editing.  In most cases, a simple beginning title and end title will do.

As for content – be sure to present a clear call to action.  Your viewers should know exactly what to do next if they are interested in learning more.  They should also know where to go, and this is where you flash your web-address.  Lastly, try to keep the video short: anywhere from thirty seconds to two minutes, or break up the content into smaller segments.

In Part Two of this blog mini-series, we’re going to cover how to optimize your videos once you go to put them online.  This is an important step because it can make the difference between your video being seen, and it being lost in the shuffle.