Simply Zesty» 5 Important Things To Consider For Your Online Video Strategy – SimplyZesty

5 Important Things To Consider For Your Online Video Strategy

Niall Harbison — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 19:47:54 +0000

I gave a video training day today teaching people how to get the most out of online video and while giving the course it dawned on me the same old myths keep on popping their head up the more I talk to people about video. People have a lot of misconceptions about online video and just how popular their videos will be. I don’t know what it is about video in that everybody seems to have an opinion and think that they were born with some sort of Stephen Spielbergesque directing ability. I guess it is just the fact that we have all watched so much television and movies and think we all have an innate knowledge of how it should work. With that in mind I wanted to try and save everybody who is thinking about getting an online strategy for video a few little pointers that I have learned the hard way…

You Probably Don’t Need Expensive Equipment

If I had a penny for everybody who asked me what sort of camera equipment they should buy I would be a very rich man indeed. My standard answer is to buy a camera that costs a couple of hundred Euros at most as it will do the job you want it to and see how your video career progresses before you splash out on the expensive stuff. Despite repeating that over and over again you would be surprised at how many people still go and spend nearly a thousand Euros on camera equipment that they just don’t use and sits dusty in a cupboard. If you want something simple for filming interviews and small videos for Youtube I would go with a flip camera which you can pick up for as little as 100 Euros on Ebay.

Get A Youtube Strategy

Putting your videos on to Youtube is not your entire strategy. I talk to so many people that think Youtube is going to be the answer to all their problems and that the views will just flow as soon as they upload them to the world’s largest video site. People will have heard some of the stats and you have to realize that although there are billions of video views there is also plenty of competition for views. People need to engage within Youtube and treat it as more of the social network that it is rather than just blasting their videos out and expecting views, that’s the old way of doing things and we should know better given we have so many great free social tools at our disposal. Get a proper Youtube strategy instead of just loading them up and hoping for the best. I will give you a little hint and tell you that it is all about…Subscribers!!

There Is No Such Thing As A Viral Video

Over and over again people come along and ask us for viral videos. Worse still I see people who flaunt videos around calling them viral videos before they go live or selling the promise of a viral video. I’ve made over 1000 videos that have had nearly 10 million views and I still don’t think I have made what you would call a viral video. Sitting down in a room and coming up with a concept that is viral is practically impossible. I’m not saying that it can’t be done but creating a video for a couple of hundred Euros that will get a million views is next to impossible. A lot of videos that people hold up as successful virals by brands actually have huge budgets behind them both to produce them to seed them out with advertising, media spend and PR to kick them off. Take this video featuring Roger Federer for example, you really think that was just off the cuff and uploaded to Youtube and became a success by accident?

Is An Interview With Your CEO Really Interesting?

I see so many companies engaging with videos that feature their key staff or CEO sitting there talking about his ambition for the company or some other product launch that the rest of the world probably doesn’t really care all that much about. I’m not saying to ignore doing interviews or corporate messenging pieces as they can be highly effective for larger brands and businesses but don’t bombard your audience with videos that scream “me me me”. If you are doing interview pieces see if you can liven them up or do something other than just a piece to camera. You really can get creative and try and stand out form the crowd because there are millions of other employees just doing interviews.

Focus On Views On 3rd Party Sites

There is no doubt that getting views on Youtube can be tricky, it takes lots of hard work and you can have very little control over it. What you do have control over though is getting your video embedded on 3rd party sites. I’m talking about getting them embedded to your own website or blog, appearing on Facebook or reaching out to other niche websites to cover them. You’d be surprised at just how much this can help you increase the views on your videos and it is one of the main ideas I would be focused on if I was looking for video views as a metric.

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The Zesty Show Episode 10 – Apple TV, Groupon And Facebook Places

Rob — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 21:06:19 +0000

Another episode of the Zesty show this week with an all male line up and the guys getting stuck in to some of the biggest social media stories of the week including Facebook places, Groupon and the launch of Apple TV next week. Lively debate from Tom, Rob and Fagan about everything that has caught their attention online this week, it’s basically a simple little video show we do every Friday and share both here and on Youtube. If you are new to the Zesty show you can subscribe to us on Youtube here to get the latest every week. Enjoy the show…

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Youtube Charts – Helping You Find The Best Viral Videos

Niall Harbison — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 19:28:40 +0000

I don’t really have much spare time but one of my guilty little pleasure on a Friday night or Saturday morning is to watch some of the latest viral videos on Youtube. I’s a great little way to relax and I’ll usually use Digg or The Guardian to find them. Luckily (Well not for Digg or The Guardian) Youtube have just made it an awful lot easier to find those viral videos with the release of Youtube Charts. It essentially does what it says on the tin and lets you see the best videos from the last day, week, month or of all time based on how many views, likes or subscribers the video has. The real beauty of these videos is that the system is hard to game and the videos with the most views on Youtube are usually worth a quick watch (as long as you stay away from the Bieber). It’s a small new feature on the site and most of this functionality was already available but what Youtube have done with this charts page is give me a great page to bookmark for my Saturday mornings and potentially make it even easier to waste hours of my day.

It Gave Me A Laugh

Well the new feature gave me a massive laugh yesterday when I was playing with it and found this video. There is something for everybody on Youtube and this video had me bent over laughing and I would say I personally pushed it up the charts as I watched it over and over again. No need for me to explain as you’ll work it out yourself.

Music Charts For The Youtube Generation

When I was growing up we would all listen to the radio on a Sunday evening to see who was the number one. That was back in the days where bands sold loads of singles and before digital music. We now live in a world where artists like Lady Gaga get a quarter of a billion video views on some of their singles and the battle that used to take place on the radio is now very much a Youtube charts battle.

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The Zesty Show Episode 9 – Questions + Answer Sites, Ranker And Facebook Flights

Lauren Fisher — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 14:55:09 +0000

Another busy week on the Simply Zesty show. This week there is some good debate about the value of Question and answer sites and how Facebook might be about to dominate that market. The guys also talk about a new site with a catchy name called Ranker that specializes in lists. Don’t forget that if you subscribe to the show here on Youtube you could be in with a chance of winning a printed version of our Internet subway maps! We were meant to give them away this week but we forgot!

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Youtube Survey Results – 61% Of Users Would Pay For Movie Content

Niall Harbison — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 19:57:29 +0000

Watching videos on Youtube is a daily habit for most of us but we wanted to find out a little bit more about how we all use the site. We do one of these little surveys every week and it is work remembering that we take the results from a small sample of fairly web savvy people (mostly through Twitter and Facebook). I must say that Youtube have really stepped up the quality and are clearly moving away form just being a video sharing site to something a lot more professional where I could see people paying for more professional content or premium accounts one day. Here is our Youtube survey…

If Youtube streamed HD movies would you pay for them?

I have to say that I was surprised at the amount of people here who would be willing to pay for HD movies and I will say that had the survey taken place in USA (where better streaming services like Netflix and Hulu are available) the numbers might have been lower? Still some interesting numbers here…

How many Youtube videos would you say you watch on an average day?

I actually thought the numbers would have been higher here. Important to remember that many people watch Youtube videos embedded in to third party sites like newspapers and blogs as well.

Do you have a Youtube account that you log in to?

Google have been doing a lot in recent times to sync your Google account with your Youtube account to streamline the process and ensure that more people login to leave comments and interact with the video content.

Can you watch Youtube videos at work?

I’ve been involved in video sites for a long time and I was always amazed at just how low traffic could be at times when users were in work and could not access the videos due to firewalls. The results here are higher than I had expected and interesting to see the rise in smart phones and Internet enabled devices.

Have you ever uploaded a video to Youtube?

Again I am surprised at how high the numbers are here. You do have to take in to account that Internet enabled phones are making it a lot easier for people to upload videos.

What Would You Like To See Next?

We will be running one of these surveys each week. They usually throw up some interesting little results so if you want to get involved and suggest a topic (around social media) feel free to leave some suggestions in the comments. You can always take part in forming the answers as well by following us on Twitter to get notifications about when we are sending out links.

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7 Incredibly Useful Youtube Features And Tricks You May Not Know

7 Incredibly Useful Youtube Features And Tricks You May Not Know

Niall Harbison — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 18:59:41 +0000

I spend large portions of my life on Youtube both watching videos and distributing content and have over the years picked up a few hints, tips and features that may not be obvious to the average user. The thing with Youtube is that so many people forget that it is actually a social network with features that go far beyond just watching videos and hidden away there are some great features that you can use. There are also a couple of examples of tools that work on top of the Youtube platform to make your experience on the world’s biggest video sharing site even better. Here are the Youtube tips and features that you may not know…

Edit Your Videos Directly On Youtube

This handy little feature is well buried away but when using it you can basically forget about editing videos on 3rd party software on your computer and can do it directly on Youtube. The editing is simplistic with basic cutting and cropping but you can quickly add videos and the good news is that Youtube will also help you find licensed music that you can use instantly.

Youtube Disco

There are tons of music discovery sites on the web but a great alternative is Youtube itself with most of the world’s big music artists having a presence on the world’s biggest video sharing site. Youtube Disco is new enough and it doesn’t always work but when it is up and running you’ll be suggested great tracks, can make mix tapes and queue videos as you want to see them. The beauty of this service is that rather than stopping and starting and searching for videos at the end of each song this will provide you with a constant stream of music. As I said it can temperamental and if it is not working you can always head over to the Youtube Music page which is a great place to start.

Share Your Videos Privately

There may be times when you want to share your videos with friends, clients or colleagues without the rest of the world seeing them. You have been able to do this by making videos private but the functionality was always limited but luckily Youtube recently brought in the “unlisted” feature. This allows you to upload a video and you’ll be given a unique URL that can be shared with the world but that never appears in any of the searches on Youtube. Seems like a simple enough feature but if you are doing any video work you will be surprised at just how easy this will make your life.

Remove Related Videos

After every video Youtube will take the liberty of adding related videos that you can then go on and watch. It’s a great way of finding new content but it can throw up some very random selections that could take the tone of your website down or have competitor videos etc display. Youtube have recently made this easier to control and if click on embed it will open up a series of selections including play in HD (video plays automatically in HD when embedded) and removing related videos. All of the selections you make at this stage will change the embed code and be reflected on the video embedded on 3rd party sites.

Get Youtube Subscribe Buttons

One thing that we advise people to help grow their subscriber list is to advertise their Youtube channel as much as possible on their own site and online social media profiles. Rather than finding some random badges online why not choose from the huge online selection that Youtube have provided for you in all shapes and sizes.

Only Embed The Part Of The Video You Need

Some videos on Youtube have great content in them but it might be right at the end of the video or buried somewhere in the middle. This is where the great tool Tubechop enters the mix. Tubechop allows you to select the part of the video you want to share with people giving you a new piece of code that only embeds that piece of the video. You’ll all probably recognize the first video below that has had nearly 150 million views on Youtube but for an example below that again the only part I want to share is the last dance which I have chopped out and can play on it’s own without viewers having the watch the entire video.

Here is the chopped video…

Leanback

There are times when you get home after a long day at work but you don’t want to be bothered with clicking, searching and flicking between different videos. Enter Youtube Leanback. Now who knows where this is heading (chances are it is Youtube’s move in to getting content ready for TV) but it is certainly a useful way of watching content full screen with no need to search or click on controls. Basically leanback lets you do exactly what it says on the tin and that is to leanback and enjoy all the best content on Youtube.

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How To Increase Your Youtube Video Views

Niall Harbison — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 22:46:06 +0000

If I had a penny for every time I had been asked by somebody to create them a viral video or how to get millions of views on Youtube I would be a very rich man indeed. People think they produce a video (usually of a corporate office setting with a new product announcement), put it on Youtube and all they have to do then is sit back and watch the video views roll in. As anybody who knows anything about online video will tell you the chances are your video will get a couple of hundred views at best. So how do you get the word out about your video online and increase the amount of people who see it on Youtube? Here are some of the little tips and tricks that will help you…

Make Friends And Network On Youtube

People think of Youtube as a place to watch videos but just like any of the other social networking sites there are plenty of ways to interact with other users and engage with the community. You’ll need to start befriending people within your niche, sending them private messages and complimenting them on their own videos and leaving comments wherever relevant. This is a slow process and is very similar to leaving comments on other blogs to grow blog traffic and although it takes lots of time it is highly effective.

Add Annotations To Your Videos

So annotations are getting easier to add on Youtube and although the biggest fault the system has it that it doesn’t let you link out to 3rd party sites (huge spam issues would arise) annotations do help you to grow subscribers. Have a look at the last 10 seconds of our video below and you’ll see a couple of links to our own channel and to our “about us” video. Used correctly (and there are tons of creative ways in which you can do this) annotations are an easy way for you to quickly drive some new subscribers to your channel or views to other videos that might not have been getting so much traffic.

Grow Your Subscriber Base

If there is one sure fire way to give your videos a little boost on Youtube then it is to have subscribers. A subscriber is somebody who will be alerted with an email every single time you upload a new video and their value should not be underestimated. Having somebody make that commitment to you is massive and channels with a couple of hundred subscribers is a great way to get your views up and if the video is good enough it should spread organically from those couple of hundred people to many others.

Tag And Describe Your Video Correctly

Although over the years Youtube has made every effort to improve video search most of the search is still done through text and tags. This means that you need to take lots of care when you are filling out your description and title and make sure to add as many relevant tags as you possibly can. Remember that Youtube is the second biggest search engine in the world after Google and that people could be searching for the content in your video right now so make sure you give them all they need to find it.

Thumbnails

Thumbnails for those of you not familiar with the term are the little images that appear before you click through to a video. You can select which image appears on the back end of Youtube once your video has uploaded and it is vitally important that you select something that is going to entice people to click immediately. Remember that when people search on Youtube they will be presented with 100s of results so in order for your video to stand out it needs to be highly visible.

Embed The Video And Share Wherever You Can

This is a very obvious one but there is a good chance that most of your views are not going to come on Youtube itself but mostly from third party websites. You should certainly have the video on your own website or blog if relevant and make use of your social media profiles like Facebook and Twitter to get the video going. If you have any friends who might be willing to push it out for you that can work well and if you think the video might be relevant to another blogger or website there is no harm in asking if they would like to feature it.

Create Signposts Or Links To Your Video

The old saying that people use for websites “build it and they will come” rings very true for video as well (they won’t actually come no matter how great you think your website/video is). There are millions of other pieces of content out on the web that are as good if not better than what you have produced so you are going to have to work at it and really spread the word about your video. Creating links and virtual “sign posts” to your video is going to be the key. You’ll see a little subscribe button over on the right of our page here on the blog, the Youtube logo appears on all our email signatures and we link through from Facebook and Twitter and all our other social media profiles.

Leave Video Responses

This is one that works incredibly well but it does take time to implement. Basically any video that is out there on YouTube can have video responses left to it (you’ll often see them along the bottom of the main video). You actually have to submit these yourself as a user and if the owner of the original video thinks that they are good enough they will allow it to appear as a video response. You will have to go through videos manually to find places where your video
will have a chance of getting accepted but it’s a great way to get you video in front of people in your niche who are clearly interested in a similar video and who might just click through to yours next. Again if you have followed the first step of effectively networking with other Youtube users then there is a good chance that plenty of people will accept your video response requests.

Any other tips yourself? Share them in the comments…

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The Zesty Show Epiosde 6 – Flipboard, The Times & Ford

Lauren Fisher — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:03:58 +0000

Welcome to episode 6 of the Zesty Show! An exciting week for us in our show, when we got a mention from the wonderful Tim Lovejoy on Twitter. Unfortunately we couldn’t incorporate his suggestions this week, but we’ll be working on it! This week we’re talking about Flipboard, which has got Fagan in a bit of a tizzy. We’re also looking at Ford’s decision to launch their latest car online, through Facebook. What do you think? Don’t forget to tell us what you think of the topics discussed in the comments below. And apologies as we said we’d be on itunes but unfortunately we’re not yet! Enjoy the show and have a lovely weekend

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Exciting Youtube project – Life in a Day

Lauren Fisher — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 15:42:18 +0000

You may have noticed a little logo next to youtube lately, that’s to advertise their ‘Life in a Day’ project. It’s an historical world-wide effort to crowdsource a documentary of one day in time. In the words of the creators : “One world. 24 Hours. 6 billion perspectives”. It takes place on 24th July and is being championed and run by Kevin Macdonald and Ridley Scott, both Oscar winning directors. This has all the beauty of a project like 365 days, calling on people to share a moment in their life, and ultimately appealing to event the smallest of egos! Not inspired yet? Watch the video below and hopefully you will be!

What’s even more exciting is that this will be premiering at Cannes Film Festival in 2011. Not a bad incentive for those taking part.

How can you take part?

To get involved you simply need to shoot your moment on 24th July and upload it to the official channel here. A submit button will appear to upload your videos between 24 and 31 July and let’s hope there’s no cheating! If you want to double your chances of a bit of exposure, you can also film a video entry to the following questions set by Kevin Macdonald : What do you love? What do you fear? What makes you laugh? What’s in your pocket (is there a story behind any of the objects)?

There are a few guidelines that you have to follow, such as not including trademarks in your clip, or material such as music, TV or film footage that you didn’t create yourself. There’s no time limit to the clips however, and most importantly they want people to use their imagination and not try and conform to a set theme. As a nice touch the creators are also naming the people whose footage ends up in the film as co-creators and will be bringing 20 of these to Sundance to celebrate.

We’ve seen a lot being done in the way of crowdsourcing recently, but this is something a little bit different and really just stood out to me. i really couldn’t like this project anymore. It’s so wonderfully simple yet has such an amazing concept at the heart of it – when you really stop and think about it. Bringing people together from all over the world to see what happened in there day. It will be the most immense time capsule of our time and I for one will be taking part! There’s 2 days left to go until the project launches so you’ve plenty of time to get your thinking caps on and be part of a brilliant project. Only question is, who’s sorting through the entries?

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Youtube advertising – case studies

Lauren Fisher — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 14:08:00 +0000

Following the online craze around the Old Spice ads,many are questioning the benefit of an ad campaign like this. In steps a new service from Youtube that aims to look more closely at the effect of youtube advertising. They have just announced the launch of their new channel – Bubble. Youtube bubble showcases the best examples of advertising on youtube as well as research into youtube advertising with useful stats. For those that work in the media industry, or are generally on the lookout for case studies and media research, this is an absolute goldmine. The video below shows an example of what you can expect to find on the channel. It’s obviously a bit ’salesy’ but useful nonetheless.

Do youtube ads actually work?

One of the most interesting stats from the video is that purchase intent on Youtube increases by 14% than the average for TV, as well as a 15% increase in the likelihood to recommend a brand advertised on Youtube. While the video reaches the inevitable conclusion that youtube is the perfect way to advertise your brand (shock horror!) , I would agree with the’ intent to purchase’ findings. I wouldn’t argue that this is the case for pre-roll ads, as I think you’ll find that people really find these annoying, and switch off as they just wait for their video to start. But personally I find ads such as mastheads on youtube have a bigger impact on me, as I respect the brand for choosing an outlet like Youtube. And the effect of a homepage takeover on youtube is very powerful. From a very basic point of view, I think that users are more engaged with youtube ads than they realise, for the simple fact that you spend more time staring at a video than you typically would on a normal website, so you absorb more of the advertising without realising it.

There’s an interesting case study available here (links to PDF) for the homepage takeover by 20th century Fox, for XMen Origins : Wolverine. At the time it was Youtube’s biggest ever homepage takeover deal. The research is the result of a joint study by 20th Century Fox and Google, so again expect a little bias. What’s interesting though is the findings on users propensity to share the Wolverine content – with 1 in 5 users doing so. This is surely one of the major advantages to advertising on Youtube.

I think we’ll see some great examples of advertising on youtube, as people continue to push the boundaries between opting for standard pre-rolls. Interactive ads will also probably play a big part here and I think it marks an interesting time for online advertising – the standard ads just don’t work anymore.

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The Zesty Show Episode 4 – Google Me, Browser Wars And Jonah Lomu

Lauren Fisher — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 08:21:59 +0000

This week on the zesty show we have the lovely background back and are in a rain forest to talk about Google me and all the speculation that goes with it, the latest round in the browser wars and a bogus Twitter account from one of rugby’s most famous ever players Jonah Lomu. This is the fourth week of the show and feedback so far has been good but do make sure to get involved in the discussion yourself in the comments if there is any feedback that you have or if you simply want to challenge any of the thoughts on the stories above. It would be great as well if you could help us by subscribing to the channel on Youtube which is the main place to find the show. Enjoy

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Episode 1 Of The Zesty Show Or Whatever You Want To Call It

Niall Harbison — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 09:08:14 +0000

You all know that I have made lots of videos in the last couple of years but I thought it was about time that we got some of the others from Simply Zesty out in front of the camera. So it was with much cajoling that Tom, Lauren and Niall Fagan all sat down on our Simply Zesty beach for the first ever Zesty show. We are actually looking for a name for the show and would love it if you guys could suggest a couple of names in the comments and also give us honest feedback and topics you would like to see appear on upcoming shows. The format is simple in that the guys pick a couple of social media topics and have a very casual discussion around those topics. If you guys like it the show will come out every Friday at 12 ad you’ll be able to get it via download, iTunes, Youtube etc. So sit back and see what you think and I will warn you that Fagan seems to automatically love the camera and Lauren does drop in a couple of swear words which is very unusual for her! Let us know what you think in the comments…

The Zesty Show Episode 1 from Simply Zesty on Vimeo.

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10 Simple Youtube Video Tips For Brands And Businesses

Niall Harbison — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 08:58:57 +0000

I’ve made a lot of videos over the last few years, well over 1000 at the last count and I thought it was about time that I started sharing some of that advice with you here on the blog so as I can pass on some of my knowledge. I would always suggest that you spread your videos around to as many platforms as possible but for today we are going to focus on Youtube as the big daddy of the online video world and as a great place for you to start your video work online. At it’s most basic level Youtube is incredibly easy to use but there are of course a whole host of extra features and handy tips that you could be using to get more out of the service and enhance your own experience and make sure that your videos have as good a chance of being seen by as many people as possible in their best possible light. So here are some of my handy Youtube hints for you….

Get Rid Of Related Videos

This is a really handy tip to remove all the related videos that appear at the end of any videos that you embed in to your site. Why would you want to do that? Well Youtube picks which videos are related to your own and they stay on the screen after your video finishes playing and sometimes this can be done with some unfortunate circumstances. Related videos can often feature competitors or inappropriate content that you don’t want views of your website to see. If you want to keep your website as professional as possible you might want to enable this feature. All you have to do is add ‘&rel=0? to the end of the URL part of the embed code and you will remove all related videos and vastly improve the look and feel of your website.

Share Videos As Unlisted

Have you ever had to send videos to other people before they get approved and added to Youtube? Sharing videos and getting them approved is a long and arduous process that takes time. Luckily Youtube recently added a feature that allows you to upload videos as unlisted which means that they won’t appear in the search results or anywhere on your own channel until you make them public. This means that you can go out and share that link directly with colleagues and friends but nobody without the direct URL will be able to find that video. A great way of keeping videos private until you actually want people to find them. Simply click in to My videos/Edit and you’ll be able to make the video unlisted.

Create A Branded Channel

This really isn’t very hard to do and is mostly just a case of uploading a background image and a decent profile picture to your channel. You can play around with the colors of the channel so as they match your own branding and generally give the channel the feel of something that is professional. This is something that doesn’t tale long to do yet I see countless brands and businesses who add their videos to Youtube yet don’t have a branded channel. Take 15 minutes of your day to set this up as it really is vitally important in terms of branding.

Build Your Subscriber Numbers

Most people I talk to want to have a viral video hit on Youtube and I usually cringe when I hear this sort of talk as “going viral” is so rare that it really is not worth having as your main goal. One easy way to make sure your video does get seen by a large audience is by getting as many subscribers as possible. Subscribers on Youtube are very much like any other type of subscribers in that they are people who are making a commitment to your content and saying they want to be updated as soon as more is released. Every time you post a new video your subscribers will be alerted with an email. What this means is that if your content is good enough the initial group of people who see it via subscribing will push it out to an even bigger audience. To get subscribers you can do lots of different things but a couple of simple ways to push your numbers up are 1.Give something away in your videos and ask users to subscribe to be in with a chance of winning. 2. Network within Youtube with people in your niche by commenting on their videos, friending them up and generally being active within the community.

Optimize Your Videos For Search

Video is very hard to search as Youtube converts it in to Flash which search engines can’t really search. Having said that Youtube is the second biggest search engine in the world (ahead of Bing, Yahoo etc) so it is vitally important that you optimize your videos on the platform. In order to do that you need to fill out the descriptions with great care, include plenty of tags and give the videos a good strong title. This is one area that I see brands and businesses fall down but just remember that you need to take a lot of time to give these videos the best chance of getting found not only within Youtube but also on other search engines themselves as Google especially gives Youtube videos a great ranking on it’s own search engines. Take your time and do this right and you will get more views!!

Promote Your Youtube Video Outside Of Youtube

Getting views on your video is tough and unless you actively go out there and promote the video the chances are that it is not going to get seen by many people. Luckily social media affords you a great chance to up the views and start getting some attention for the videos. For example simply sharing the video on your Facebook page will get you a couple of hundred views from your friends. If you have a blog or website make sure to embed it there if relevant and also pass it on through your Twitter feed or any other social media profiles that you might have. If it’s for business there is a good chance that your LInkedin contacts might find it interesting for example. Again of the content is good enough then people will like the video, pass it on to others and the views will start to increase organically.

Don’t Just Re-Purpose Your TV Advert

Sure you should be adding your TV adverts to Youtube as there are always people looking for them and it is criminal as a brand or business not to have them on Youtube but this should not be the entire extent of your content on Youtube. You need to think of this as a totally different channel than TV. The audience are different and more clued in and not looking for Ads. You might think that there isn’t anything that makes our company interesting or relevant to Youtube but I think every company has something to offer. You could do a daily CEO video blog, product demos, competitions, client testimonials or a million other things once you let you imagination run wild. You need to create content for Youtube itself and unlike the old days where video production was an expensive undertaking you can now have professional video online for a couple of hundred Euros and all in a couple of minutes. Get creative and find the story within your company.

Select The Best Possible Thumbnail

This is probably the easiest way that you can increase your video views. People click on stuff that is very visual and having a nice thumbnail can make all the difference. Youtube will automatically generate the thumbnail for you which is usually not the most flattering picture for your video but you can actually go in and select your own thumbnail. This is something that will literally take you 30 seconds and it could be the difference between people clicking in to your video or people skipping past. IF you are not happy with the thumbnails that Youtube generate for you from the video you can actually go ahead and upload your own thumbnail.

Post Video Responses

At the end of the day you want as many relevant people within your niche to see your video as possible. Adding videos as a response to other people’s videos is a great way of doing this. The key is relevancy. So lets say I did a video about social media and online PR i would make sue that I featured it alongside doing something in the same genre. You have to request that the video is added by the original owner of the video and they won’t always oblige but it is a great way of bumping up the views and spreading the word about your video. Be careful not to spam people with this technique though and only add the videos as responses where they are actually adding value to the original content.

Don’t Get Dragged Down In The Comments

People who comment on Youtube can be as nasty as they come. It’s not unusual to find racist, sexist and downright hurtful comments on your videos. It’s important not to get dragged down to that level. If people have some genuine problems with your content or adding to the discussion you should of course try and engage wherever possible but if people are just out to hurt or belittle then it’s best just to ignore. If you find the comments add nothing or are just distasteful then you can of course just delete them. Just bare in mind that unlike your blog or Facebook where people will usually be respectful Youtube is a different animal and you should be ready to have some seriously thick skin!

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Niall Harbison — Sat, 22 May 2010 16:10:46 +0000

Over the last few months I have seen tons of large brands trying to do flash mobs in countries all over the world and for the large part they are pretty annoying and predictable but Leo Fogarty sent me a great example of a small Irish business using Glee and video in a really smart way to help them out. I am no Glee fan myself but I see people talking about it online every single day of the week and this small pub in Skerries is looking to tap in to all the online buzz and have created what I must say is a pretty professional looking video. They can be sure to get huge buzz online, lots of talk going with the customers and it must have been a great morale booster for the staff. In a world where the extent of most small businesses’ online presence is setting up a Twitter account and tweeting out special offers this really is forward thinking and probably quite cheap way of marketing. They have tapped in to something really popular and created some good content which I suspect will get a lot more coverage than they could have ever imagined. Also watch out for the good subtle placements of the Ollie’s Bar Branding. Top job here…

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Niall Harbison — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 13:30:19 +0000

I wanted to share this video for a couple of reasons. The first is that as soon as I watched it I knew that I was watching another agency that really understood the current market we are in and the general landscape of the industry as a whole but also because it is possibly the best use of annotations that I have ever seen. Annotations have never really taken off that well on Youtube apart from on lots of rubbish videos that are basically trying to spam you in to visiting their site with crude unrelated links within videos. I have been looking for a smart company doing something in this space for a while and this video is the perfect example. It shows you a simple was of gaining extra traffic to your site while increasing the visibility of your brand on a social media platform. We have already had one business lead from our own Youtube channel and you can imagine with over 800,000 views that these guys have had a few more thanks to this smart video. I just wanted to share it because I know that 99% of people out there are using annotations very very badly and this is a great example to take a lead form and include custom tabs within your videos….

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