Marketing with YouTube – Avoid These Common YouTube Mistakes

profitable niche ideasEvery day, entrepreneurs put videos on YouTube full of potentially costly mistakes. When used properly, YouTube can be a source of enormous traffic. Yet when entrepreneurs make some of the mistakes described below, more often than not their video fails.

What are some of the common YouTube mistakes to avoid? Here they are.

=> Looking at the Screen, Not the Camera

It’s very tempting to look at your computer screen when you’re recording a video. After all, that’s where the majority of your activity is.

But it’s important to keep in mind that for the user, it looks like you’re looking down or off to the side when you’re looking at your screen. The only time it looks like you’re making eye contact is when you look directly into the camera.

It you’re using a camera to record yourself, always, always, always look directly into the camera.

=> Bad Sound

Having shoddy video quality is fine. Many top YouTube channels are built on mere webcams.

However, having shoddy audio will kill your chances. If they can’t hear what you’re saying, that is infinitely worse than them having a fuzzy video.

Make sure your audio is not too loud and not too soft. Above all, make sure the audio is not too fuzzy.

Get a better mic before you get a better camera. Also try sound editing software to remove any background noise.

=> Poor Keyword Choice

If you’re using YouTube as a marketing tool, it’s crucial that you select good keywords to put into your title. That way, when people search for something related to what you’re targeting, your video will come up.

Of course, just having your keyword in your title doesn’t mean you’ll rank for the search. A number of factors, including views, comments and video responses all go into determining where you rank. That said, if you don’t have your keyword in the title, you almost definitely will not rank.

=> No Contact Info, No Call to Action

Now that you can actually put links in your video, there is absolutely no excuse to not have a solid call to action in your video.

Even if you’re not using it as a primary marketing tool, you want to be linking to your website to build your brand and build your list, so you can send them more videos and more content in the future.

If you don’t get them to your website, you’re wasting a lot of the trust and positive emotional associations you’ve created by showing them a great video.

Put either your contact information or your website in your video. Better yet, link directly to it from within your video and in your description.

These are some of the more common mistakes entrepreneurs make when putting videos on YouTube. Above all, make sure you avoid these mistakes.

YouTube Marketing – Using the YouTube Video Editor

1-Click-and-Drag-to-Timeline

The YouTube editor is a simple editing program that allows you to put multiple videos together, add music and transitions. It’s not the most advanced editing program in the world, but is great for fast, on the fly editing.

Here’s how to use the YouTube editor. You can log on to the editor at:

http://www.youtube.com/editor?feature=mhsn

Step 1: Drag and Drop All the Videos You Want

On the upper left hand side is a listing of your videos. Drag and drop the videos you want to the timeline below.

Step 2: Trim Each Video

Trimming is the process of telling YouTube when you want each video to start and end. Hover your mouse over the video in the timeline and click the scissors button.

The trimming screen will appear. Click and drag the handles on the left and right of the timeline to trim the video. Click save when you’re finished.

Step 3: Adding Audio

Click the Audio button at the top to access the audio menu.

Click and drag any audio to the audio timeline to add the audio to your video.

You can search for specific songs and artists along the time. Unfortunately, you can’t use your own audio as YouTube only lets you use songs that they’ve acquired the copyrights to.

Step 4: Adding Transitions

Transitions are things like fade ins and fade outs, slide in the next video, etc in between videos. If you don’t add transitions, each video will simply jump to the next and look very choppy.

To add transitions, first click on the transitions tab along the top.

Click and drag the transition of your choice between the videos where you want the transition to appear.

Optional: Rotation and Effects

Rotation and effects are two more features that the YouTube editor lets you do.

Rotations allow you to rotate your video in 90 degree angles, clockwise or counter clockwise. Hover your mouse over the video in the timeline and click the rotate button to rotate.

The effects button allows you to increase and decrease the brightness and contrast or switch the video to black and white. Hover over the video and click effects.

Step 5: Click publish!

Once you’re finished, click the publish button to publish your video.

YouTube Marketing – Add an Ajax bar

1-Select-Orientation

How to add an Ajax video bar to your website

An AJAX bar allows you to put a row of playable videos on your website. The videos are dynamic, meaning they change as more videos are updated.

You can have a stream of the most viewed videos on YouTube, the top rated videos, news videos or recently featured videos. Alternatively, you can create a stream from any YouTube channel or search phrase.

Here’s how to add an Ajax bay to your website. To start, go to the AJAX video wizard:

http://www.google.com/uds/solutions/wizards/videobar.html

Step 1: Select Your Video Orientation

Do you want your bar to be horizontal or vertical?

Step 2: Choose Your Stream’s Source

Where do you want the AJAX bar to get it’s videos from?

If you want to get it from one of the four popular video feed options, then select one or more feeds from “Popular Video Feeds”:

If you want to take your videos from a YouTube channel, enter the name of the YouTube channel. Make sure you uncheck the “Popular Video Feeds” options if you just want videos from a channel.

If you want to get your source from a search term, then enter the search term. For example, if you run a website dedicated to dancing monkeys, you might type “Dancing Monkeys” in the search term.

Any time someone adds a popular video containing “Dancing Monkeys,” it’ll show up on your feed.

Step 3: Check the Feed Example

As you edit your choices for your feed source, a sample feed will be generated to show you what kind of content you can express.

Check out the videos from these feeds and make sure that the kind of videos your feed will pull based on your specifications is what you’re looking for.

Step 4: Select “Show Code”

Click on “Show Code” to show the HTML code needed to add the bar to your site.

Step 5: Copy and Paste the Code to HTML

A long list of code will be generated. Copy and paste that code from the Video Wizard to your HTML editor and upload it to your server.

Once your code is uploaded, you’re done! You now have an AJAX video bar on your website. Visit your website and make sure it’s functioning properly.

Internet Marketing with YouTube

writing your first articleHave you ever sat for hours watching YouTube videos?

Have you ever forwarded a YouTube video to a friend or received a link from someone?

YouTube has become part of our lives. The site can be incredibly addictive, and there are people who make a living solely on YouTube videos. As a business owner, you can capitalize on this continuing trend and use YouTube to your advantage in your internet marketing efforts. Here’s how:

The first step is to get a YouTube account if you don’t already have one. If you’re already a member, then you’re ready for the next step. YouTube accounts are free so there’s no cost to you.

The next step is to create a video. This is where strategic planning is important. The first question to ask yourself is what the goal is of this video or marketing tactic. Why are you creating a video and what do you want it to accomplish? There are a number of potential goals to consider. Some include:

* Drive traffic
* Boost your opt-in list subscribers
* Sell a product or service
* Increase awareness – viral marketing
* Strengthen your brand

Based on your goal, the next question you’ll ask is: How can I accomplish this with a video? One great place to look for answers is to look at your audience. What do they want? What do they respond to?

For example, if your goal is to boost your opt-in list subscribers and your audience is commonly looking for “how to” advice, then you could create a “how to” video that leads them to your freebie giveaway for more answers and information.

If you want to drive traffic to your website, then you’ll likely want to go all out to create a video that will go viral. Viral means that it spreads quickly. People share it with their friends, family and associates. In order to go viral, your video needs to be something people haven’t seen before. It can be funny, extremely informative, controversial or a new approach or solution to an old problem.

Before you create your video there’s one additional consideration – your brand personality. What is your brand personality and how can you communicate that in the video? For example, if you’re known for controversial statements and positions, then ideally your video will have an element of controversy too. Remember to be consistent with your brand for better awareness and effect.

A few key points to consider include:

* Your video must be less than 10 minutes
* It must be smaller than 100MB
* It must be in an acceptable format, namely .AVI, .MOV, .WMV, and .MPG file formats.

Making the most of your YouTube video

You’ve put a lot of work into creating a video to help you meet your business goals. It’s important to pay attention to the finer points now. Make sure you:

* Enter Title, Description, Tags, and Category to make it easy for people to find your video
* Set your video to Public
* Get the code so you can embed the video on your website or blog
* Link to the video in your various marketing tactics. For example, post a link to it on any social networking site you participate in. Email links to your list and encourage them to forward it
* When embedding it on your blog, tag it to make it extra easy to find via the search engines

YouTube is an entertainment tool and a learning tool, and it can also be a business tool. Create our goals, pay attention to your audience and your brand, and follow up with good SEO and marketing practices to spread the word.