When I hear the word YouTube two things come straight to mind: global connection and sneezing panda.
Now that YouTube sees 2 million views a day, from 23 countries and 24 languages it’s no wonder that 94 of Advertising Age's top 100 advertisers are on the streaming video site! YouTube can be an extremely cost effective way to reach a global target market. It’s hard to say any of the leading television companies or magazines could do the same.
As simple as that all may sound there are still some main practices that seem to be behind the masterpieces of making your advertising on YouTube a success. The three I believe to be golden: friends, tags and feedback.
FRIENDS
color=gold>
My grandfather’s favorite ride at Disneyland was always, It’s A Small World. We would ride it over and over again and it would remind me that we are all connected in the world by only six degrees. When you apply this theory to YouTube beautiful things start to happen.
Golden Rule Number One: FRIEND REQUEST, FRIEND REQUEST, FRIEND REQUEST. Send them to your friends, send them to friends of your friends, send them to the most viewed channels, to report channels, to your Facebook friends. The more friends you are able to get the more your channel will get out there. If every friend you requested then turned around and shared it with one of their friends, already your possibilities are limitless.
The only caveat here is that you want to be careful not to come across as spammy. While it's important to have a broad and deep reach on YouTube, you'll want to be targeted and personable when you request connections from others.
TAGScolor=gold>
As Drew Hubbard points out in his post SEO Best Practices for YouTube, YouTube is the second largest search engine out there, which means it's even more important that your customers can easily find you there. As Drew explains, tags in YouTube can positively influence your rankings. Take the new Sprint Evo as an example - for a video about the Evo, you might include tags like Sprint, EVO, commercial, new, G4, and HTC.
FEEDBACKcolor=gold>
Almost every single blog post and paper I looked at when putting together these golden rules mentioned YouTube and its feedback abilities. Because people viewing your page have the ability to leave positive and negative feedback, they are able to more effectively engage with your brand. This engagement can lead to higher levels of interest in your content and brand.
By marketing on YouTube, you put the power in the hands of the community. They choose to interact with what they are viewing and decide which videos become popular, and which don't. It will also be just as important for you to make note of the feedback you receive and respond. Interact with the commenters, gauge and use the feedback you are receiving, show them you are aware.
Viral activity is huge in today’s world and with YouTube being all about connecting people, things, and companies through video content it is an important factor in the success of a company and its marketing. Friends, tags and feedback are the golden rules you can use to begin your journey towards being successful with YouTube.
And now, for your viewing pleasure, Sneezing Panda:
