2011 is going to be a big year for online video. Over the past year, in a mainstream sense, the Internet has become far more media-heavy (think Google/Apple TV, Hulu and Netflix), pointing people in the direction of online to find content. With this comes the idea that the average user can profit from this growth.
YouTube, where literally the most arbitrary video can become popular (the annoying orange), has been offering a revenue sharing program for a while already. Facebook, with over 500 million active users (what’s the bet you have an account?) provides a fantastic means to proliferate and share content, as does Twitter.
Essentially, this empowers you to earn money on your video should it eventually become as annoying as that stupid orange.
Build your “fan base” and learn from them
Easy enough, now you know you can make money, but how exactly do you get your videos watched? While I can’t provide you with a formula on how to make a video viral, I can offer some pointers that may help you out. Whilst content is obviously the most important part to get right, there are various avenues you can exploit to maximise the exposure of your video.
The first thing to consider is that YouTube (and Facebook) are communities, made up of users – they decide what they enjoy and it’s these people that are your audience (“fan base”). If you’re a part of that community it is not a giant leap to becoming an active participant as well. This in turn should mean that you have an idea of the people you are relating to and know what they would enjoy – it figures that they will support you (this applies to users as well as brands!). Think about it what you’re good at, what you know and find your niche! And remember to be patient – no superstars were made overnight.
Whilst word of mouth is the biggest seller out there, there are some technical tweaks you can do to boost exposure of your videos in order to better your rankings in the search engines.
Video search optimisation relies on applying basic SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) foundations and then getting creative for advanced ranking. Video search optimisation for posted video has one major benefit over traditional SEO: it can work a lot faster.
The steps to superstardom and success
For benchmarking to help measure success, questions to ask in this area could be: where are your viewers coming from? Does your video content already appear in the SERP? What % of visitors and viewers are currently linking to and sharing your videos?
Looking at YouTube’s search algorithm, the following factors have an effect on video search results. Firstly, the following components are evaluated on a keyword and key phrase level by the search engine spiders:
• Titles
• Descriptions
• Tags
• Playlist additions
• Inbound links
Additionally, YouTube defines relevance in accordance with the popularity of a given video and the interaction that is taking place around it. The following factors come to play a role in the algorithm defining relevance to a particular search:
• Views
• Channel views
• Ratings
• Comments
• Shares
• Embeds
• Subscribers
• Flagging
• Age of video
It’s key to keep YouTube content current and entertaining to engage with your audience. If a video is very young, but growing in popularity (i.e. views) it’s very likely to take preference in the SERP over an older video that might hold more views. I’ve outlined a few tips and techniques below to help you start walking the walk and talking the talk of a YouTube superstar.
Key optimisation techniques for YouTube video search:
1. Video title is very important. It’s one of the first things that a user sees and the video search uses this first and foremost to determine your videos’ relevance. Your most important keywords should appear in the first three words of the title. Longer, descriptive titles are better than short, concise and oblique ones.
2. Use thorough descriptions and include as many of relevant keywords as possible. Include as much information as possible, but remain succinct. Make sure you also include a link at the end of the description in case the user would like to watch more of what you have to offer – remember they came to watch a particular video; chances are they would be interested in a video covering the same or a similar topic. Annotations (see below) tie in closely with this notion.
3. Use tags to utilise keywords, but remember that order matters. Put your most important ones first. You can also get clever with the tags, capitalising on popular search terms and piggybacking on popular/topical phrases, but ensure that these are at least somewhat relevant to your video (i.e. utilise terms from the same category) - YouTube Suggest and Google Suggest are great tools to use here.
Remember that nomenclature is vital – include terms relevant to your business (where possible) in every title, description and tags.
4. Encourage subscriptions, comments and ratings, embedding and sharing. Don’t forget to respond to relevant comments. It is vital to prove to people that you’re taking them seriously and that you appreciate constructive commentary.
Consider inciting discussion by posting a comment as soon as you have uploaded a video. Pose a provocative question to spark discussion and lead the conversation – the absolute key to success in the Social Media space is engagement, be it on YouTube, Facebook or Twitter.
5. Optimise your thumbnails. If you want to get technical (and creative) then you can utilise the following formula for making sure the thumbnail is exactly the image you want it to be. When you have the final time on your uploaded video (in seconds), divide the time with one of these numbers:
1. 3.09597523
2. 2.85080773
3. 1.44869215
These will then be your three thumbnail choices. Remember that a single frame is invisible to the naked eye so if you choose to insert one it will be invisible when the video plays.
6. Use annotations to link from and to other video properties. Annotations allow you to add text boxes with clickable URLs (which are crawled by the spiders as well) at points in the video of your choosing. Annotations in already popular and current videos can be used to drive traffic to new videos, though it should be standard practice to include them in a video as soon as it has been uploaded.
7. Upload videos regularly to ensure continuous channel activity and topical interest. Considering the nature of the online space, users expect a constant stream of up-to-date content.
The one thing to bear in mind is to be patient. It's highly unlikely that you will become a 'hit' over night, but the key is to keep going, build your following and make use of their opinion and criticism. Keep going, eventually your commitment will pay off and you’ll be a true YouTube superstar!
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