Creating an Internet video is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to creating a successful online video marketing strategy. Blue chip corporates are often immersing themselves in extensive viral campaigns, expensive Internet Television ads and web wide sponsorship, but what about the little guys?
The following article provides businesses, brands and bloggers of all niches and sizes, with a foolproof three step guide to promoting their Internet videos successfully. Oh and for absolutely free.
1. Make Your Internet Video SEO Savvy
You may find it a strange concept to take in, but a large portion of video promotion doesn’t actually come from promoting it. In fact it comes from simply allowing your video content to be found. What I mean by this is that you need to make your Internet video SEO savvy.
Use a free video hosting site like YouTube to upload your content. YouTube is one of the best video sharing sites to use for uploading online video content, because it is the second most used search engine in the world. YouTube videos get searched for millions of times a day, and frequently appear on page 1 of Google’s search engine results. This gives your video content the potential to influence those search rankings and get viewed by a mass worldwide audience.
So, how do you make your Internet video content ‘SEO savvy’? When you upload your video to YouTube optimise the text fields available to you. Cater these fields towards your SEO keywords and phrases. This means giving your content a search friendly title, a keyword heavy description (which should include your URL and contact information) and keyword specific tags. This will allow search engines to crawl online content to find your video and bring it up in their results.
If you want to be really SEO savvy, include keywords and phrases in your Closed Captions and Transcripts, or even go as far as submitting a Sitemap of your video to Google, which is a must if you’re embedding your YouTube video on your website.
2. Market Your Internet Video Socially
Social medias are a video Internet marketers best friend when it comes to promoting content. Not only does social interaction with your video content improve your search engine impact, but it also helps to get users sharing your video across the web.
Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter and even YouTube can be used to share your content and interact with users in your niche. Always remember, when you are posting your video material to the audiences on these platforms, aim to utilise the tools available on each site.
Use YouTube’s Video Response system and Comment box to reply to posts on your content, and try to use such tools to interact with similar videos in your area. Doing so will allow you to stir up a YouTube following for yourself as a user, which will help to improve the viewership of your video.
Facebook is great for targeting niches. All areas have dedicated Pages and Groups for you to share your content and engage with users in. Facebook has also just launched a Subscription system, which means users subscribed to your Profile can be notified when you post your video content.
LinkedIn is all about approaching thought leaders. Connecting with the big players in your niche will definitely improve the likelihood of your video being shared within their followed community, which could generate a bigger profile for both you and your content. LinkedIn is also another social media that loves Groups and Discussions, be sure to spread your content in all such relevant areas.
Twitter is always a complex social media mistress, because you can’t post a physical video thumbnail, which minimises the impact your YouTube link will have on your Followers. The trick here is to make the text accompanying your link as curious, engaging and persuasive as possible. If you can encourage users to click your link then you can let your video do the talking.
Google+ is being constantly felt out by Internet marketers and Internet users alike. The biggest tip to take away here is the ability to target your video content at specific sectors. Use your Circles to suggest your video to the appropriate individuals. This will mean you can stay on good terms with those outside of your niche by not spamming them with unwanted content, and stay on even better terms with those interested in your subject area.
The power of ‘word of mouth’ is priceless and by dominating social medias and getting your content shared from user to user, you can help to use this power to your full advantage.
3. Track Your Internet Videos Success
The success of promoting your Internet video campaign can only be achieved through thorough tracking and analysis. From the outset you need to consolidate the goals your video aims to achieve. Is it improving sales? Is it gaining more blog subscribers? Or is it simply increasing brand awareness? As soon as you know what your video strategy aims to achieve you can begin to determine its success.
Free tools like YouTube Insight, Tube Mogul and Google Analytics are the best ways to determine the success of your Internet video promotion.
YouTube Insight and Tube Mogul will inform you on anything from how many viewers your video has, where in the world people are viewing it, where users are finding your video to begin with, and after what time period they are turning it off. The power of knowing such data allows you to know where your video content is failing and where it is succeeding. Checking the status of this data regularly can help you spot pitfalls ahead of time and give you the opportunity to make the necessary changes to your video to keep it on the inside track.
Google Analytics is your essential tool for everything business related. Much like the other two tools it informs you where your traffic is coming from, but it also fills you in on those important conversion rates. A similar approach to YouTube Insight and Tube Mogul should be taken to Google Analytics. Check it regularly and thoroughly to ensure your video is performing at an optimum level and fulfilling the goals of your campaign.
Obtaining the data from these tools takes a matter of minutes and can be digested in easy to access formats, making your job of analysing its success incredible simple.
Summary
There you have it, your essential three step guide to free optimum Internet video promotion for any business, brand and blog. Utilising the power of search rankings, social media, word of mouth and frequent strategy assessment will help to guarantee sound video promotion success.