Marketing with Online Video

September 2, 2008 |

Creating a viral video that conquers YouTube isn’t always by accident. Many companies are achieving success promoting their brands, websites, and businesses through a video on YouTube that spreads through the Internet like wildfire. They do so through careful creation and promotion of the video that encourages people not only to watch, but to pass the video along to their friends.

When creating a viral video, always keep in mind “is this something that people will want to watch?” When was the last time your friend started sending you links to ads? Nobody wants to do free marketing for your company; they want to be entertained. Keep the content short, ideally less than 30 seconds per video, to hold interest. Make it shocking, unusual, funny, or use sex appeal to get people to watch.

Once you have the video, the most important step is promotion. Tens of thousands of clips are uploaded to YouTube every day – very few of them become viral videos. You’ll need to be proactive. For the initial views, promoting through relevant blogs and forums will help. It may be worth it to pay to get the content visible and in the hands of those who will pass it along and post it to other communities. Further, embedding YouTube videos directly into MySpace is a great way to get more views, as is using Facebook to share the video with your friends list. Once the video is out in the world, you are sure to see your traffic rise dramatically!

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