The “Ninja Move” YouTube Secret Weapon 2.0 Insider Webinar recording is now online and available to EVERYONE who purchased YouTube Secret Weapon 2.0.

All customers should have received email with access directions and a password. If you haven’t received one at this point, you’ll need to contact us at support.

Yes, if you purchase YouTube Secret Weapon 2.0, you get the recording of this amazing Webinar for free.

Co-creators of YouTube Secret Weapon 2.0, Julie Perry and Paul Colligan, are contributing authors to the latest book from Entrepreneur Magazine’s Entrepreneur Press:

“Success Secrets of the Social Media Marketing Superstars“

This book, compiled by online marketing legend, Mitch Meyerson, gives readers an unmatched advantage into the world of social media — the priceless secrets, strategies, tactics and insights of more than 20 of today’s social media elite. Handpicked to cover almost every aspect of social media marketing, this book’s distinguished team of contributing social media experts open their playbooks and teach readers how to create effective social media campaigns that reach out to millions.

Julie Perry’s chapter, “YouTube: Leveraging the Power of Google to Get Your Video Content to Millions” (read an excerpt from her chapter here), just so happens to be on mastering YouTube (go figure!) and it includes many of the tips and tricks she lays out in Julie & Paul’s YouTube Secret Weapon 2.0 5-part DVD course — now updated with webinars featuring the latest YouTube updates since August 2010! (Get your copy now!)

Paul Colligan’s chapter, “Podcasting: Leveraging the Power of Apple to Get Your Content to Millions ” (hmmm, sounds like these two business partners conferred a bit during the writing stage) discusses how to outsmart your competition with the power of podcasting and features many of the strategies he outlines in his popular Podcast Secrets 3.0 course.

Julie and Paul are featured alongside other well-known social media authorities such as: Gary Vaynerchuk (@GaryVee), Chris Brogan (@ChrisBrogan), Mari Smith (@MariSmith), Denise Wakeman (@DeniseWakeman), Brian Clark (@copyblogger), Michael Stelzner (@Michael_Stelzner), Deborah Cole Micek (@CoachDeb), Joel Comm (@joelcomm), Barbara Rozgonyi (@wiredprworks) and Chris Garrett (@chrisgarrett).

• Contributions from 20+ top social media marketers
• The biggest mistakes people make with social media and how to fix them
• Actionable plans for all areas including social networks, blogs, web TV and mobile marketing
• Real-world case studies, best practices and proven techniques from the experts
• Detailed list of resources

Grab your copy of Success Secrets of the Social Media Marketing Superstars today and get eight audio and video bonuses at www.SocialMediaMarketingSuperstars.com. Also look for the full page ad in Entrepreneur Magazine — on the stands now!

We’ve placed it all on the line and put YouTube Secret Weapon up at Bearhug for customer support, recommendations, reviews and more.

Got a question or something to say about YouTube Secret Weapon? Say it at Bearhug. Results should be fascinating.

VidCon 2010 was amazing, on a number of levels. I’ll try to hit some of the highlights here but, … wow … I’m more serious / bullish on YouTube than ever before. Let me give you some highlights:

• The excitement of YouTube’s announcing support for 4k video overshadowed the important 3 point outline that came from the presentation where it was launched. In short, YouTube wants to be 1) the best place for your content while providing 2) the best ways to make your content fun and interactive while enabling people the chance to 3) view your content wherever you are. Lofty goals, yes, but I think these guys can pull it off. Oh, yes, and did I mention, they want you as a partner. Yes, our goal here is for you to see us as your YouTube Secret Weapon but, dear friends, MAKE YOUTUBE YOUR SECRET WEAPON.
• All my writing and teaching of all the places YouTube is available was made so much more elegant in the statement that our future is “not going to be a device centric world.” Your content everywhere (#3) above is the only choice for any content provider looking to take the Internet seriously.
• YouTube is monetizing over a billion videos a week. Read that sentence again. Nuff said?
• In a bit of very strategic insight, it was also said that more than half of all YouTube views come from subscriptions. One YouTube employee went as far as saying that subscriptions are “the currency of YouTube.”
• In one more bit of hackerlike information, twas told that channel numbers are not as much of an influence on the YouTube ranking algorithm as people think it is. Take that for what it is worth.
• I met the guys from Orabrush (one of the sponsors of the event). Oh, man, does their YouTube story sum things up perfectly. I include it here, how else, but as a YouTube Embed

  
  

Expect more on the topics of both VidCon and what we learned there. I’ll be there for next year’s event and recommend you do the same.

A reported at Techmeme, YouTube is rolling out their HTML5 version of their mobile site, rendering their apps obsolete and nailing another nail into Flash’s coffin.

We’re able to see it here and we agree with Techmeme. This is where YouTube needs to go and it looks like a million bucks

Now, we need to be honest. Everyone else in this “space” looks at YouTube to see where they should go as well.

By YouTube doing this, it should go without saying that we’ll be seeing more of the same from other video players online.

Flash simply does not have much time left – and YouTube today perhaps pulled the plug.

This year’s VidCon event looks to be tremendous.  We’ll be there, reporting from the event, and will share with out whatever YouTube VidCon goodness comes our way.

If you know nothing about the event, take a look a VidCon2010 for more information. You might want to consider attending yourself.

According to YouTube’s Channel Re-Design Beta Blog, TODAY, September 30th, is the day YouTube will officially begin switching all user channels over to channel design 2.0. If you are still using the old version, be ready to accept change, because while not all channels will switch over instantly, YouTube says the full migration will be complete within the next two weeks. YouTube partners will be the last to “get the swap” (ouch! sounds like it hurts) and that occurs on October 14th.

YouTube Secret Weapon customers, clients, and blog readers may recall that this official, site-wide conversion was to have taken place back on July 15th, but it was postponed. SO, while the YouTube channel redesign team  slowly whittled away at the remaining items on their to-do list, I went off and enjoyed the rest of my summer.
(And by that I mean I took a break from the blog, and Paul and I halted development of YouTube Secret Weapon 2.0; however, it was not a YouTube-less summer for me. I continued coaching private clients one-on-one, some of whom I will showcase in future case studies. Yeah, I learned a bunch of killer new YouTube marketing tricks.)

While I’m not 100% in love with the new channel design layout, I have been figuring out ways to make the most out it. I promise to blog about some of the beneficial features in the future. In the meantime, I want to say something to those of you who have used (or hope to use) custom background images on your channel...

Customized YouTube Channel Backgrounds

With this official switch to the new design layout, any background images or custom color scheme settings you used on your previous YouTube channel will be lost or not work properly.

Actually, let me take a step back a moment and say: If you have not customized your YouTube channel, you definitely want to reconsider. It is wise to keep your branding consistent across all of your online properties. By making good use of a custom background image, you can modify your channel to look like an extension of your existing site(s) and/or profiles.

At the very least, you’ll want to choose a suitable color-scheme. But with the  wealth of branding elements you can have put into a custom channel background image, it’s the way to go.

So with the new official design switch on the horizon, I went out and found a fantastic graphic designer to customize some new channel background images for both my YouTube Secret Weapon partner, Paul Colligan, as well as for one of my current clients, Mike Fry. (I also have one being created for the official YouTube Secret Weapon channel. Coming soon.)

FIRST, check out these absolutely STELLAR YouTube channel background designs by Kurt Austin of Catalyst Digital:

1. Fancy Fortune Cookies’ YouTube Channel – For my client Mike Fry’s custom fortune cookie company by the same name. WARNING: Do not view on an empty stomach!

http://youtube.com/user/fancyfortunecookies

Note that this channel is currently being used to feature videos sent in for a contest promotion that Fancy Fortune Cookies is running. This is a great way for you to think about using YouTube to promote your company, products, or services. Think about it: Mike hasn’t created any videos, but he has dozens being created about his product! That’s a lot of content.

The parts I especially like about this background image are the call-out arrows used to gain more channel subscribers (and who doesn’t want those?).

The one on the top-left, practically the first thing the eye catches:

And here’s a close up of the area just beneath the fold, heading the new profile information section:

What a difference a custom background image made for Fancy Fortune Cookies’ YouTube Channel, huh? (And yeah, those cookies are covered in white chocolate, and one has sprinkles!)  Okay…where was I? Oh yeah, next example:

2. Paul Colligan’s New Media Training YouTube Channel Designer Kurt also designed this special custom background for my YouTube Secret Weapon partner and New Media expert, Paul Colligan. This color scheme and message are consistent with Paul’s branding:

http://youtube.com/user/colligan

Since the above image won’t let you see the lower half of Paul’s channel, check out what the actual image from the designer’s site looks like:

3. Secrets of Goal Setting YouTube Channel This design is also for my client Mike Fry. Note that this channel will not be developed until later this year. For now though, it’s got the branding in place:

http://youtube.com/user/secretsofgoalsetting

Here’s that image straight from the designer’s site:

So those are three examples that I’ve had Kurt do thus far. And the YouTube Secret Weapon channel is still in the works (mainly because Paul and I are working on a logo for the 2.0 version — on it’s way soon).

Now for some cool news…

Get Your Own Customized Channel Background Design — At a Discount

The good news is that Kurt Austin at Catalyst Digital has decided to offer a special discount to any of my YouTube Secret Weapon customers, clients, and/or blog readers. You can have a custom channel background designed by Kurt — specially catered to you and your online brand, products, or services — all by mentioning you read about him from my blog.

And for a limited time (which all depends on how quickly orders come in ) Kurt is offering a 50% off discount off of his regular $200 rate.

That means you can have your own customized YouTube
channel background designed for only $100!

Now there are plenty of free channel background layout design sites out there, but none of these are going to offer you something customized. They will all be generic, and likely also being used by other channels around YouTube.

To be unique, and to get your logo, name, product name, business name, even your website or blog domain onto your background…and to keep the color scheme and images consistent with your existing online branding, unless you are a whiz at Photoshop, you are going to have to hire a designer to do this for you.

So here again is the full deal:

• 50% off! A custom YouTube channel background for only $100 by mentioning this blog. (Normally $200.)
• Three (3) rounds of revisions, based on your feedback. Any revisions beyond that will entail a small fee.
• Contact Kurt Austin at ka.design(at)catalystdigital.com or check out his work at Catalyst Digital’s portfolio page.

And I’ll be back soon with more on the upcoming release of YouTube Secret Weapon 2.0.

Have fun with the new look of your YouTube channel!

]]> http://www.youtubesecretweapon.com/blog/customized-youtube-background-images-for-the-redesigned-channel-layout-which-is-here-to-stay-september-30th/feed/ 13 http://www.youtubesecretweapon.com/blog/youtube-video-marketing-and-optimization-secrets-part-3-of-3/ http://www.youtubesecretweapon.com/blog/youtube-video-marketing-and-optimization-secrets-part-3-of-3/#comments Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:48:20 +0000 Julie Perry http://youtubesecretweapon.com/blog/?p=956

This post on YouTube Video Marketing Secrets is a continuation of my post from a few weeks ago entitled “YouTube Video Marketing Secrets and Video Search Optimization Tips – Part 2 of now 3.” That makes this the third and final installment of the series in which I publicly share my critique of YouTube user Mike Stokes’ YouTube Channel. (With Mike’s permission, of course. And to find out more of why I am doing this, see Part 1.)

Now, I interrupted the series last week in order to cover the news about the YouTube Channel re-design changes that have been announced for July 15th.  While we still have some time before that happens (tick, tick, tick), I’m going to use this post to cover some non-Channel-related topics on YouTube video marketing.

Today’s YouTube Video Marketing & Optimization Tip Topics

So without further ado, today I am going to cover:

1. Analyzing YouTube Insight Statistics — why you need to do it and how to make it easier
2. Creating Inbound Links to both your videos AND your YouTube Channel
3. Building YouTube Playlists — the importance of Playlists as a way to expand your audience and gain new fans

I’ll pick up by beginning with Tip #13…(re-visit Part 2 of this Series where I left off with Tip #12.)

Tip #13: Analyzing Your YouTube Insight Statistics

YouTube’s analytics program, Insight, not only helps you get a better understanding of the makeup of your YouTube audience by feeding you demographic data, it also allows you to find out how you are being FOUND by said audience.

Consult YouTube Insight for your video after the first 4-5 days and use the data to tweak your title and tags accordingly. (In other words, if your video is being found via keywords you aren’t using, go back and edit your video to be better optimized for those terms … or drop keywords from your title or tags that aren’t helping you be found.)

Start by first analyzing how your traffic is getting to you. Is it via YouTube Search, Google Search (SCORE!), YouTube related videos…or how?

YouTube Insight- Discovery: Wow, in this screenshot above it shows nearly 60% of this video's total views are coming from just YouTube and Google Search alone (and the most from Google). That means this is one well-optimized video!

From there, look within those YouTube and Google Search Discovery categories to find out what keywords are bringing you the most traffic:

Interestingly, "youtube optimization" and "youtube marketing" are not proving to be big traffic-getters for this video in the screenshot above (can you read that?). That means I should either re-optimize for them OR assume that perhaps those aren't typical keywords that my audience uses to search for my information. A look over at Google's Adwords Tool to analyze those keywords shows they don't get many searches. So, voila, I have my answer: There's no use re-optimizing for words most people don't think to search. At the same time, those words still most adequately describe what I'm offering with YouTube Secret Weapon, so I want to leave them in for those reasons.

Know that you are also able to access the data under “Related videos” (we’re back under Discovery now) to find what other videos people are watching prior to yours. This will also give you keen insight (hence the name, right) into what keywords to focus on. To do that, look to see what keywords those related videos have used as titles and tags.

Here’s another bonus tip (Tip #14): If remembering to check your YouTube Insight data is not at the forefront of you mind, put it on the forefront of your YouTube Homepage so it’s right in front of you upon login. And note: I am talking about your Homepage here, not your Channel/Profile. The Homepage (another word important enough to warrant a big ol’ capital letter, “H”) is what only you see when you first log on to YouTube.

If you didn’t know this already, you are able to set your YouTube Homepage Modules to display your YouTube Insight data:

To do that, first go here and check off the information you want to even show up on your YouTube Homepage:

You can reach that page either by going directly to “Customize Homepage” under your Account Settings, or simply by clicking on the “Add/Remove Modules” link just under the left-side horizontal menu bar on your Homepage (again, you have to be logged in):

Once you have the data displaying on your Homepage, use the up and down arrows to display the Insight data prominently at the top of that page so it’s the first thing you see when you log in to the site.

Use the up and down arrows on the far top right of the box to arrange your various Homepage Modules the way you want them to display on your page.

Once this is done, remember you’ll want to watch that Insight data closely (the Map is not as important as the Chart, by the way) so you can keep a close eye on how your videos are performing based on the keywords you’ve optimized for already. Again, tweak things accordingly.

My advice to Mike from before, in regards to his own video optimization (note there are more hidden tips here!):

“Mike: One thing you might consider doing is getting more of your main keywords into your video descriptions. We find that using a keyword or keyword phrase 3-4 times in a video description increases the likelihood you’ll rank high for that term. (Tip #15)

Also think about adding more tags to some of your videos. You definitely have the main ones down for each recipe, but each and every video should have “Cajun” and “recipe” in there (as an example). Mike, your YouTube Insight data will likely yield some additional keywords you can better optimize for on all or some of your videos.”

And I included this back in Part 1 (Tip #3), but I’m going to reiterate it here:

Repeat Part 1, Tip #3: As you search YouTube for related videos by entering in different keywords or keyword combinations (in order to ultimately study what keywords other videos in your niche have in their titles and tags), pay attention to what is coming up in the search bar.

This is because popular keyword search terms are now provided FOR YOU through “YouTube Suggest.” (This uses “Google Suggest” functionality.)

This is a great way to generate ideas for commonly searched keyword phrases based around your root keyword(s). It will also yield potentially related video content for you to analyze, add to Playlists (more on that in a bit), comment upon, rate, favorite, etc. (There are a number of reasons why all that is important, but it is all outside the scope of this post.)

Tip #16: Creating Inbound Links to Both Your YouTube Videos AND Your YouTube Channel

This all comes back to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) 101: The key to getting more of your great videos to come up in the Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) boils down to creating more inbound links to both your videos AND your YouTube Channel.

My Advice to Mike:

“Mike: While you are out there building links to your blog(s) or other online properties, try creating a few directly to your YouTube videos. Granted, the point is to ultimately get your audience to head over to your main site anyway — but there are a lot of factors that contribute to how well your videos rank on YouTube (and Google), and inbound links from outside sources with good page rank (and hopefully via keyword-rich anchor text) is one of them.

In the end, you’ll be far more likely to hit page 1 of Google with a YouTube video thumbnail than you will with your main blog, where you’re competing with so many other Cajun cooking websites. Therefore, while you are out building backlinks to your blog, throw a few in that point directly to your YouTube videos AND a few that point directly to your Channel (that’s a good thing to do in your email signature).

I say right now, go create at least one inbound link to your Channel and at least one to your most recent video.

Addendum to my original comments to Mike:

Tip #17: Here are some ideas for building those inbound links:

1. Embed Your YouTube Videos to Blogs: Your own and those on other Social Networks (hey, there’s a reason you kept that MySpace account open).
2. Use the Share Feature directly from YouTube (below each video) to post to all sites offered.
3. Social Bookmark Your Videos (and even Your Channel) out the Wazoo. Consider: Digg, Mixx, del.ic.ious, StumbleUpon, and Reddit. Visit http://SocialMediaDaily.com and grab the “Social Media Daily Blueprint” by Michelle MacPhearson for a good list of additional recommended sites.
4. Write and Post Articles with Links Back to Your Video(s) & Channel. (Works great!)
5. Something to keep in mind when building links back to your videos from websites or blogs that you control: Use Keyword-Rich Anchor Text.
6. For other ideas, Study a bit more about SEO Best Practices.
   

Tip #18a: Playlists, Playlists, Playlists…Build some.

In fact, creating and building upon Playlists is so crucial that I’m going to do the same thing I did previously when discussing the importance of your YouTube Channel and Homepage. I’m capitalizing the word: Playlists. (I know you’re thinking, “Whoa now simmer down there, Julie — that’s heavy stuff.”)

Seriously: The importance of YouTube Playlists is not so much to showcase them on your Channel, but rather to get your Playlists coming up in the YouTube search results. Lately, Playlists are hitting the top 3-4 spots for any given keyword.

Above, the YouTube Secret Weapon Playlist is coming up #4 (#3 if you don't count the Promoted Video) for the search phrase "youtube video optimization"

Don’t let it be someone else’s Playlist collection coming up on top! Create your own.

Fact: The metadata metric of a video being added to a Playlist(s) counts in the YouTube relevancy algorithm.

So add your videos to as many Playlists as possible.

Tip #18b: Now here’s the secret to it: Create Playlists that group your own videos with other high-ranking videos (yes, even another content producer’s videos) containing your most important keywords in the title. *Don’t worry if they are your competitor’s videos or even if it’s content you don’t want to be related to: It’s the keywords that matter most!

As an example, check out this Playlist I built for the keywords “youtube video optimization” (among others):

As you advance through the above embedded Playlist (see the arrows at the side of the player), you’ll see that my own YouTube Secret Weapon videos are included, along with several of the testimonials and reviews videos from YouTube Secret Weapon students and affiliates. But, intermixed within those are some pretty hokey, Spam videos (no, not all of them) that are promoting ridiculous and shyster methods, products, and advice for how to increase YouTube video traffic via optimization (or in some cases, other Spammy means — which trust me, is not worth doing).

Note what I did in this example was create and build this Playlist to include not only my own videos that I was attempting to optimize for those keywords, but also to include related videos — and more importantly for the optimization factor, to include as many videos as I could (like ‘em or not) that included my target keywords.

(Repeat after me: “Keywords are King when it comes to Playlists.”)

If you are a current YouTube Secret Weapon owner, see Disc 3 or Bonus Webinar 6 for more on the hows and whys of creating Playlists.

So there you go: A handful of YouTube Secret Weapon tips (x 3 posts) that ought to help your videos rank better on YouTube (not to mention increase their chance of turning up in the top of the Google results) for your top keywords.

By employing even just a few of these strategies, you’ll end up with more targeted traffic coming to your videos, and therefore more qualified prospects being driven over to your main money site –- whether that be a website, a blog, or simply a landing page for an affiliate product you are promoting.

~Julie

P.S. If you didn’t catch Paul’s free webinar last night talking about YouTube’s new InVideo Click-Through Ads (CTAs), sign up now to get a link to the replay.

Seriously, if you thought YouTube Annotations equaled opportunity, THIS is Annotations on steroids. The ability to have viewers clicking your video to go right through to your off-YouTube money site is priceless.

As I said to Paul: “Instead of saying ‘here’s a map on how to get to my house from here’ (which is Annotations), YouTube’s new Invideo Click-Through Ads allow you to say, ‘Hey, I’ve come over to pick you up and bring you over. Hop in!’”

Check out Paul’s explanation and demo of YouTube CTAs by signing up for the replay link.

As always, Happy Tubing!

YouTube announced today that its Channel Design 2.0 will come out of beta and officially take effect site-wide on July 15th. (UPDATE – See the end of this post for updated details on the now delayed site-wide release of the re-design.) Users have been able to try out the new design since April 16th, and YouTube’s Product Management team has been sharing progress and gathering feedback on their dedicated channels beta blog.

Apparently, they’ve tweaked things and worked out enough of the bugs that they’re now ready to roll it out for everyone. (And as of July 15th, you won’t even have a choice.)

But hey, while change can be uncomfortable at first, this is in many ways good news. YouTube’s purpose in doing this is to allow us to truly make our YouTube profiles/Channels our online video hubs on the Net — the defacto “video homepage” for our brands, if you will.

For a brief explanation of what additional new features (and benefits!) the re-designed YouTube Channels will offer, as well as how to go about customizing your Channel, check out the video posted by the Product Management team:

And yes, it is pretty cool that people will no longer have to click off of your profile page to enjoy more of your content — or even to interact with it…

It will finally truly be like your own Channel — not just a “yeah, here’s a listing of what all I can offer, but to consume or engage with any of it, you’ll have to click over to another page where you’ll be introduced to tons of other related, but very likely COMPETING videos, which will likely distract you and ultimately lead you over to someone else’s place where they can list all their content” page.

Did you get that? Because that’s what the old Channel design had us working with: more like a TV Schedule than the actual Television Set (if you can bend your brain to consider such an old media analogy).

Think about it. Now, once you lure that bait onto your Channel, you can keep them there as long as your video offerings allow for it — and without any distractions. Pretty nifty. And that’s just the start of it.

More next week…

Meanwhile, if you haven’t already switched over to the Beta version of YouTube Channel 2.0, it can now be done by clicking Edit Channel when logged in to your account, and then visiting the Channel Design page. Note that your custom backgrounds may require some slight tweaking to work with the new re-design.

Special Announcement: I have delayed my YouTube Marketing and Video Optimization Tips Part 3 blog post until next week, as I’m fortunate enough to be packing up and moving house this week. (So much fun — especially in 90-degree weather…not!) Even taking time to write this little newsflash has had me pulled away from my bubblewrap for far too long. Back to my boxes…

Look for Part 3 by Tuesday of next week (or whenever the cable guy finally shows up to get my Internet connected). Or simply revisit Part 2.

Until then,
~JP

Updated June 25th 10:42 a.m. – This post was written late last night right when I saw the news posted on YouTube’s blog. I got to thinking this morning about YouTube’s decision to make these changes mandatory for everyone. While I see the changes as a great benefit to users…and yes, while I feel the re-design does tend to have a cleaner look that puts more focus on the actual video content, I still can’t help but compare this to what MySpace did when they offered a 2.0 version of their profile design: They gave users an OPTION –  a choice as to whether or not they wanted to participate and make the switch to the new design.

Should YouTube maybe consider giving its users a choice? What do you think?

Updated July 14th  10:01 a.m. - YouTube has announced on it’s Channel Re-Design Beta Blog that they have changed the date on which they will move all remaining YouTube Channels over to the new design. They say on the blog that they “realized [they] still have a few bugs and things left on the to-do list.”

As for when the official site-wide roll-out will take place, they are still unsure. But they do say that they’ll announce it “no less than 2 weeks before it happens – and yes, it’s still coming this summer.” (While yes, I still think they need to give users the option. But we will make do.) For more information on the delay of the official Channel re-design release, see this post from YouTube.

This post on YouTube Video Marketing Secrets is a continuation of last week’s post entitled “YouTube Video Marketing and Optimization Tips – Part 1 of 2” (making this Part 2 of 2, until I realized just now I’ll need to continue again next week, because, well, I talk too much –so now it’s 2 of 3), in which I publicly share my critique of YouTube user Mike Stokes’ YouTube Channel.

Today we are going to cover Adding Friends and Gaining Subscribers on YouTube, NoFollow & DoFollow links within YouTube, and posting YouTube videos as responses to other highly-viewed videos in your niche as a way to expand your audience and gain new fans.

In Part 1, most of my suggestions for Mike had to do with branding and laying down the foundation for optimizing his YouTube Channel–something one should do before even beginning to focus on how to optimize each YouTube video separately.

I’d like to begin Part 2 of my response to Mike by reiterating the four (4) main reasons businesses need to include YouTube as part of their overall online marketing plans. While everyone makes a big deal about Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, I would certainly add YouTube to that list of “MUST HAVE” social & new media marketing profiles (and therefore strategies) due to the following…

A YouTube Channel & Video Strategy Is CRUCIAL for:

1. Online Lead Generation and List-Building (Driving Traffic Back to Your Own Main Website/Blog)
   
2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for YouTube AND Google Search
   
3. Viral Video Distribution Potential
4. Social Media Networking Benefits

…Add in that online video is one of the hottest marketing tools around right now, and that, in comparison to all the other video content-sharing sites out there, YouTube is BY FAR #1 (in terms of traffic, ability to rank in Google, and for opportunities that now exist to access YouTube from mobile devices and home entertainment systems), and you’ve got an undeniable force in online marketing today.

BUT, although many marketers have heeded this advice and are beginning to create and upload content to YouTube, where most go wrong is in assuming that the old adage, “build it and they will come” is going to work for them. Sorry folks, but not in today’s social media landscape…

Stop wasting your time, energy, and possibly even money in creating videos that you’re only going to toss up on YouTube and expect to gain an audience without any additional effort! You need to learn how to MARKET your YouTube videos so they can be found, watched, and ACTED UPON by your target audience. (Otherwise, what’s the point?)

Back in Part 1 of this post, I listed seven of my original suggestions for Mike on how he could improve upon his existing YouTube marketing efforts. Today, I pick up with Tip #8 (which, if you’ve been following along, was originally Tip #3 when I first posted my reply to Mike’s blog comment a few weeks back):

My Original Comment to Mike:

(Mike), I see you only have 288 subscribers to your Channel. [Note that since I posted this original response on May 28th, Mike’s Channel is now up to 329 subscribers, which is a huge increase in such a short period of time.] I find it shocking the number is that low given how great your content is. Get out there and add some friends, Mike!

Tip #8: Gaining more friends on YouTube will lead to more subscribers. It’s like magic. Yet you must have a strategy for whom you choose to invite. Mike, I suggest you spend a little time searching around YouTube for Channels similar to your own (if not Cajun food-related, then perhaps Southern cooking, or just some other niche specialty cooking Channels), and send friend invites to THEIR subscribers and friends lists.

New Comments to Mike Regarding Adding Friends/Gaining Subscribers on YouTube:

[I'm ditching the italics for awhile for better readability, but this all directed to Mike]:

For example, here’s a Channel with over 2,000 subscribers:

http://www.youtube.com/user/cookingfordads

Those 2,000+ subscribers are people who have expressed interest in “cooking how-to” information, and therefore they may take an interest in your Channel, (Mike).

What you then want to do is send YouTube friend requests (invites) to as many of this similar niche Channel’s subscribers as you can. (And despite what some self-appointed “YouTube police” will tell you, sending a friend request is NOT SPAM…Bulk YouTube emails, yes. YouTube friend invites, no.) Upon seeing the friend request, the likelihood that those people will come over to see who YOU are and check out YOUR CONTENT is very high (certainly higher than if you never reached out at all). This can lead to more subscribers, again, so long as you are being strategic about who you are inviting.

Tip #9: When sending friend requests, even if those people don’t end up subscribing to your content, if they at least click over to your Channel, that counts as a Channel view; and on YouTube, more Channel views raises the “profile authority” (my term, but think of this as “pagerank”) of your Channel. This is one of the socialization tactics, or “community factors,” I teach in YouTube Secret Weapon that count when optimizing your Channel.

And yes, it has been shown that how many Channel views you have is a factor to how well your videos do in the rankings. So, the more people who’ve expressed interest in your content by clicking over to your Channel (among other community engagement criteria), the better your videos will do across the board.

This takes us back to YouTube Marketing Part I, Tip #2 where I discussed the need to choose a strategic Channel name (a.k.a. username). The more intriguing or interest-piquing your Channel name sounds or appears when it turns up as a friend invite in someone’s YouTube Inbox or on a Channel or video comment, the higher the likelihood that people will click over to see what you’re all about.

You also want your Channel name to be niche-focused and made up of a major keyword or two, if possible. In other words, Mike, the username “CajunRecipes” is going to be a helluva lot bigger draw for people interested in cooking than, say, oh, “mikestokes1.” (I’m just sayin’.)

Other things you can do to attract attention from your potential audience in terms of tracking them down via similarly niche-focused Channels is to:

• Watch and Comment on Their Videos
• Leave Comments on Their Channels
• Subscribe to Other High-Traffic Channels Related to Your Niche that Really Are of Interest to You (don’t play the “Sub 4 Sub” game–it’s Spammy)

Allowing people to see your Channel name (preferably an intriguing and niche-focused one) in more places is setting the bait for more traffic, but also:

NoFollow & DoFollow Links Within YouTube

Tip #10: YouTube Channel links are NOT “NoFollow” links (nice double negative there, huh?); rather, they are “DoFollow” links. (For more on this subject of what YouTube links are or are not “NoFollow,” I encourage you to read the post “Is The YouTube SEO Guy Smoking Crack” by Andrew Shotland of Local SEO Guide. You’ll need to look up “nofollow links” if you are unfamiliar with this SEO term.)

Essentially though, the more your Channel username link appears around YouTube, say, attached to your comments on other Channels or as a recent Subscriber to other Channels (such as in the image below), the more the “DoFollow” link on your Channel username will pass link juice back to your Channel, and then on to your most recent video (also a “DoFollow” link).

All puple-blue highlighted links above are "DoFollow" links, and this includes each username of the YouTube Channel profiles. This is why commenting on and subscribing to other highly-ranked YouTube Channels will help raise the PageRank of your own Channel (link juice gets passed back), which can then be passed along to your most recent video(s).

As you’ll see below, Channel name links are also “DoFollow” (purple-blue highlighted links) in the Related Videos section of video watch pages, but like the actual video links are “NoFollow” (pink highlighted links) in the Comments section:

The above image of a YouTube video watch page shows that Channel username links are "DoFollow" (puple-blue highlights) in the Related Videos section to the right, but are "NoFollow" (pink highlights) in the Comments section. Do not misinterpret this to mean leaving comments is no longer a good thing to do, for it still is for other reasons. As for how to get in the Related Videos section, YouTube Secret Weapon has an entire section on this.

Okay, so that was a MAJOR tangent. (I will save my additional “PageRank” and “NoFollow” advice for another time…For YouTube Secret Weapon owners, this was covered in the new Disc 3 of YouTube Updates and Advanced Strategies that came out June 1st.)

• In the meantime, Mike, here’s another Channel you’ll want to scour for users you can reach out to: http://www.youtube.com/user/cookingcom
• And another: http://www.youtube.com/user/KraftCookingSchool (a YouTube Sponsored channel, so don’t be intimidated by the cool background and auto-playing videos…they paid a lot to have that!)
• And yet another: http://www.youtube.com/user/cookingrecipes (note this dude’s clever profile pic–it’s a GIF file…and an attention-grabber at that)

Tip #11: (Mike), to make it even easier to tap into the subscribers, friends, and even video commenters for these Channels I suggest above, you might think about getting a tool that we recommend to all YouTube Secet Weapon students. We use it ourselves: It’s automated friend-adding software.

I know that sounds “Spammy,” and yet it does NOT violate the YouTube Terms of Service (and many of the YouTube Secret Weapon students use it religiously around-the-clock with only positive results). The reason it is not in violation of the YouTube TOS (see 4-H) is that it works on a time-delay system so that it is not sending out friend requests faster or more frequently than a human could otherwise do manually. The time delay also insures that you don’t violate YouTube’s restrictions for how many friend invites can be sent in a given time period.

[Note: We only recommend using such automated software to send friend invites. We warn our YouTube Secret Weapon students NOT to use it for comment posting or for sending bulk emails, as to us, that is SPAM. YouTube has been cracking down on such activities recently, too. As for sending friend invites though, they are legit, they do work, and we wholeheartedly recommend doing it using friend-adding software--with a time delay, of course.]

The Friend-Adder we recommend is called Tube ToolBox. It does cost $7.95 a month and has a $19.95 activation fee, but Paul and I forfeited our commission on the activation fee in order to give YouTube Secret Weapon owners a $10 discount. Now, it’s just $9.95 to sign up, and I’m happy to pass that savings along to all of the readers of this post.

Just visit http://TubeTrafficStrategies.com.

Again, the tool is called Tube Toolbox, and that link will take you to the page featuring our discount. By ordering there, you will initially only pay $17.90, which is the $9.95 activation fee, plus $7.95 for the first month. I recommend trying it out for a month, and cancel if you don’t feel it was totally worth the $7.95/month fee.

Mike, I can almost guarantee that if you put a little strategy behind its use in terms of where you are finding targeted friends to add, you’ll gain 50-100 new subscribers in 30-days.  You will have to let it run as often as possible though to do this…Not to worry, as the software can run quietly in the background, hidden in your tray, as you go about your daily work–it doesn’t bother a thing.

And I repeat: Time-Delayed Automated YouTube Friend Invites are NOT SPAM according to YouTube’s Terms of Service.

In the end, if you still have a problem with using automated software, just do it manually (or pay a young person an allowance to add you so many friends per day). To send an invite, simply visit an individual’s Channel and look for the “Add as Friend” link in their “Connect with…” box:

When you add a friend, regardless of who has sent the invite, you are privy to the same information on one anothers’ Channels based on your privacy settings. Be sure to also check your own account Inbox for invites that have been sent TO you by others:

I’m not going to get into all the additional advantages of having targeted prospects on your YouTube Friend List, but know that there are MANY beyond just a potential Channel view and the hope that they’ll subscribe to you.

Meanwhile, On To More Tips for Mike…

Tip #12: (Mike), start posting your videos as responses to other highly-trafficked videos in your niche. Your videos don’t have to be purposely a response (in other words, videos you made solely as a response to another). Rather, the videos you target could just be cooking demonstrations for great food accompaniments to your own dishes OR something to do with the Cajun tradition/music/lifestyle. The connection between the two can be very loose (in fact, I often see people post videos as responses to other videos where there’s no connection at all…but that I don’t recommend).

The main idea here is NOT to assume that people who will enjoy your videos know to look for them. You’ve got to put yourself out there where you can be discovered. Find related videos that are already getting traffic to connect yourself to and try to borrow from their audiences. The more similar you are to that content, the more likely the viewers who click over will have an interest in what you have to say.

Below is an example of a video I posted one of my episodes of TheBoaters.TV as a response to that helped my video earn a few extra thousand views from an audience interested in water-related activities:

My TheBoaters TV episode (on the right beneath the main player above) posted as a video response to another highly-viewed video on a related subject.

Here’s another example from when I was assisting Internet marketing expert Brad Fallon’s team in marketing Brad’s daily “FreeLine Report” episodes on YouTube:

I posted an episode of Brad Fallon's FreeLine Report where he discussed the iPhone 3G as a response to a video featuring Steve Jobs' Keynote at the Apple WWDC 2008 (Brad's video is the one on the far right with the green background above). By posting this within the first 24 hours from when the Steve Jobs video was released, Brad's video shot up over 2,500 views in 48 hours, and continued to climb to over 5,000 TARGETED views.

Posting videos as responses to videos that are closely related in topic to your own is not only going to help you to attract an audience that is already PRE-QUALIFIED to have an interest in your content, but it’s also going to increase the likelihood that your video will come up in the “Related Videos” section alongside that chosen video. There are a number of reasons for that, just as there are a myriad of other methods for getting your videos to come up in a Related Videos section next to videos you think will have a good target audience for you…

…HOWEVER, I can’t spill all the beans here (pun intended for Mike) and besides, this post is already novella-length, so I’m going to save the remaining Tips for next week anyway.

Be sure to check back next week for Part 3 where I’ll cover YouTube Insight, creating inbound links to your videos AND your Channel, and the benefits of YouTube Playlists (along with a few hints to master those).

Until then, Happy Tubing!

~JP

P.S. I apologize for all the bright colors, but I’m an over-formatter. Sunglasses recommended when reading my posts.
UPDATE: Part 3 of this series is now posted: YouTube Video Marketing and Optimization Secrets – Part 3 of 3