YouTube for Marketing
For some time now YouTube has been a staple of social media and viral marketing. SEO experts know that lots of views on a YouTube video can help boost search rankings and also get the video content in top search results. YouTube has been less embraced by the majority of marketers; seen as a guerrilla tactic. Over time YouTube has matured and its more than ready for mainstream marketing. New features such as annotations, linking content, promotions, insights, captions and subtitles make YouTube a sophisticated video marketing platform.
Annotations
Video Annotations is a new way for you to add interactive commentary to videos. This can be in the form of call-outs, text boxes or event links to other scenes. You can add annotations by going to the list of uploaded videos and clicking on “Edit annotations” or by visiting one of your videos while you are logged in. There are three types of annotations that can be added while playing the video: speech bubbles, notes and spotlights. You can set time code for the in and out points of the annotation and edit it at any time.
YouTube Annotations
Linking Content
Now you can create an entire experience on YouTube by linking to other videos or using links to jump around within a video. In the example below ad agency Boone Oakley has created a microsite using annotations to create links to other videos and to specific point in the video.
You can also create a link to a specific time in a video. Here’s an example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bibCui3lFM#t=1m45s
This links to the video (v=1bibCui3lFM) at 1 minute and 45 seconds (t=1m45s).
YouTube Promoted Videos
YouTube Promoted videos allows you to create video promotions easily from your accounts. You provide promotional copy, keywords and your video promotion will show up next to contextually relevant searches. You pay when people click on the video. Learn more »
YouTube Insight
YouTube Insight is YouTube’s external facing analytics and reporting product that enables anyone with a YouTube account to view detailed statistics about the videos that they upload to the site. This helps you to better understand your audience: who they are, where they come from, what they watch, and when.
Captions & Subtitles
YouTube Captions and Subtitles help viewers with hearing disabilities and people who speak other languages to enjoy your videos. The question is does the additional content improve your search ranking?
Captions and Subtitles
