One of the tools that gets overlooked sometimes by these smaller businesses is YouTube and it really shouldn't be that way. Most of us know by know that the second largest search engine on the web is YouTube, behind only Google. We have also heard about the staggering numbers of videos watched on YouTube everyday, in some circles numbers as high as 2 BILLION a day is being reported. The question is, how do you get on board and leverage it, because clearly people are out there searching and watching!
Okay, here is the big, secret list of things you need to have to create a great and effective YouTube campaign for your company. Are you ready? It's pretty complicated so be prepared. Here goes:
- A video camera
- A creative, or entertaining, or humorous, or emotive, or interactive idea.
Now, am I perhaps over simplifying things a bit? Yeah, maybe a little. The reality, however, is not far from this and it should make individuals selling local TV spots quite nervous in many cases. While large national companies will spend millions, even billions, on network spots, and local companies will spend tens of thousands to get their commercials on the small screen what America loves tuning into and sharing are videos online that make them laugh, think, or react somehow. The best part is most of these videos don't have the highest production values, there are no key grips and best boys on set, no massive lighting rigs or well paid actors hawking products and services. The one thing they all have in common is a great, creative way to tell you their message, and they are memorable. Once you see it you want others to see it and so you pass it along!
If you can get someone to your company's own YouTube channel watching one of your videos and lo and behold there are several others there wating to be watched, odds are they will click on another and the next thing you know they have sat there, not for 30 to 60 seconds, but for 10 minutes or more watching nothing but YOUR brand being fleshed out before their eyes and in their ears! That kind of private, undivided attention is worth BIG bucks in the large stakes marketing game and it's available to ANY company that has a good idea and a camcorder!
How powerful can it be? Well, take a relatively recent video phenom "The Annoying Orange". What started out a short comedy film by Dane Boedigheimer has become an internet sensation through the power of YouTube. The very first episode revolving around an annoying orange and his kitchen counter-mates, consisting of other fruits and vegatables, aired on YouTube first on October 9th or 2009, and now has been viewed by over 137 million people! The most recent episode was uploaded just 4 days ago from this writing and has already been seen by over 1.3 million people! It's literally turned into a YouTube sit-com, with 37 episodes under it's belt and at least 4 "Specials"!
There are a lot of TV pilots that would kill for the exposure and viewership that inventive, ingenious and creative business have been getting by launching their own video campaigns on YouTube. Think about this, if the thought of over a million people watching your videos seems to be far fetched, what if you could get a few hundred? What if those few hundred watched a whole series of your videos, and many of them even subscribed to your own custom channel and were alerted everytime you put an updated video online? Chances are a good percentage of those people are going to become your client, your customer, and go on to tell other people. What could that do for your business?
All it takes is a video camera and a great idea to make a big splash, so what's stopping you from doing it?
Let me know if Xapsis can help, or if you have any questions!
From where you are to where you want to be!
Doug
