I promise this will be a marketing post, but I’m going to use a few real life – non-marketing examples – to make my point.

Having never heard of Susan Boyle before my father sent me an email of her YouTube audition, I never dreamed I’d get this wrapped up in a show that isn’t even based where I live (the U.S.). I know there are millions of American Idol fans out there, but I’ve just never gotten into the whole AI thing. Frankly, it is the (American) judging team that turns me off, particularly Simon Crowell (when he’s in the United States). However, in Britain on BGT, Simon turns into a completely different person. He’s insightful, helpful, and a nice guy… go figure.

But this isn’t about Simon, this is about fame coming too fast, cold feet, internet marketing (yes I promised), and examples of what happens when you don’t really think things through. (more…)

The only thing I will say is 1) get tissues ready; 2) watch all the judges faces and the audience; 3) use headphones if possible; and 4) thoroughly enjoy yourself! You deserve this so click here! – and remember… never give up!

Ugh Greymatter comes to the rescue again with this interesting post I found last night. Owen had updated some of his videos and the one that caught my eye, and turned out to be very entertaining was the one about “Twitter in Plain English.”

So thanks to Owen, you, too, can be entertained in the simplest of forms, this YouTube video:

Now for someone to come up with a way that tells me how to manage to Tweet all day and still get work done LOL!

Enjoy

Telling you video is huge is a bit redundant at this stage, however… video is huge.

The question you need to be asking yourself isn’t “should I be using video,” but “how do I get the most out of putting my videos online.”

That’s where this great sticky tips on videos comes in handy, compliments of Webproworld.

Your videos are found via “clues on the page” where your video file is embedded. The discussion does cover both hosting videos on third party web sites like Viddler and the all-famous YouTube and the pros and cons of self-hosted videos.

Spreading your videos around is also a good thing. We’ve found that while you could host the video yourself, viewing times are greatly “speeded up” for your viewer when they are hosted on sites optimized for video viewing.

In addition, pick your third party hosting sites carefully. For example, should you choose Viddler, you are able to edit the title (use your keyword in the title), provide a (keyword rich) description, and tag it. YouTube is great, but at the moment spots like Viddler top our list. And, search engines pick up your video very quickly!

Here’s a bit more about optimizing your video online, condensed, of what you’ll find when you visit the Webproworld forum link above:

1. Sitemaps …video sitemaps are a recommended way to give Google information about the video content of your site…

2. RSS Feeds …Google loves to crawl RSS feeds of various types, and this includes RSS feeds that focus on video content…

3. Metadata …metadata is the best source for search engines to determine what your video is about…

4. Provide a transcript …embedding a transcript in the video viewing page will provide the search engines with a wealth of content to index…

5. Optimize the video page …where the video is embedded focusing on the key topics of the video. Context seems to be an important factor…

6. Use friendly URLs …provide the search engines with additional clues as to the relevant topics of the video.

7. Be consistent when distributing your video …this will give you more opportunities to show up for your target term…

8. Prepare for the future of video search …By taking these steps now, your videos can remain relevant as search engines improve their scanning and indexing capabilities.

Again, a trip to the forum is in order to fill in the gaps of what I did not include.

Also, the responses to this sticky post on video optimization are worth the read.

Not everyone is prepared to jump on the video bandwagon at the moment, but arming yourself to use this immensely popular form of internet and social media marketing in the future is a sure winner.

Related articles

• Netvibes: The new social media dashboard (vator.tv)
• YouTube Video Alerts For Your Inbox (performancing.com)
• Viewzi Launches Site Search (centernetworks.com)
• Sitemap Submission Made Simple (googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com)

In our search for a video sharing website similar to YouTube, but without your competitors videos showing up at the end when your video is done running, our hunt was on.

A second requirement was the video sharing site had to accept videos longer than 90 seconds – even with a Pro account at Flickr, it is not possible.

The hunt continued.

While we checked many, finding the file size is easy – finding the length in terms of time your video takes to run isn’t always straightforward. Other than YouTube, most killed the upload at a minute and a half.

However…

Mission accomplished! We decided on Viddler.com – which has all the features we were looking for… and it’s free! Here’s an example – Street Sampling. When you get to the site, below Scott’s bio, you’ll see the ones we’ve loaded so far (there will be more).

Our thanks go out to the How To Split An Atom blog for providing 11 Video Sharing Sites That Aren’t YouTube.

In addition, I’d like to mention to all our Whole Hog Bloggers that we will be upgrading everyone to WP 2.7. We’ve tested it out and read all about it. The reviews are excellent and the transition was seamless… you’re going to love the new dashboard!

And since tomorrow is Christmas, and we do celebrate, I’m not sure if we’ll post on Christmas or not.

So a Very Merry Christmas and Holiday Season to everyone, and may your New Year be your biggest and brightest yet!

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