How to Incorporate Video to Your Marketing Strategy

3-videoOnline video’s popularity has grown exponentially in a short time, thanks to video sharing sites such as YouTube.  The increasing availability of high-speed Internet has also had a hand in making video so popular, there’s absolutely no doubt about it. More than 1 billion unique users each month to the site shows us we need to pay attention. Add to that, including video on your website can greatly enhance your visitors’ experience.

Live streaming video is a great tool for online tutors and others who can benefit from a high level of interaction with their visitors or customers.  It makes it possible for you to communicate in real time, do live demonstrations, and answer questions with ease.  For your audience, it’s the next best thing to being there with you.

Recorded video can also be a tremendous asset to your website.  It’s much easier than you might think to make professional-looking videos to showcase your products and services.  Your site visitors can watch these videos at their convenience, and if they like them they will often recommend them to friends and colleagues.  For added exposure, you could make your videos available for embedding with YouTube or another video sharing service.

Ways to Use Video

Video is a very versatile medium, and it can be used in a number of ways.  Here are some ideas:

* Make viral videos.  These are usually entertaining clips that include a plug for your business and appeal to a broad audience.  As a promotional method, viral video is not usually very targeted, but it can result in a huge amount of exposure at a relatively low cost.

* Hold online video conferences.  These provide an unparalleled way to reach out to your target audience. You can use tools like Google+ Hangouts to easily hold your online events.

* Make how-to videos. Create them on topics relevant to your website’s subject matter.  Providing informative video content will generate buzz about your website, potentially resulting in an increase in traffic.  It will also help you establish yourself as an expert.

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Video Sharing Sites

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YouTube site makes it easy for anyone to upload videos to share with anyone with a computer who cares to watch them, and it provides viewers with a wealth of entertainment and education opportunities. It’s easy to do with a mobile phone, from your computer or just about any device. Sharing your videos on YouTube and other sites definitely has some advantages.

YouTube’s immense popularity can potentially result in lots of people viewing your videos.  If they find videos they like, they can embed them onto their own sites or blogs.  That will result in an even greater audience, and some of them may choose to embed your video on their sites as well.  You can see why some marketers love the idea of video sharing.

There are, however, some disadvantages to putting your videos on sites such as YouTube as well.  One of the biggest concerns of marketers is that video sharing doesn’t require users to come to your site to view the videos.  That means that while your videos may be wildly popular, they might result in very little traffic to your site.  It’s important to give viewers an incentive to visit your site once they are finished watching the video. Alternatively, you can change your videos’ settings so that they can’t be viewed on the YouTube site or embedded elsewhere, but that will limit your viewership.

Make sure you use YouTube’s handy tools to include promotions in your videos, clickable links and more. This will help bring more of your YouTube watchers back to your own site.

The sheer power and excellent features of YouTube likely outweigh and concerns you might have.

Embedding Video from Your Own Server

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Those who do not like the idea of uploading their videos to sites such as YouTube can upload them to their servers and embed them from there.  This gives you more control over your videos and ensures there is no “YouTube” logo on your videos.

But before you jump into that, it’s important to remember that video files are usually very large.  Making them available directly from your server can take up valuable file storage space, and it can also drain your bandwidth.  When you upload videos to a video sharing site and embed them from there, you use that site’s storage space and bandwidth.

Whether you should upload video to a video sharing site and embed from there or keep it on your own server depends on several factors.  If you don’t mind having another website’s name pasted on your videos and don’t want to overtax your server, video sharing could be the best option.  But if you want to ensure that users have to come to your site to see your videos and prefer not to provide free advertising for a video sharing site, hosting your own videos might be the best way to go.