http://www.rossomemarketing.com/how-to-create-videos-that-get-shared/
Creating videos that get shared isn’t as difficult as it may seem. If you’ll use these tactics and change them up to suit your specific needs, you can make decent sized splash in the YouTube world. Just make sure you keep your audience in mind. It’s quite easy to build up a following if you follow common sense and social sharing best practices. If you stay the course and put in the effort, you may just be surprised at what you can accomplish!
2. Creating Videos That Get Shared!
People have various opinions
about how this should be done
and while there’s no right or
wrong answer, one of the best
ways to go about this is to use
a call to action and a link in
your video.
3. There are 3 major points to it:
01. Inserting a Clickable Link in Your
YouTube Video
02. Using Social
Sharing on Youtube
03. Advertising with
Youtube.
Clickable
Links Social
Sharing
Youtube
Ads
4. One way is to simply embed the link right in the video. Lots
of people do this and it’s very popular. However, there’s
several ways to skin this proverbial cat:
• Some people embed or display links at the end only
• Some people embed or display links at the end and
the beginning
• Some people embed or display links at the
end, beginning and middle – in other words, all over!
1. Inserting Clickable Links in YouTube Videos
5. 1. Sign into your YouTube account and click your Profile. In the menu select the “Video
Manager” option.
2. Next to the “Actions” button, there’s a little check box which displays your videos.
6. 3. Look for the videos you want to change. Click on the arrow next to “Edit” and pick
“Annotations” from your menu.
7. 4. Select your Annotation type from the “Annotations”. For your link, choose “Note.”
(You can change this by adding hot spots or a speech bubble if you want.)
8. 5. Begin typing your call to action (Annotation text) under “Note”. Your text will appear
as you type in your video.
9. Once you’re done, you can resize by dragging the text box in the video to get it into the
position that works for you. You can make it thinner, wider, longer and so on. YouTube
advertising tends to be in the lower part of the screen so you might want a different
placement for your text.
6. Type in your point (mins and seconds) where you want the link to first appear. Use the
sliders under the video to find your start point, then type in the Start and End into your
text boxes.
You want about 8-10 seconds for an average call to action to display. If your call to action is
longer then the display time should be longer.
10. 7. Check the “Link” box underneath yоur Start and End time. Press the Down arrow in the
“Video” button to select the type of link you want.
You cannot link to a website unless you are a “YouTube Partner. (We’ll get more into that in another
post.) “Subscribe” is only for subscribing to you as a YouTube user.)
11. 8. When you have tweaked your link and call to action to your heart’s content, press
“Save” and once it completes, “Publish”.
12. 9. You can preview your new call to action or annotation to make sure it’s active and
working right. Pretty cool, eh?
13. You can also add links in other areas. On your Dashboard you can check “Add Links to
your Channel’s Profile”, if you haven’t done this already.
Next, scroll down the page to “Describe Your Channel”. Enter a keyword rich description. Then you’ll
want to click on the double down-arrow; then “settings”.
14. We’ve have worked with links and calls to action so now
we’ll turn our attention to social sharing. This is essentially
sharing videos on your social networks
Using Social Sharing with Youtube
15. Pick the right method of sharing for your audience – you want
them to visit you and not be turned off because they thought
you “spammed” them. So the question is when do you release
videos and will these benefit your viewers? Are you targeting
enough of your connections through social networks for the
videos to be effective?
The best way to gain traction (and see what other’s think) is to
share them when you first upload the video. Hopefully this will
gain some interest in what you’re doing.
That being said, there are ups and downs to allowing YouTube to automatically share your content.
Sometimes it’s better to personalize things then to just release it.
You can embed videos in your blog and share them (via a link to your blog) across your social
networks. Make sure you ask readers to share the videos with their friends, too (call to action,
remember?) The goal of every video creator is for their videos to go viral, but how do you do this?
Hopefully this will help you get there.
16. What Makes a Video Go Viral?
They have animals, cute kids or celebrities
The video is very funny
The video is outrageous and beyondbelief
They ask ”What If?”
17. Have a look at the Drive Through Invisible Driver video which is trending and has over 34
million views (at the last count.)
Here’s how the video goes:
1. The prankster explains what he is about to do – In this case, he’s going to wear a “car seat” costume and
pretend that his car is driving by itself at a local restaurant’s drive-thru window.
18. 2. There’s a hidden camera that records the reactions of the people in the drive-thru windows and the
reactions of other staff members from various establishments.
19. 3. We laugh WITH the perpetrator, as we are in on the joke secretly.
4. He finishes the video by asking people to subscribe.
(Can you believe he’s got TEN calls to action? (If you count his other video links!)
20. This video wasn’t complex but you can see how it would be popular. The costume was very clever and above
all it makes you laugh. Everybody likes being in on this joke.
Now this obviously won’t work for things like business videos, but this is one format that does work and it can
work well. If you can add some of the basic elements of “Drive Through Invisible Driver,” then you will be all
set. You need videos that:
• Are short
• Are Engaging
• Have good flow and are fast paced
• Have one main point so there’s no major distractions in the video
• Use a brief introduction and a good ending or conclusion
• Deliver on what they promise
• Have a call to action that directs the viewer to subscribe or moves them onto the next video in a
series.
21. If you follow these bullet points, your video may end up trending high enough to gain the attention of some
major online publishers. This video hit the front page of WhatsTrending.com! You think that may have gotten
him a few more visitors?
22. Anyone can set a video up for using a Google Adwords
campaign. These use the TrueView Ads so you won’t be
paying unless someone actually views the ads. This means
that only people who want to see the ad will see it and this
keeps your budget in check. You’ll end up getting better
conversions on the ad this way.
Should You Use Youtube to Advertise?
23. These ads will let you know if the campaign is right for your audience. You’ll want a focused ad that’s catchy
and short. You need to gain their interest but not keep them there too long.
You will want to run a short campaign to start as an introduction to you and the videos you provide.
View AdWords on YouTube for more information.
24. Creating videos that get shared isn’t
as difficult as it may seem.
If you’ll use these tactics and
change them up to suit your specific
needs, you can make decent sized
splash in the YouTube world. Just
make sure you keep your audience
in mind. It’s quite easy to build up a
following if you follow common
sense and social sharing best
practices. If you stay the course
and put in the effort, you may just
be surprised at what you
can accomplish!
Check out
www.rossomemarketing.com
and pick up the FREE
YouTube Starter Pack!