A term only coined relatively recently in marketing terms, viral marketing is the act of business promotion using social networks such as Facebook or YouTube. A successful viral marketing campaign will result in millions of viewers hits on your video, massively increasing your company’s exposure to potential customers.

Though viral marketing is relatively cheap and can be quite effective, it is not that easy to achieve. However, the tips explained below should help you…

The predominant factor that must be adhered to is that your video must be entertaining. The video must be informative, controversial, remarkable or just plain funny. You must cause the audience to want to show their friends or co-workers the video, thus starting the chain.

Money is not important. You do not need an expensive set with big Hollywood actors; you just need a camera, an idea and a few takes.

Even though YouTube will allow you to upload videos of up to ten minutes and one hundred megabytes; a long video will only put people off, depending on the content. Try to limit your video to between thirty seconds and two minutes.

A detailed and precise description will go a long way to increasing your videos exposure in the event of a user search. Making sure the correct keywords are used relating to your video will mean that viewers are more likely to watch it.

Users can easily tell if a video is just a marketing exercise and if you make a video that attempts to deceive the audience into thinking that the video was consumer generated, and you fail, you will have the reverse of the intended outcome to which you sought after; meaning you will possibly gain negative feedback.

One popular way that companies have pushed their way into viral marketing is by creating a series of linked videos, thus enticing previous viewers back and then, ideally, giving them more reason to send the link on.

Probably just as important as making a good video is actually telling people about it. There is no use in making a great video if nobody sees it. Add links to the video from your websites homepage, or other pages, incorporate the link into your email signature and send internal memos to employees notifying them of the existence of the video. You must start the ball rolling yourself, but once it does, it will be a steep slope down!

Find Out More : Viral Videos

Video Marketing Begins with YouTube

In previous articles, we talked about how video marketing is an effective way to reach customers and even showed you the five steps to producing an awesome video. In this article, I am going to show you how best to optimize your YouTube channel so that it maximizes your video marketing efforts on this video sharing network.

Tips for Video Marketing on YouTube

Customize Your Video Marketing Channel

As the number one video sharing site on the internet, you are competing with over 3 million YouTube channels that are also dishing out content in an attempt to hook subscribers. Therefore, it is essential that you differentiate yourself when it comes to marketing on YouTube and the first place you begin is with your channel.

Do what you can to skin your YouTube channel so that it matches your brand. In addition to writing an irresistible description, create a video that welcomes viewers and make sure it is the first video they see when they pull up your YouTube site. Having a steady stream of subscribers is important to your video marketing efforts so give people a good reason to subscribe.

Upload Multiple Videos

Video is unique in that it can really only engage viewers one time. Meaning, your viewers are only willing to watch that cute puppy video once before they move onto something else. To be successful with your YouTube marketing efforts, you will need to upload more than one video.

Think of it as having your own television show. Each video you post enhances the impression your viewers have of you and encourages them to continue to visit your channel for updates. So before breaking out the camera, make sure you brainstorm enough material to make several videos for your video marketing campaign that will leave visitors wanting more.

Optimize Your Videos for Search

Over 3 billion searches are conducted on YouTube every month making it the second most popular search engine next to Google. Since Google often includes video from YouTube in its search results, optimizing your videos for YouTube searches gives you a chance to earn bonus video marketing traffic through the search engine giant.

Because search engines are not capable of seeing what is on the video, they depend on the text surrounding the video to tell it how relevant it is to what the viewer is searching for. Therefore your keyword needs to show up in the title of the video, the description and the YouTube tags to maximize your video’s chances of being seen by your target audience.

Include Links to Your Websites

Over 107 million visitors go to YouTube each month and watch approximately 65 hours worth of videos apiece. However, this statistic is meaningless if your video goes viral but you don’t have the necessary tools in place to generate sales or produce a stream of high quality prospects.

Therefore, be sure that when you are creating your videos that you include a link to your website or sales page in the video. For example, in many of my shopping videos, I link to my SaveWithStacy.com page that takes people to my online shopping mall where they can put the information I just gave them to good use.

Video marketing is just one of many tactics I use to increase sales and generate a list of qualified prospects for my home based business. Download my free social media checklist (sign up in sidebar) for a daily to do list of all the things you need to do to increase your following. For personalized help, contact me for a free consultation on the best way to market your business online including using video marketing and other internet business tools.

Video Marketing Can Get Results

Are you looking for a way to generate business and get your name on customer’s lips? One often overlooked but effective way of creating buzz about your company is through the use of video marketing.

Video has been used to promote products and services, share ideas and disseminate information since the television became commercially available in 1946. The internet has simply moved the viewing screen from the television set to the computer monitor. Smart marketers have built successful businesses just by creating and uploading useful videos to popular sites, like YouTube and Metacafe, for users to view and share.

Video Marketing is an Effective Way to Reach Customers

For one thing, people have been conditioned by the television and many prefer to watch a show on a subject rather than read an article about it. As long as you provide a compelling reason to watch, people will sit through your entire presentation with nary a complaint.

Video marketing offers your customers an opportunity to meet you before they buy. Instead of relying on a static picture and a few words on a blog, your prospects get to see and hear you which go a long way towards building trust in you and your company.

Oftentimes, ideas and information can be communicated quicker and easier with a two minute video versus a two page blog post. If you are selling a product, video presents customers with an opportunity to try it before they buy it. And if you are selling a service, you can demonstrate your skills to your potential clients to convince them you are the right person for the job.

Best of all, videos are portable. With the technological advances made in cell phones, your customers can view your content anywhere they happen to be in the world and easily share it with members of their network. Strike the right chord in your viewers and the number of people who see your video can easily reach into the hundreds of thousands.

Video Marketing Requires Compelling Content to Work

The first rule of thumb when engaging in video marketing is to produce compelling content. Unfortunately, people have also been conditioned to click away if what’s on the screen does not interest them. Just like you must hook your reader in the first paragraph, you have about ten seconds to capture the attention of your audience or they’ll walk away.

Many first time video marketers think that a video is a great way for them to tell their customers about their business. This is wrong. As harsh as this may sound, your customers don’t really care about you (at least not at first) but rather how you can help them. The second rule of thumb is to focus on answering the question, “How does this help me?” from the viewpoint of your audience. This will help you produce content that gets viewed and shared.

Getting started with video marketing may seem intimidating at first, but there are many resources on the internet that will help you get off to a great start. So grab a video camera and start making videos today.

Download my free social media checklist (sign up in sidebar) for a daily to do list of all the things you need to do to increase your following. For personalized help, contact me for a free consultation on the best way to market your business online including using video marketing and other internet business tools.