RosalindGardner.com

Learn Blogging & Affiliate Marketing with Rosalind Gardner

Affiliate Summit West 2010: Video Presentation Summary

By

Flip video camcorderOn Sunday, January 17th, Jeremy Palmer and I presented Video: Biggest Affiliate Marketing Opportunity Since Google at Affiliate Summit West 2010.

The presentation covered a number of video marketing information and essentials such as:

  • Online Video Statistics
  • YouTube Statistics
  • Why Use Video Marketing?
  • Equipment Requirements
  • Optional Equipment
  • Making Your Video
  • Creating a YouTube Channel
  • Uploading to YouTube
  • Being Social on YouTube
  • Ranking Factors on YouTube
  • How to Improve Your Rankings
  • Marketing Your Video

As much as I'd like to share the full presentation with you, I can't as per my Affiliate Summit speaker agreement. What I CAN do however is share a summary of what I think are the most important points, a few statistics and why you need to include video marketing as part of your online marketing strategy asap.

A Few Online Video Statistics

  • 3.8 billion searches are conducted through YouTube each month according to Comscore.
  • U.S. residents watch more than 30 billion videos each month.
  • 81% of the total US Internet audience watched online video.
  • The average viewer watches 8 hours of video per month

Why Video Marketing?

The numbers above should convince you that there is a huge market out there looking to online videos for information.

Here's an example.

When I checked Google Analytics the morning of our presentation, I saw that of the 892 referring sites that sent traffic to this site, YouTube was in the 7th spot — and only after my direct traffic from my own sites.

In other words, YouTube was my primary source of direct traffic.

Those visitors stayed an average of 7 minutes 43 seconds on the site, visiting 8.54 pages.

The only better retention rates were through visits from RosalindGardner.com, presumably because those folks already know of my work. Too, the percentage of new visitors from YouTube was about 20% higher than from my own sites.

Compare that to StumbleUpon visitors, of whom 97.8% were new to the site, and looked at an average of 2.28 pages in a mere 18 seconds. That's some pretty fast clicking! I just hope they left via paying links. 🙂

What all that means in a nutshell, is that by using video, you engage and build trust with an audience which inspires them to visit your site, i.e. increased traffic. Building that trust also results in longer site visits for which Google rewards you with higher rankings. Longer stays means more exposure to product and thus higher conversions.

Simple Video Marketing

I've found video marketing to be very simple. All I use is a Flip video camcorder, a tiny tripod and Camtasia Studio to edit and produce my videos before uploading them to YouTube and other video upload sites.

Don't make this mistake!

BTW, the biggest mistake that I see people making when they upload their videos to YouTube is that they don't link back to their blogs from the description.

You gotta do that IF you want the traffic and increases conversions!

Make Money with YouTube: The Rules

By

I just went through the process of submitting my video for revenue sharing consideration and discovered the rules and process for making money with your YouTube videos — and I LIKE them considering how much time I spent dealing with copyright infringement issues…

Here are some of the basics.

It's NOT OK to use someone else's material even if you…

  • edit together or “mash-up” other works.
  • alter it by 10%, 20%, 30%, etc.
  • only use 30 seconds of a song or video clip.
  • found it on the internet.
  • nobody sent you a copyright notice.
  • paid for it.
  • give proper attribution (credits).
  • are only singing the words of a favorite copyrighted song.

This is copyright infringement and your video will be deleted!

How to monetize your video

  • After reviewing the Agreement you will be asked for some information about your video.
  • Any information you can provide about the source of the music or visual images used in your video — and whether they have been included in your video with the permission of the source or person appearing in your video — will help the process move faster.
  • DO NOT submit any TV shows, music videos, music concerts, or commercials without the express permission of the producer, unless they consist entirely of content you created yourself.
  • Only eligible videos in your account may be invited for revenue sharing.

Processing your video can take time. Please be patient!

Once processed, one of the following will happen:

  • If approved, advertising will appear with the video.
  • If rejected, the video will be deleted from YouTube. You will receive an email notification if your video is rejected.

How and when you get paid

  • After you link your YouTube account with Google AdSense you will be paid through your AdSense account
  • You'll be paid when
  • Your earnings reach the payment threshold
  • There are no holds on your account
  • You remain in compliance with AdSense policies, YouTube policies and Community Guidelines

Simple, commonsense stuff — for MOST of us! 🙂

Comments, questions or suggestions? Please leave a comment below!

Cheers,

Ros

Woohoo! Making Money from YouTube Videos

By

Just got this message from YouTube:

Your video How Affiliate Marketing Works has become popular on YouTube, and you're eligible to apply for the YouTube Partnership Program, which allows you to make money from playbacks of your video.

Once you're approved, making money from your video is easy. Here's how it works: First sign into your YouTube account. Then, complete the steps outlined here: [link removed]. Once you're finished, we'll start placing ads next to your video and pay you a share of the revenue as long as you meet the program requirements.

We look forward to adding your video to the YouTube Partnership Program. Thanks and good luck!

The YouTube Team

Just one MORE way to make money as an affiliate marketer!

Actually, Jeremy and I will be talking about this at length at Affiliate Summit. Hope to see you there!

Comments, questions or suggestions? Please leave a comment below!

Cheers,

Ros

Share Your YouTube Videos on Twitter, Facebook and Google Reader

By

I love services that simplify my online business.

One of those services is TwitterFeed's automatic posting of blog entries to my Twitter account — meaning that I rarely have to login to Twitter, unless of course I feel like telling everyone what I'm having for lunch that day — not. 🙂

Well, in a similar fashion, YouTube has just made sharing your videos easier too.

You can now connect your YouTube account with your Facebook, Twitter and Google Reader accounts — meaning that your followers, friends and shared-item readers will see when you upload a new video to YouTube.

Sweet!

To connect your YouTube account with Twitter, Facebook and Google Reader, simply click on Upload Video and you'll see the link for AutoShare Options. Choose one or choose all 3 — linking is pretty much instantaneous and painless.

The screenshot below shows my YouTube account and the AutoShare options I chose.

Now I just have to make and upload another video to YouTube… wait for it!

YouTube Sharing

Comments, questions or suggestions? Please leave a comment below!

Cheers,

Ros

Social Media Marketers to Get Google Stomped

By

In a video post this morning, my good friend Colin “Google” McDougall reveals Google's plans to eradicate the value of inbound links from social media sites.

Like Colin, I've never been an avid user of MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter exactly because it was inevitable that Google would eventually have to turn that traffic off due to abuse by backlink hungry Internet marketers. Most of the ‘content' is pure time-wasting rubbish anyway. Seriously, who cares if I'm running off to Starbucks to get tall non-fat moccha? Good grief.

Colin also emphasizes that you can still garner benefit from social media sites when used for the purpose of real networking and sharing content of value.

Hmmm… gaining backlinks and therefore site traffic through the sharing of valuable content. What a novel concept!

YouTube Video Honors: Who Woulda Thunk it?

By

I saw some interesting and quite unexpected results after posting my Home Office Tour and second-ever video to YouTube the other day.

When I stopped by YouTube this afternoon, I saw “#18 – Most Linked (This Week) – Howto & DIY” and “#80 – Most Viewed (This Week) – Howto & DIY” under “Honors for This Video“.

When I clicked on the first link, there was mine beside 2 from Lockergnome's Chris Pirillo, the ultimate techno-video-geek who has 694 videos up and 14,232 YouTube subscribers. Whoa! I am truly honored! 🙂

So… in real terms, did posting the video to YouTube result in traffic?

You betcha!

According to my AWSTATS, there was a big spike in searches for “Rosalind Gardner” which is exactly what I was aiming for when I named the video ‘Rosalind Gardner's Home Office Tour'.

Traffic is good, but traffic with brand awareness is even better.

So, there ya go, another lesson learned – the power of video.

Categories