YouTube and Video Marketing E-Book

Greg Jarboe

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 750

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2009

Beschreibung

A complete, task-based guide to developing, implementing, andtracking a video marketing strategyOnline video marketing is crucial in today's marketplace. Thisguide teaches you proven, practical guidelines for developing andimplementing video marketing for your organization.If you're a marketer, advertising professional, consultant, orsmall business owner, here's a relevant guide to understandingvideo marketing tactics, developing a strategy, implementing thecampaign, and then measuring results. You'll find extensivecoverage of keyword strategies and video optimization, distributionand promotion strategies to other sites and blogs, YouTubeadvertising opportunities, and crucial metrics and analysis.* Written in the popular "Hour a Day" format, which breaksintimidating topics down to easily approachable tasks* Covers previously undocumented optimization strategies,distribution techniques, community promotion tactics, and more* Explores the crucial keyword development phase and bestpractices for creating and maintaining a presence on YouTube viabrand channel development and customization* Examines effective promotional tactics, how to optimize videofor YouTube and search engine visibility, and metrics andanalytics* Includes case studies, additional resources, a glossary,information about creating and editing video, step-by-step guides,and valuable tutorialsYouTube and Video Marketing: An Hour A Day gives you thetools to give your clients or your organization a visible, vitalmarketing presence online

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Praise

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Foreword

Introduction

Today’s Online Video Market

Who Should Read This Book

What Is Covered in This Book

How to Contact the Author

Chapter 1 - A Short History of YouTube

First Mover and Fast Followers

YouTube Nation

Video Search Engines, Then and Now

Video Sharing vs. Video Search

Google and YouTube

Chapter 2 - The Online Video Market

Broadcast Yourself?

Five Ws and an H

Chapter 3 - Month 1: Map Out Your Video Marketing Strategy

Tilting at Windmills

Week 1: Identify Opinion Leaders on YouTube

Week 2: Find Opinion Leaders on Other Online Video Sites

Week 3: Reverse the Old Map of Mass Media

Week 4: New Map

Chapter 4 - Month 2: Optimize Your Video

What Is Video Optimization?

Week 1: Research Keywords

Week 2: Optimize Video for YouTube

Week 3: Optimize Video for the Web

Week 4: Think outside the Search Box

Chapter 5 - Month 3: Create Viral Video Content

See the Power of “The Last Lecture”

Week 1: Watch the Best Viral Videos of 2007

Week 2: Make Original Content Worth Watching

Week 3: Observe the Top Viral Videos of 2008

Week 4: Create Compelling Content Worth Sharing

Chapter 6 - Month 4: Create a Channel

Center vs. Circumference

Week 1: Set Up a YouTube Channel

Week 2: Create a YouTube Brand Channel

Week 3: Customize Your Brand Channel Page Content

Week 4: Distribute Your Videos to Other Sites

Chapter 7 - Month 5: Engage the YouTube Community

Paul Revere’s Ride

Week 1: Become a Member of the YouTube Community

Week 2: Study the Most Discussed YouTube Live Highlights

Week 3: Add YouTube to Your Site and Share Videos

Week 4: Learn the Latest Lessons of Viral Marketing

Chapter 8 - Month 6: Learn Video Production

Happy Tree #3,079

Week 1: Learn Video Production Basics

Week 2: Get Video Production Tips

Week 3: Master Video Production Techniques

Week 4: Answer Video Production Questions

Chapter 9 - Month 7: Become a YouTube Partner and Video Advertiser

Like Super Bowl Commercials?

Week 1: Become a YouTube Partner

Week 2: Weigh YouTube Alternatives

Week 3: Evaluate Advertising Opportunities

Week 4: Check Out Advertising Case Studies

Chapter 10 - Month 8 : Trust but Verify YouTube Insight

The Map Room

Week 1: Trust YouTube Insight

Week 2: Verify with TubeMogul

Week 3: Verify with Visible Measures

Week 4: Build an Integrated Trinity Platform

Chapter 11 - Measure Outcomes vs. Outputs

Nailing the Numbers

Win the Presidency of the United States: Barack Obama

Increase Sales of DVDs 23,000 Percent: Monty Python

Deliver 700 Percent Increase in Sales: Will It Blend?

Book $100 Million in Revenue: Universal Music Group

Earn $100,000: What the Buck?!

Finish #1 at the Box Office: Rob Zombie’s Halloween

Chapter 12 - Mysteries of Online Video Revealed

Who Discovers, Watches, and Shares New Videos?

What Categories or Types of Video Do They Watch?

When Do They Discover New Videos?

Where Do They Share New Videos?

Why Don’t More New Videos Go Viral?

How Does Marketing with Video Work?

Glossary

Index

Advance Praise

Jam-packed with wisdom, this book will reward anyone willing to put in the time to become a viral video master.

—SETH GODIN, author, Tribes

YouTube and Video Marketing: An Hour A Day is the definitive guidebook for anyone seriousabout online video marketing. A masterpiece! Greg Jarboe sets the gold standard for books onYouTube. His YouTube book should be a part of everyone’s Internet marketing library.

—SHARI THUROW, author of Search Engine Visibility and When Search Meets Web Usability

Whether your budget is zero or tens of thousands of dollars, Greg Jarboe shows you how toget the best bang for your online marketing buck. In his book, YouTube and Video Marketing: An Hour A Day, Greg takes you beyond basic techniques to professional promotion andadvertising strategies—everything you need to market your business on YouTube.

—MICHAEL MILLER, author, YouTube for Business

This is a must-read book for any marketer considering adding video to their company’s online marketing initiatives. Jarboe has written an easy-to-read book that fuses valuable tactical best-practice information for YouTube marketing with how to strategically and successfully integrate YouTube into the corporate marketing plan.

—AMANDA WATLINGTON, Ph.D., APR, Owner, Searching for Profit

Greg Jarboe has reported on online video for Search Engine Watch, spoken about how to optimize for search and engage the community at Search Engine Strategies conferences, taught our YouTube and video marketing workshop, and produced more than 300 videos for SES ConferenceExpo’s Channel on YouTube. He’s compressed four years of experience into his book, debunked a lot of conventional wisdom, lead marketers on a path to gaining actionable insights, and added new case studies I hadn’t read before.

—MATT MCGOWAN, VP, Publisher, Incisive Media

Sure you’ve heard about SEO, but what do you know about YTO? YouTube optimization is abrand new science, and almost no one knows more about it as Greg Jarboe. The quirky,revolutionary YouTube is nothing like Google—even if they are part of the same company. Butwith this book, you can now learn how to optimize—and get the most out of—YouTube. TheInternet is going video, YouTube is synonymous with video on the Internet, and now withthis book you’ve got everything you need to profit from these megatrends. Congratulations toGreg Jarboe for making such a complex topic easy to understand, and actionable as well!

—JIM LOUDERBACK, CEO Revision3

With Marketers struggling to keep up with the rapidly emerging tools of the trade, this book is a must read. YouTube and Video Marketing: An Hour A Day breaks down critical marketing components into logical steps and backs it up with great examples of companies that have demonstrated the power of social media. What some continue to call a ‘new form of marketing’ is quickly becoming the standard. This is not a fad; it is the new reality.

—GEORGE WRIGHT, VP Marketing and Sales, Blendtec

Influencing people ain’t what it used to be. Mediums are different, opportunities are new andnumerous, the faith-based initiatives of yore are increasingly less effective. One vibrant andempowering medium for Marketers to keep it real and create Brand Evangelists is YouTube.Greg has a ton of practical experience, with dirty hands to prove it, and in this book he shareshis wisdom and guidance. I have no doubt you’ll rethink Video Marketing 20 pages into thiswonderful book!

—AVINASH KAUSHIK, author, Web Analytics: An Hour A Day

From the early days of personal computer software to today’s white-hot web and social media environment, Greg Jarboe has not only stayed up with modern marketing techniques—in many cases, he has invented them. These pages don’t just talk theory; they offer a practical, step-by-step guide on how to get the most out of online video marketing. Don’t be surprised if you start wanting to spend more than an hour a day; this is a page-turner that will bring you real results.

—MICHAEL KOLOWICH, President and Executive Producer, DigiNovations / North Bridge Productions

What makes YouTube and Video Marketing: An Hour A Day a must-read is Greg’s storytelling abilities. After all, it is the millions of stories that are told on YouTube every day by people like you that make it such a powerful marketing medium. If you won’t find an hour a day to invest in learning to make it work for you, don’t worry your competitors will tell the story of their success.

—BRYAN EISENBERG, New York Times best-selling author of Call to Action and Always Be Testing

‘Master Story Teller’, that’s how I would describe Greg Jarboe, someone I’ve known in theinternet marketing and PR world for several years. Now he’s pioneered yet another essentialdigital marketing channel: online video. In YouTube and Video Marketing: An Hour A Day,Greg has assembled a priceless collection of insights, examples and practical tips for companiesthat want, that need, to understand how to use video marketing to grow their business.You cannot afford to miss this story.

—LEE ODDEN, CEO TopRank Online Marketing

Senior Acquisitions Editor: WILLEM KNIBBE Development Editor: PETE GAUGHAN Technical Editor: BRAD O’FARRELL Production Editor: LIZ BRITTEN Copy Editor: JUDY FLYNN Editorial Manager: PETE GAUGHAN Production Manager: TIM TATE Vice President and Executive Group Publisher: RICHARD SWADLEY Vice President and Publisher: NEIL EDDE Book Designer: FRANZ BAUMHACKL Compositor: CHRIS GILLESPIE, HAPPENSTANCE TYPE-O-R AMA Proofreader: WORDONE, NEW YORK Indexer: TED LAUX Project Coordinator, Cover: LYNSEY STANFORD Cover Designer: RYAN SNEED Cover Image: PATAGONIK WORKS / DIGITAL VISION / GETTY IMAGES, INC.

Copyright © 2009 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

ISBN: 978-0-470-45969-0

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone]. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, [phone], fax [phone], or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: The publisher and the author make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation warranties of fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales or promotional materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for every situation. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services. If professional assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. The fact that an organization or Web site is referred to in this work as a citation and/or a potential source of further information does not mean that the author or the publisher endorses the information the organization or Web site may provide or recommendations it may make. Further, readers should be aware that Internet Web sites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read.

For general information on our other products and services or to obtain technical support, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at [phone], outside the U.S. at [phone] or fax [phone].

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Jarboe, Greg, 1949-

1. YouTube (Electronic resource) 2. Internet marketing. 3. Internet advertising. 4. Internet videos. 5. Webcasting. I. Title.

HF5415.1265.J37 2009

658.8’72—dc22

2009023121

TRADEMARKS: Wiley, the Wiley logo, and the Sybex logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates, in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. YouTube is a registered trademark of Google, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

To my family, friends, and community

Acknowledgments

I could not have written this book without the help and support of many people.

First, I need to thank my wife, Nancy, for putting up with me during the past eight months—especially when I was in the “Batcave,” our nickname for the family room in the basement where I worked on this book evenings and weekends. To make it up, I will watch Seinfeld and Countdown with Keith Olbermann with you for the next eight months. And thanks to my kids, Andrew, Brendan, and Kelsey; you listened to me talk about YouTube and video marketing for 3 percent of your lives. I will listen to you talk about the Boston Red Sox, Massachusetts politics, and overthrowing the patriarchy, as specified by the Equal Time rule. And thanks to Andrew’s wife, Melanie, for joining our speech and debate team just as I disappeared into the Batcave or headed over to the Sweet Bites Bakery & Café for “the usual.”

Next, I need to thank my business partner, Jamie O’Donnell, and my colleagues at SEO-PR: Nell Connors, John Mulligan, Byron Gordon, Sergei Fyodorov, Nathan Groom, Jean Sexton, John Zukowski, Chris Halcon, Danya Abt, Adam Macbeth, and Monarch. You helped me keep my day job and watched my back during the swing shift. I’m taking all of you to Joe’s Cable Car Restaurant in San Francisco.

I need to thank SEO-PR’s clients for sharing their case studies. This includes Matt McGowan, vice president and publisher for Incisive Media’s Interactive Marketing Group, which includes Search Engine Strategies (SES), Search Engine Watch, and ClickZ; Carl Mehlhope, SVP, integrated sales and marketing at STACK Media; Tamir Lipton, senior marketing manager, Meredith; Deni Kasrel, director, Web & publications, Office of University Communications at the University of Pennsylvania; and Al Eccles, SEO manager of Yell. You’ve helped me to make “Stone Soup.”

I want to thank the three people who shared their success stories for this book: Arun Chaudhary, new media road director of Obama for America; John Goldstone, producer of Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979), and Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (1983); and George Wright, vice president of marketing and sales for Blendtec. And I apologize for putting your success stories in Chapter 11. I’m calling it the eleventh chapter so no one gets the wrong idea.

I also want to thank four people at YouTube and Google who helped me with this book: Suzie Reider, Ricardo Reyes, Aaron Zamost, and Karen Wickre. It takes a village to teach these lessons.

And I want to thank several people who shared their input and feedback. This includes Seth Godin, Amanda Watlington, Michael Kolowich, Kayden Kelly, Charles Davis, Joe Christopher, Alexandra Tran, Ken Colborn, Lee Odden, Sally Falkow, Mike McDonald, Abby Johnson, Bill Hunt, Sage Lewis, Bill Tancer, Matt Tatham, Grant Crowell, Amber Naslund, and Michael Miller. I get by with a little help from my friends.

I want to thank Stewart Quealy, Marilyn Crafts, Jackie Ortez, Kevin Ryan, Mike Grehan, Andrew Goodman, the SES Advisory Board, and Search Engine Watch for putting me on panels about online video at SES conferences. And I should thank my fellow panelists for sharing their expertise: Chase Norlin, Steve Espinosa, Matthew Scheybeler, Gregory Markel, Ed Kim, Barbara C. Coll, Shari Thurow, Liana Evans, Henry Hall, and Matthew Liu. If I’m known as an expert on this topic, it’s because I’ve spent less than 20 percent of my time speaking at SES and more than 80 percent listening to you.

I should thank my colleagues at Market Motive: Avinash Kaushik, Michael Stebbins, John Marshall, Scott Milrad, Tyler Link, Byran Eisenberg, Matt Bailey, Todd Malicoat, Dr. Alan Rimm-Kaufman, Jessica Bowman, Mary Huffman, and Mark Evans. There’s a reason why we’ve been called the “Internet marketing dream team.” But I can’t remember it.

Finally, I should thank the folks at Sybex, an imprint of John Wiley & Sons. This includes Willem Knibbe, Pete Gaughan, Brad O’Farrell, Liz Britten, and Judy Flynn. I have come to the conclusion that the making of books is like the making of sausages: the less you know about the process, the more you respect the result.

If I’ve forgotten anyone, then I hope you will forgive me. As Mel Brooks says, “God willing, we’ll all meet again in Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money.”

About the Author

Greg Jarboe is president and cofounder of SEO-PR (www.seo-pr.com), a search engine optimization firm, public relations agency, and video production company. He is a frequent speaker at Search Engine Strategies and other conferences. He is also the news search, blog search, and PR correspondent for the Search Engine Marketing News Blog at Search Engine Watch.

Jarboe is a member of the Market Motive faculty, which has been called the “Internet marketing dream team.” He is a principal in the ChannelOne Marketing Group, a virtual team of nationally recognized experts with deep experience in video production and Web marketing. He is also one of the experts who sat down to talk shop with Michael Miller for the book Online Marketing Heroes: Interviews with 25 Successful Online Marketing Gurus (Wiley, 2008).

According to Virginia Nussey, associate writer of the SEO Blog on Bruceclay.com, “Greg is considered an expert on everything from news search to video search to linkbait and beyond. If you don’t know him, your introduction is long overdue because Greg has his fingers on the pulse of the Internet marketing industry.”

Cofounded in 2003 by Jarboe and Jamie O’Donnell, SEO-PR has offices in San Francisco, California, and Greater Boston, Massachusetts. Larry Chase’s Search Engine for Marketers named Jarboe and O’Donnell to its “Who’s Who in SEO Experts.” Market Motive adds, “Regarded as the pioneers and leading authorities on online publicity, Greg and Jamie of SEO-PR continue to blaze new trails on one of the best kept secrets in Internet marketing: Online publicity.” SEO-PR has worked with a variety of clients and helped generate the following results:

• $2.5 million in ticket sales for Southwest Airlines in 2004

• 1.3 million searches on SuperPages.com for “florists” in 2005

• 450,000 unique visitors to The Christian Science Monitor in 2006

• 1,100 attendees to the Wharton Economic Summit in 2007

• 36% increase in searches for Better Homes and Gardens in 2008

• 859 inlinks to Parents.com Toy and Product Recall Finder in 2009

SEO-PR has also produced, optimized, and promoted hundreds of online videos for Better Homes and Gardens, Marvell Technology Group, Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), Search Engine Strategies, STACK Media, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yell.com.

Jarboe has also taught online training courses for Market Motive, including “Video Strategy: Basic Planning” and a full-day workshop for CBS Sports. At SES San Jose 2009, he taught the “YouTube and Video Marketing Workshop.”

In 2005, SEO-PR won the Golden Ruler Award with Southwest Airlines from the Institute for Public Relations and PR News. In 2008, SEO-PR was a finalist for SES awards in three different categories: Best Social Media Marketing Campaign, Best Business-to-Business Search Marketing Campaign, and Best Integration of Search with Other Media.

Before cofounding SEO-PR, Jarboe was vice president and chief marketing officer for Backbone Media, vice president of marketing for WebCT, and director of corporate communications for Ziff-Davis. At Ziff-Davis, he helped launch dozens of new media, including ZDTV and The Site, hosted by Soledad O’Brien, on MSNBC.

Before that, Jarboe was president of Jarboe Communications and director of marketing for PC Computing and director of corporate communications at Lotus Development Corp. Prior to that, he held PR, marcom, and public affairs positions at Data General, Sequoia Systems, Stratus Computer, and Wang Laboratories.

In the 1970s, he was a radio newscaster, newspaper editor, and cohost of the Marcie and Me show on the public access channel of Continental Cablevision in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He won two New England Press Association awards while editor of The Acton Minute-Man.

Jarboe graduated from the University of Michigan in 1971, attended the University of Edinburgh, and completed all the course work for his master’s at Lesley College. He lives in Acton, Massachusetts, where he has been elected to the board of selectmen.

Jarboe is frequently interviewed about online video by journalists and bloggers. You can watch “Greg Jarboe of SEO-PR discusses YouTube and Video Marketing at SES London 2009” at www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiBkobaP2w8. Or, go to: http://videos.webpronews.com/2009/03/24/mysteries-of-online-video-revealed to discover “Mysteries of Online Video Revealed.”

Foreword

The setting was the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan. It was a TV/digital video upfront event attended by 500 media and advertising agency executives. For 10 minutes the conversation was YouTube and a video that had been created by two Domino’s employees. The video referenced was a short clip of two employees using very poor judgment, playing around with food in a Domino’s kitchen. These two turkeys, as my 11-year-old daughter called them, shot the video and then posted the video on YouTube. What ensued was an uncontrollable storm that flashed across the Internet, local television networks, Good Morning America, AdAge, and dozens of blogs and video sharing sites.

The conversation about the posting of the video was telling. As I listened to the people in the room state their opinions, reflect on the occurrence, and debate how they would have managed this had it been their own franchise or corporation, I listened for signs of any real understanding of how YouTube works. I didn’t hear any. There was confusion about the videos themselves and who can post and who controls the content. There was no sense of the tools and functionality that YouTube has developed for marketers to leverage, there really wasn’t any base understanding of where a marketer would begin, when in crisis mode or otherwise.

Had Greg Jarboe been standing in the doorway, YouTube and Video Marketing in hand, he’d have moved his first 500 copies.

When Jarboe called me in the fall of 2008 and let me know that he intended to write a book on YouTube, it was hard for me to imagine a printed book that could capture the power of YouTube as a marketing vehicle. Why? Because to look through the videos (meaning beyond the video itself) and understand the rhythm of what goes on in this vast ocean of content one is constantly clicking on links and ending up with something like this in the browser: www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZNGpB9A2js.

I was having a hard time visualizing reading a book that had one turning to the keyboard every few moments and typing 35 characters, mixed caps and lower case…

In reading the early chapters, as Jarboe sent them feverishly through over email, I am struck by how graciously he has woven the fundamental principles of marketing into this unpredictable platform called YouTube. He has done a brilliant job of understanding the way it all works in 2009 while remaining grounded in the core of what any marketer strives to achieve as they parse their marketing budget.

Marketing has changed, forever—and will change more in the next few years than it has changed in the last 50 years. Marketing is changing, media is changing, and all we have to do is watch the media consumption habits of our kids (I have a tween focus group of two in my home…) to know just how real and startling this is and how rapidly it is occurring.

Yet, while YouTube may be current and innovative, what a marketer requires of their activations and marketing programs is plain old traditional and can be found in the pages of the books that college graduates heading into advertising, marketing, and communications careers read today and have read for 30 years. It always has been and always will be about connecting with one’s consumer/customer and ultimately selling whatever it is that needs to be sold. Texts like Ogilvy on Advertising (Crown, 1983), but culled from advertising/marketing practices applied in the 1950s and 1960s (think AMC’s Mad Men), resonate today.

Advertising and marketing are still about coaxing a consumer to buy Nike’s $160 Air Jordon Fusion 9, “connect to everything you love in life” (Blackberry’s tag line) through a Storm 9530, or recognize the virtue of Unilever’s big mouth jar for the mayonnaise that “that brings out the best” (Hellmann’s tag line is “bring out the Hellmann’s and bring out the best”).

In 2009, what is required of marketing and advertising is the same as what it was in 1957 when Dove ran its first spots for the cleansing bar made of ¼ cleansing cream. What are altered forever are the tools, platforms, medium, vehicles, and technology by which a marketer can actually market. And today, a marketer is challenged to create a dialog with the consumer, to engage the consumer versus washing over them with their branding and advertising.

Jarboe focuses on the fundamental requirement of a marketer to connect with their consumer. He also talks about the changes a marketer must make. Think for a moment about Nike. As a consumer you see Nike+ (enables runners to track their pace, distance, etc. on their iPod or a Nike sport band and then upload it to a Nike running site), NikeiD (design your own shoes), Nike Women to engage with them. Every year Advertising Age tracks the spending of the top 100 marketers in the country. A few years ago, Nike spent only 33 percent of its $678 million U.S. advertising budget on actual ads with television networks and other traditional media companies. That is down from 55 percent 10 years ago. Nike has figured it out.

The Internet gave marketers the opportunity to innovate. YouTube has given marketers a platform for celebrating and amplifying nearly every marketing activation. Yet often marketers are missing the opportunity to give their programs transformative new wings.

When Red Bull launched its Soap Box Derby in San Francisco’s Dolores Park this past October (2008), about 100,000 people converged to see 30 teams fly down Dolores Street at 38 miles an hour. As I watched the day unfold, I reflected on how Red Bull missed the opportunity to have 100 million people feel the rush of the derby and the irreverent, fast, outrageous sense of Red Bull. The tools exist on YouTube, and YouTube is where the people are.

Blue Shield had a similar miss when it launched its Uncovered campaign in September 2008. For several days, six or seven beautiful, stoic, startling bronze statues spaced about four feet apart stared out from the sidewalk. I’d estimate 20 people walked by and noted the figures. Call it 120 people an hour during peak hours, perhaps 1,200 people each day. Even with a dozen or so activations across the state, quick math doesn’t have the numbers adding up fast enough. While Blue Shield did launch a website (www.letsshieldcalifornia.com) with the objective of raising awareness and starting a conversation, it was seemingly unaware of the tools that exist on YouTube, many of them free of charge, that could ignite this movement across the Web. YouTube and Video Marketing details the precise functionality that could have carried this very powerful activation miles farther and engaged millions of Californians unaware of the fact that one in five of us are not insured.

While there are dozens of examples where a marketer could have taken a campaign farther, Jarboe highlights many real wins.

When I think about the most important learnings over the past few years, it is as simple as our locking into the importance of engagement and dialog over “advertising.” The program that Shaun Farrar, VP media at Digitas, drove on Cingular’s behalf wasn’t simply an ad campaign. The program was called the Cingular Underground, and it was a call to unsigned bands to upload their music videos. The community voted, the finalists appeared on Good Morning America and toured on the Gibson Guitar Tour Bus, and there was a record contract signed. Cingular took advantage of the new without losing the best of the old.

There is a wonderful video on YouTube, which you can find by searching for “The Christmas Broadcast, 1957.” TheRoyalChannel is the official presence on YouTube for the queen of England. Her Christmas message truly sums up where we are today.

Happy Christmas.

Twenty-five years ago my grandfather broadcast the first of these Christmas messages. Today is another landmark because television has made it possible for many of you to see me in your homes on Christmas Day... I very much hope that this new medium will make my Christmas message more personal and direct... That it is possible for some of you to see me today is just another example of the speed at which things are changing all around us. Because of these changes I am not surprised that many people feel lost and unable to decide what to hold on to and what to discard. How to take advantage of the new life without losing the best of the old. But it is not the new inventions which are the difficulty. The trouble is caused by unthinking people who carelessly throw away ageless ideals as if they were old and outworn machinery.

I’ve thought a lot about the people in the room at the Roosevelt Hotel, (many of them TV executives and buyers) and wondered what voice or approach would be most effective in bringing them along and helping them understand what YouTube is really all about (as a marketing vehicle). Jarboe has done an outstanding job detailing how to make the most of what YouTube has to offer to brand managers, account directors, media planners, marketers, and yes, senior executives in traditional media companies. Over 400 million people around the world spend time on YouTube every month—seems like a good time to learn what Jarboe has to teach.

SUZIE REIDER,YouTube Head of Advertising

Introduction

The first video on YouTube was shot by Yakov Lapitsky and features Jawed Kim, one of the company’s founders, at the San Diego Zoo. Entitled “Me at the zoo,” it is 19 seconds long.

That video (www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw) was uploaded on Saturday, April 23, 2005, at 8:27 p.m. At that time, YouTube’s headquarters was above a pizzeria and Japanese restaurant in San Mateo, California.

In front of the elephants, Kim says, “The cool thing about these guys today is that they have really, really, really long, um, trunks.” An annotation added more than three years later asks, “Can you hear the goat? MEEEEEEEEEEEH!” As of May 2009, “Me at the zoo” had more than 684,000 views. The video had also received over 4,400 ratings, been favorited more than 3,100 times, created one video response, and generated close to 5,200 text comments.

Why is this ordinary moment so extraordinary? In spite of what Kim says, it’s not the elephants or their trunks. And despite the annotation, it’s not the goat. In fact, you can’t see the reason this ordinary moment became so extraordinary by watching “Me at the zoo.” The founders of YouTube weren’t trying to “capture special moments on video” themselves. They were trying to empower YouTube users “to become the broadcasters of tomorrow.”

That’s why the real story is what happened next. And it’s only in hindsight that we can see why YouTube went on to become the world’s most popular online video community.

YouTube users like Cobaltgruv (www.youtube.com/cobaltgruv) started putting up videos. On his Channel, Cobalt, 31, says, “Well, I’m an average dude who found YouTube the very first month it was out—user 42 or something. Think I even left the first comment on this site!”

And among the early YouTube celebrities were Anthony Padilla and Ian Hecox, the stars of Smosh. Both members of the comedy duo are from Carmichael, California, and were born in the fall of 1987. Yes, they’re that young.

On November 19, 2005, they uploaded three videos to the Smosh Channel (www.youtube.com/smosh): “Mortal Kombat Theme” (which had more than 15 million views as of May 2009), “Power Rangers Theme” (over 4.4 million views), and “The Epic Battle: Jesus vs. Cyborg Satan” (more than 1.3 million views).

Smosh also uploaded a video in which they lip-synched and danced to the Pokemon theme song. It was one of the most viewed videos on YouTube for almost a year, but it had to be removed due to copyright infringement. According to Brad O’Farrell, the technical editor of this book, “It’s the reason they’re popular.” I’ll take his word for it because I’m not their target demographic.

Their video “Smosh Short 2: Stranded” won the 2006 YouTube Award for Best Comedy. The 72 videos on Smosh’s channel had almost 236 million views as of May 2009, making it the #3 most viewed comedy channel of all time. With almost 807,000 subscribers, it was also the #3 most subscribed channel of all time.

All this gave YouTube the early reputation as a small video sharing site where any wanna-be director with a video camera and an internet connection could upload their quirky and unusual amateur content for an audience of 18- to 24-year-olds to discover, watch, and share. Well, that’s what it was back in 2005.

So, let’s move beyond YouTube’s early reputation to today’s online video market.

Today’s Online Video Market

Over 300 million people worldwide discover, watch, and share videos on an estimated 6 million to 9 million YouTube channels each month. YouTube acts as a distribution platform for original content creators and advertisers large and small and provides a forum for people to connect, inform, and inspire others across the globe.

In the United States, 98.8 million viewers watched 5.3 billion videos on YouTube. com in February 2009, according to data from the comScore Video Metrix service. That’s 53.8 videos per viewer.

In Canada, more than 1.6 billion videos were viewed by 18 million viewers on YouTube.com that month, representing nearly 90 videos per viewer.

The average online video viewer in the United States watched 312 minutes of video in February 2009, while the average online video viewer in Canada watched 605 minutes of video that month.

As Bob and Doug McKenzie would say, “Hosers, eh?”

According to U.S. site stats from Nielsen/NetRatings for December 2008, the YouTube audience is more diverse than you may think:

• Eighteen percent of YouTube users are under the age of 18

• Twenty percent are 18 to 34

• Nineteen percent are 35 to 44

• Twenty-three percent are 45 to 54

• Twenty percent are over the age of 55

Nearly half of YouTube users have annual incomes of $75,000 or more:

• Six percent make less than $25,000

• Twenty percent make $25,000 to $49,999

• Twenty-five percent make $50,000 to $74,999

• Nineteen percent make $75,000 to $99,999

• Eighteen percent make $100,000 to $149,999

• Ten percent make $150,000 or more

Fifty-two percent are male and 48 percent are female. Forty-two percent have some form of higher education degree, and 13 percent hold postgraduate degrees. As my wife, Nancy, would say, “That’s ‘wicked smart,’” although this would sound like “wicked smaht,” since she has never lost her Boston accent.

As YouTube’s audience has become larger and more diverse, the range of content on the video sharing site has become larger and more diverse too.

For example, YouTube now includes television shows and movies from partners like CBS, Crackle, Lionsgate, MGM, Starz, and others. To help users navigate through the thousands of television episodes available for users to watch, comment on, favorite, and share, YouTube introduced a new tab to its masthead on April 16, 2009. The Shows tab allows users to browse shows by genre, network, title, and popularity. At the same time, YouTube also announced an improved destination for movies to help users navigate through the hundreds of movies.

YouTube also includes premium content from more than 3,000 YouTube partners, including the Smithsonian, Encyclopedia Britannica, Library of Congress, Blah Girls, Total Beauty TV, Fix My Recipe, and Painting and Drawing.

And YouTube includes video content from small businesses like Harmony Ridge Lodge, which is located in Nevada City, California, adjacent to Tahoe National Forest. Check out “Dog Does Yoga, Drives a Car,” which introduces Monarch, and “Silly Pet Smackdown: Monarch vs. Kelly” on HarmonyRidgeLodge’s channel (www.youtube.com/HarmonyRidgeLodge).

Jamie O’Donnell, who is the owner of the lodge and Monarch as well as my business partner at SEO-PR, produced the videos to promote his pet and dog-friendly lodging. And the videos of Monarch have generated referrals and brought in guests. As YouTube says on its own advertising brand channel, it has truly grown quickly into “the world’s largest magazine rack.”

According to YouTube internal data for January 2009, channel subscriptions and user uploads had doubled over the previous year. And that was before YouTube introduced a new Subscriptions tab in April 2009 that grants logged-in users one-click access to fresh content from their favorite creators. Later that month, YouTube also launched a Subscription Center for users without any subscriptions (www.youtube.com/my_subscriptions). Users who visit the Subscription Center see some suggestions of a random set of popular channels to help them get started using this YouTube feature.

According to YouTube internal data for February 2009, more than 15 hours of video were being uploaded to YouTube every minute. With hundreds of thousands of new videos uploaded daily, it’s not surprising that 51 percent of YouTube users go to the video sharing site weekly or more often to discover “what’s new.”

And with YouTube making it so simple to share videos and offering so many Share options, it’s not surprising that 52 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds share videos often with friends and colleagues. And that was before YouTube added a Share To Twitter button under the Share options in March 2009 and, in April, launched RealTime, a toolbar that lets you discover what your friends are doing on YouTube.

What Are Ad Buyers Waiting For?

But what are the buyers of video advertising waiting for? And, are the producers of online video making money?

In the summer of 2008, a reporter asked TubeMogul what percentage of its users was actively monetizing their videos. Since TubeMogul sells viewership analytics rather than an advertising platform, it had no data to turn to. So, TubeMogul sent a poll to its users to get a fuller picture of what is going on.

An anonymous survey was sent to 11,919 TubeMogul users, and 1,114 completed it. On August 7, 2008, TubeMogul reported that 51.1 percent of those who responded said yes, they were currently monetizing their videos.

Out of these users who were monetizing their content, 47.4 percent of the producers were joining revenue-sharing programs on video sharing sites like YouTube and taking a rare sponsorship deal when and if they could get it. At the other end of the spectrum were 23.4 percent of the producers who were popular professionals selling their own, exclusive ads. About 29.2 percent fell in the middle somewhere.

The reported cost per thousand (CPM) impressions varied widely, from pennies to over $100, averaging $12.39 across all surveyed. With 20.4 percent of all surveyed actively selling ads into their content, the picture looked hopeful.

In terms of ad formats, overlays were the most popular. The industry seemed split between product placement used by 29.4 percent of those surveyed and pre-roll used by 31.2 percent.

Who were the 48.9 percent surveyed that did not monetize their videos at all? Many of these people said their videos were ads (i.e., movie previews or corporate-seeded viral videos) or they were putting out their content for fun (i.e., family videos).

Nine of TubeMogul’s users are among the 100 most viewed channels on YouTube: Machinima, Mondo Media, Fred, Hot for Words, Athene Wins, Barely Political, sxephil, Nuclear Blast Europe, and Venetian Princess. But, we don’t know if prominent TubeMogul users shared their ad revenue numbers, so the results may not be representative of the broader marketplace.

Plus, a lot has changed since August 2008—in addition to the global economy, housing market, financial institutions, and auto industry.

In October 2008, YouTube announced a collaboration with iTunes and Amazon. com that offered the YouTube community direct access to buy and download music, games, and other products with a few clicks of a mouse. That month, YouTube also started to test full-length programming, enabling CBS and other partners to embed in-stream video ads, including pre-, mid- and post-rolls, in some of these episodes.

In November 2008, YouTube announced promoted videos, a self-serve advertising platform that displays the most relevant, compelling videos alongside YouTube search results. These videos are priced on a cost-per-click basis.

In December 2008, Brian Stelter of The New York Times wrote an article entitled “YouTube Videos Pull in Real Money.” He wrote, “One year after YouTube, the online video powerhouse, invited members to become ‘partners’ and added advertising to their videos, the most successful users are earning six-figure incomes from the Web site.”

Stelter interviewed Cory Williams, 27, a YouTube producer known as smpfilms on YouTube. Williams said his big break came in September 2007 with a music video parody called “The Mean Kitty Song.” The video, which introduces his evil feline companion, had been viewed more than 20 million times as of May 2009.

With more than 250,000 subscribers to smpfilms’s channel, Williams said he was earning $17,000 to $20,000 a month via YouTube. Half of the profits come from YouTube’s advertisements, and the other half come from sponsorships and product placements within his videos, a model that he has borrowed from traditional media.

On February 23, 2009, Asjylyn Loder of the St. Petersburg Times wrote an article entitled “St. Petersburg man makes living sharing tinkering talents on Web.” She wrote, “Kip Kedersha’s fuzzy Havanese puppy paid for himself in 43 seconds, by shoving himself headfirst into a square hole while his owner chronicled his efforts in a video titled ‘Round Dog vs. Square Hole.’”

The video has been viewed more than 357,000 times as of April 2009 on kipkay’s channel. More than 97,500 people subscribe to Kedersha’s channel. Loden added, “The channel is also how Kedersha makes a living. He earns thousands of dollars a month as part of YouTube’s Partner Program, which places advertisements along the bottom of Kedersha’s videos.”

In March 2009, YouTube started posting partner success stories to its website. The first featured Demand Media, which had launched the ExpertVillage’s channel in April 2006. Demand Media’s channel was accepted into YouTube’s Partner Program in 2007. And as of May 2009, the 139,000 videos on ExpertVillage’s channel had more than 540 million views, making it the #3 most viewed channel of all time.

Demand Media has launched over 20 YouTube branded channels housing more than 150,000 videos, including eHow’s channel, livestrong’s channel, Golflink’s channel, and Greencar’s channel. In 2008, subscriptions to Demand Media’s YouTube channels increased by more than 1,000 percent to over 250,000 subscribers.

As of January 2009, Demand Media’s channels generated over 2 million video streams per day. “What originally began as a marketing-driven syndication effort has now turned into a seven figure revenue stream,” Steven Kydd, EVP of Demand Studios, Demand Media’s content creation division, said in the YouTube partner success story.

On April 9, 2009, Ad Age reported that YouTube was selling ads against 9 percent of its video views. Although that figure sounds unimpressive, it was triple the “3 percent” figure reported by Zachary Robers of ClickZ on July 23, 2008.

So, the buyers of video advertising aren’t waiting anymore and the producers of online video are making money.

New Source of Competition

YouTube also has to contend with competition from a new source: Hulu.

As this was being written, comScore had just released April 2009 data from the comScore Video Metrix service reporting that YouTube ranked #1. More than 107 million Americans had watched 6.8 billion videos on YouTube.com in April 2009, representing a 40.4 percent share of all videos viewed that month. Hulu ranked #2 with 40.1 million viewers watching almost 397 million videos, a 2.4 percent share. MySpace ranked #3 with 49 million viewers watching 387 million views, a 2.3 percent share.

A year earlier, comScore reported that YouTube ranked #1. More than 82 million Americans had watched 4.1 billion videos on YouTube.com in April 2008, representing a 37.3 percent share of all videos viewed. MySpace ranked #2 with 46 million viewers watching 481 million videos, a 4.4 percent share. Yahoo! Video ranked #3 with 37.3 million viewers watching 328 million videos, a 3.2 percent share. Hulu didn’t rank in the top 10 United States online video properties.

And as this was being written, ABC, a unit of Disney, had just announced that it would join NBC Universal and Fox as a part owner in Hulu. Brad Stone and Brian Stelter of the New York Times wrote an article on April 30, 2009, entitled “ABC to Add Its Shows to Videos on Hulu.”

Stone and Stelter wrote, “The deal is a blow to YouTube, owned by Google and by far the largest video site on the Web. It also courted Disney but struck a deal to display only short clips from shows on ABC and ESPN. People familiar with the negotiations said talks between Disney and YouTube broke down over how a deal would be structured, with Disney insisting on owning a stake in any joint venture.”

Let Me Sum Up

So, as Inigo Montoya says in The Princess Bride (1987), “Let me ‘splain. No, there’s too much. Let me sum up.” The market for online video has grown very large. The buyers of video advertising aren’t waiting anymore, and the producers of online video are making money. And the competitive landscape has changed. So, as Westley says in the movie, “That doesn’t leave much time for dillydallying.”

Who Should Read This Book

This book is for veteran marketers. Internet marketers, search engine marketers, business marketers, sports marketers, event marketers, product marketers, and corporate marketers should read this book because they didn’t learn about video marketing in college—because there were no courses on this topic a couple of years ago—and their marketing jobs and marketing careers are rapidly being reshaped by YouTube.

This book is also for new YouTubers. Comedians, directors, gurus, musicians, partners, and politicians should read this book to learn how to market and promote their YouTube videos more effectively.

Finally, this book is for entrepreneurs. Do-it-yourselfers and small business owners should read this book to debunk popular myths and gain actionable insights from their YouTube and video marketing efforts.

What You Will Learn

This book will show you how to implement a successful video marketing strategy in a relatively new and rapidly changing field. It focuses on YouTube, which is the top online video website, but it also covers Google Video and other video search engines as well as MySpace Video and other video sharing sites. It focuses on the United States, but it also covers Canada, where YouTube is also the top video destination.

What Is Covered in This Book

YouTube and Video Marketing: An Hour a Day is organized to provide you with proven, practical guidelines for developing and implementing video marketing for your organization. My extensive experience in this field also enables me to provide clear, detailed, step-by-step instruction on crucial topics.

Here’s a relevant guide to understanding video marketing tactics, developing a strategy, implementing the campaign, and then measuring results. You’ll find extensive coverage of keyword strategies and video optimization, strategies for distributing and promoting to other sites and blogs, YouTube advertising opportunities, and crucial metrics and analysis.

• Written in the popular “Hour a Day” format, breaking intimidating topics down into easily approachable tasks

• Covers previously undocumented optimization strategies, distribution techniques, community promotion tactics, and more

• Shows you what is and isn’t successful and helps you develop a winning strategy

• Explores the crucial keyword development phase and best practices for creating and maintaining a presence on YouTube via brand channel development and customization

• Examines effective promotional tactics, how to optimize video for YouTube and search engine visibility, and metrics and analytics

• Includes case studies, additional resources, a glossary, information about creating and editing video, step-by-step guides, and valuable hands-on tutorials

YouTube and Video Marketing: An Hour A Day gives you the tools to give your clients or your organization a visible, vital marketing presence online.

What’s Inside?

This book is an eight-month-plus program for developing, implementing, and tracking a video marketing strategy. The months are divided into weeks, and these are divvied into days that focus on tasks that are estimated to take about an hour each. Depending on your circumstances, your familiarity with the subject matter, and the sophistication of your clients and organization, it may take you more or less time to complete certain tasks. The book is divided into 12 chapters:

Chapter 1, “A Short History of YouTube,” introduces you to the world’s most popular online video community. Founded in February 2005, YouTube allows millions of people to discover, watch, and share originally created videos. In this chapter, you will learn why YouTube took off the way it did, how video sharing sites differ from video search engines, and who might blurt out, “God, this is going to be all over YouTube.”

Chapter 2, “The Online Video Market,” points out that the online video market is very large, but it doesn’t work like a “mass market.” In this chapter, you will learn who discovers, watches, and shares new videos; what categories or types of new video they watch; when they discover new videos; where they share new videos; why few new videos go viral; and how video marketing works. Finally, you will learn that it’s okay to admit, “I still don’t have all the answers, but I’m beginning to ask the right questions.”

Chapter 3, “Month 1: Map Out Your Video Marketing Strategy,” starts by showing you how to identify your target audience first. In this chapter, you will learn how to identify opinion leaders on YouTube and other online video sites. You will also learn why the old communication model should be reversed to map out your video marketing strategy. This quest will require all of the imagination, passion, and discipline of Don Quixote plus the practicality, realism, and cleverness of Sancho Panza.

Chapter 4, “Month 2: Optimize Your Video,” shows you how to ensure that your video will be found when Americans conduct more than 2.9 billion “expanded search queries” on YouTube each month. In this chapter, you will learn how to research keywords, how to optimize video for YouTube and the Web, and what to do when someone asks, “Have you tried searching under ‘fruitless’?”

Chapter 5, “Month 3: Create Viral Video Content,” is about creating content that hopefully informs, inspires, and entertains. In this chapter, you’ll watch the best viral videos of 2007 and 2008 to learn how to make original content worth watching and compelling content worth sharing. After you’ve learned how to create a viral video, you can tell your close friends, “I can’t wait to see what you’re like online.”

Chapter 6, “Month 4: Create a Channel,” encourages you to create a channel on YouTube, but don’t stop there. YouTube should be the center, but not the circumference, of your video marketing strategy. In this chapter, you will learn how to set up a basic YouTube channel, how to create and customize a brand channel, and how to distribute videos to other sites—although this may not stop people from making comments like, “When I was a boy, I had to walk five miles through the snow to change the channel.”

Chapter 7, “Month 5: Engage the YouTube Community,” shows you how to help friends and colleagues discover videos you think they’ll want to watch. In this chapter, you’ll be taught how to become a fully vested member of the YouTube community, study the most discussed YouTube Live highlights, find out why you should add YouTube to your site and share videos, and learn the latest lessons of viral marketing. You’ll also discover the comic irony of one sheep saying to another, “Sure, I follow the herd—not out of brainless obedience, mind you, but out of a deep and abiding respect for the concept of community.”

Chapter 8, “Month 6: Learn Video Production,” tells you why you should learn video production even if YouTube is designed to make producing videos as easy as possible. This encourages some people to shoot first and ask questions later. They tell others, “I figure we can blue-screen the kids in later.” For those who would rather ask questions first and shoot later, this chapter will help you learn the basics of video production, get video production tips, master video production techniques, and answer frequently asked questions.

Chapter 9, “Month 7: Become a YouTube Partner and Video Advertiser.” In this chapter, you will learn how to become a YouTube partner, which gives you the ability to share in ad revenue from your YouTube videos. You will also take a look at some of the YouTube ad opportunities to discover how your brand can converse with this vibrant community. Finally, you will learn why this model is a natural fit, which is why you will never hear a YouTube Partner say, “Unfortunately, a few years back we had to start accepting advertising.”

Chapter 10, “Month 8: Trust But Verify YouTube Insight.” Galileo once wrote, “Count what is countable, measure what is measurable. What is not measurable, make measurable.” In this chapter, we will look at what is countable by YouTube Insight and what is measurable by TubeMogul and Visible Measures. We’ll also look at other tools that make measurable what is not measurable by TubeMogul and Visible Measures. But we will need to continue explaining, “The chart, of course, is nonrepresentational,” until currently available metrics get more robust.

Chapter 11, “Measure Outcomes vs. Outputs.” Although it is useful to measure views and ratings, how many of these “outputs” do you need to make the cash register ring? In this chapter, we’ll look at six individuals or organizations that have used YouTube and video marketing to generate measurable “outcomes.” But before we do that, we’ll question the dude at the watercooler with sunglasses who says, “When you’re nailing the numbers, they don’t ask questions.”

Chapter 12, “Mysteries of Online Video Revealed.” This book took me eight months to write and it’s supposed to take you an hour a day for eight months to read. So I’m not surprised if you are saying, “Enough storyboarding. Let’s shoot something.” But, whether you learn by reading or learn by doing, you will quickly discover there’s always more to learn. New developments at YouTube and continual changes in video marketing mean the mysteries of online video can never be revealed once and for all. So in this chapter, we will look at the right questions that you need to continue asking in the days, weeks, and months ahead.

Glossary of Terms, Tips, and Tubers. Not only does the YouTube community have its own language, YouTubers have their own culture, customs, and folk heroes. You need to learn how to “walk the walk” of video marketing as well as how to “talk the talk” of YouTube. That’s why I’ve assembled a glossary of terms, tips, and Tubers instead of just appending a typical glossary of terms. But let me warn you here and now that exploring YouTube and video marketing isn’t like learning Latin and Roman history. Just when you think you’ve defined a term, described a tip, or depicted a Tuber, “shift happens.”

How to Contact the Author

I welcome feedback from you about this book or about books you’d like to see from me in the future. You can reach me by calling SEO-PR’s San Francisco office at 415- 643-8947, sending an email to [email protected], or following me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/gregjarboe. For more information about SEO-PR, please visit our website at www.seo-pr.com.

Sybex strives to keep you supplied with the latest tools and information you need for your work. Please check their website at www.sybex.com, where we’ll post additional content and updates that supplement this book if the need arises. Enter YouTube and Video Marketing in the Search box (or type the book’s ISBN—9780470459690), and click Go to get to the book’s update page.

1

A Short History of YouTube

Founded in February 2005, YouTube is the world’s most popular online video community, allowing millions of people to discover, watch, and share originally created videos. In this chapter, you will learn why YouTube took off the way it did, how video sharing sites differ from video search engines, and who might blurt out, “God, this is going to be all over YouTube.”

First Mover and Fast Followers

The improbable history of YouTube begins way back in the wrong place at the wrong time. And if things had turned out differently, this book would be titled Singingfish and Video Optimization: An Hour a Day.

A decade ago, the first-mover advantage belonged to Singingfish. Founded in mid-1999, it was one of the earliest search engines to focus on audio and video content. A public alpha version of Singingfish was unveiled in June 2000, and the company was acquired by Thomson Multimedia in November 2000.