Blue Archer's own Support & Project Manager and designer extraordinaire, Jennifer Buck, might just be the next YouTube sensation.  Jenny and her fianc?c, Will Guffey, met in September of 2010, and almost immediately, they realized they had something exceptional going. When Will decided he needed to lock up his lady for good, he did it in the most original, creative and downright romantic way possible. The effort took nearly 5 months of planning in order to "make it like in the movies". Yet, finally, on February 20th 2012, Will and dozens of Jenny's friends, accompanied by a video montage of romantic movie clips and personal photos, performed an elaborate flash-mob dance in front of an unsuspecting Jenny at a local movie theater in Pittsburgh. 

To truly capture the moment, Will had the entire occasion documented through video. He spent a few months editing the video, and he finally uploaded the video onto YouTube on May 17th 2012.  That, however, is when the power of the World Wide Web took over.  No one would have suspected that upon entering the office Monday morning, the video would be vastly approaching twenty-five thousand views; and - moreover- saturating major news websites across the globe! Sure enough, Will's uniquely chivalrous proposal was headlininganywhere from the UK to Romania.

If Will and Jenny's proposal can make it from local friends to international audiences and gain thousands of views within a few days of uploading, the power of viral videos is undeniable. Luckily, you don't have to organize a romantic flash-mob in order to gain awareness for your videos.  YouTube is a video-sharing website, but more importantly it is a giant search engine. Therefore, implementing search engine optimization tactics and marketing strategies for a YouTube business channel can be a simple, obtainable and beneficial objective for almost every company. 

Search Engine Optimization:

Because the videos on YouTube are Flash files, search engines cannot understand or evaluate the data in the actual video when they index the internet for relevant pages to produce search results. For this reason, it is absolutely critical to optimize the text content in the pages. Firstly, YouTube automatically creates meta tags for every page. The video name is the equivalent of a title tag and the video description is the equivalent of the meta description tag. Similarly, the YouTube tags are the page's meta keywords tag.

The title is the most important element when it comes to your SEO tactics. Consider including relevant keywords in your title as well as the word "video" since someone searching for a video through a search engine will likely indicate that in their search inquiry. When crafting your video description, include a URL at the beginning of the paragraph linking back to your main website or any beneficial landing page.   By adding the URL to the beginning, it will be visible to viewers even when the description is in its abridged version before the user clicks "show more" under the video. 

What to upload:

• Presentations from meetings: Depending on the content, businesses can use this as primarily a way to show potential clients or customers past projects and strategies. Additionally, it can also add to a company's transparency.

• Short slideshows/ simple videos that introduce company and brand: By imbedding videos onto your website, it can add a far more dynamic element to your text-saturated page.

• Past-client interviews: This works similarly to a portfolio. You can showcase successful past projects, and also implement visual testimonies from pleased consumers.

• Mini-commercials: Upload mini-commercials to promote an upcoming project or event.

• Staff Interviews: Consider a "Get-To-Know-the-Staff" video campaign for customers to better connect with the personal side of the company. This will help forge a lasting relationship between your customers and your company.

• Tour of the office: Like the staff interviews, by showing customers a virtual tour of the office, they will feel better connected to the authenticity of your brand over your competitors. 

Remember to engage with your YouTube community. Leave comments and even video responses to relevant videos and brand channels. It won't hurt to leave a video response on a popular video that has gained significant views; the traffic to their video will channel new views to your channel too.  Consider using the YouTube Insight tool- a self service analytics and reporting tool that enables anyone with a YouTube account to view detailed statistics about the audience for the videos that you upload.  You can even tap into advertising on YouTube to your specified target audience through YouTube's Google AdWords for video tool.

Thinking about embarking on an internet marketing campaign of your own? Pittsburgh web design and development company, Blue Archer, is your answer for functional and effective viral tactics. Contact us and complete a proposal request today!