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Join me for a free seminar on YouTube, 2/14
Do you create YouTube videos for your company or nonprofit organization? Would you like to? Are you getting all the views you want? Do you wish you had more search results?
Optimizing YouTube videos is an important part of getting a return on your investment for this marketing and engagement tactic, yet, so many companies drop the ball on this step. It’s not difficult to learn how to optimize your videos for search and more views, and I’d like to show you how.
Attend my free seminar on Valentine’s Day
As part of Social Media Week DC, I will be giving a free seminar on how to get more views for your YouTube videos on Tuesday, February 14, at 11:00 a.m. at Thomas Jefferson Library in Falls Church. That’s almost a month away, but I want you to register early, please, because we already reached 1/3 capacity in the first two days of registration! This is the basically same presentation I gave at Digital East in September, which was well-received. Only this time, there will be more time for questions and contributions from you. Register here to attend.
The event will also be available live on the Fletcher Prince Livestream channel for those of you who can’t attend in person.
Good to know: There is free parking in the library parking lot. Although the library will be closed, the meeting room will be open for our event. There will be Valentine’s Day treats! Bring your lunch and stay for the next two free sessions (brand-new presentations!), “Organizing Your Social Media” (Editorial Calendars) at 12 p.m. and “Jump-Start Your Blog” at 1 p.m. The library is located between two complexes of garden apartments just adjacent to Loehmann’s Plaza (shopping center with Giant and other stores), on the same side of Rt. 50. There are some places at Loehmann’s Plaza (McDonald’s, Subway, Giant) where you can grab a quick lunch to go, if you need to.
Directions
Thomas Jefferson Library, 7415 Arlington Boulevard, Falls Church, VA 22042
From the Beltway:
- Take Exit 50B (old Exit 8E), Rte. 50 East (Arlington Boulevard).
- Go through the first light (Jaguar Trail).
- Go 0.4 miles to library on the right, just before the traffic light at Allen Street.
- The library is a new, modern-looking brick building surrounded by garden apartment buildings (there is a service road in front that runs parallel to Route 50/Arlington Boulevard).
From Seven Corners:
- Go 1.3 miles west on Rte. 50 to the third traffic light (Allen Street).
- Turn left on Allen Street, then immediately right onto service road that runs parallel to Route 50.
- The library is a new, modern looking building surrounded by garden apartments; the second brick building on the left.
Public Transportation:
Metrobus Route 1B and 1C travels between the Dunn Loring-Merrifeild station Metro Station and Thomas Jefferson Community Library. For more information, visit the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority Virginia Bus Schedules. Fairfax Connector Route 401 travels between the Dunn Loring Metro Station and Thomas Jefferson Community Library. For more information, visit the Fairfax Connector Home Page.
A YouTube Video Description is a Terrible Thing to Waste
Here is an example that is more common than it should be…
A national public affairs firm clearly invests some money and effort into producing some decent quality YouTube video.
Perfectly respectable production values: good audio, good lighting, good editing. The content is less than enthralling, but we can’t expect everything.
All systems, go, then. And they’re getting almost NO views. Know why?
Blame the genius they paid to upload the videos on their YouTube channel, who didn’t bother to add ANY text descriptions.
Net effect: it almost completely obliterates the search potential for their videos. Now all they have to go on are titles. Better hope those are well-phrased titles (in these cases, sadly, they tend not to be).
So, that effort would have probably taken five extra minutes of the “digital” professional’s time, if that much.
Would you imagine this is an isolated mistake, limited to one or two communications firms? Wish it was! I examined YouTube Channels for major public relations and advertising firms, and 29% of them neglect to add any video descriptions at all.
29% isn’t all that high, but we are talking professional communicators. The number should be 0%. Know what that is? That’s lazy.
Text Descriptions for YouTube Videos Get YouTube Videos Found in Search Engine Results
Creating a descriptive title for your YouTube video is just the beginning. If you want YouTube to group your video with high ranking videos on the same topic (thereby garnering you more views), then you need to take five minutes to add keywords as tags and full-fledged text descriptions.
The descriptions should identify the names and affiliations of the people who appear in the video, the agency producing the video, the big idea behind the video, the call to action, and any desired hyperlinks.
Effort pays off
To not add text descriptions is to waste an opportunity to get more views for your videos. All that investment in quality video production means nothing if you don’t get the views you could be getting by neglecting to take the simple but critical steps to optimize your videos!
The next time your multi-hundred or multi-thousand dollar video gets 18 VIEWS on YouTube, think about that.
And stop being lazy!
