You Can Win On YouTube By Optimizing Comments
Vertical columnist Grant Crowell shares tips for making YouTube work for you as a search marketing strategy.
Vertical columnist Grant Crowell shares tips for making YouTube work for you as a search marketing strategy.
YouTube recently made the search marketing industry take notice with the announcement that it would expand its partner program to include several popular original content creators. Many perked up to the idea of getting paid for making videos. The program is a simple pilot program in the Google AdSense program – getting paid by clicks on the Google AdWords that run alongside their videos), Many inquired how they could also “get in on the action” with this new monetization opportunity.
But slow down. YouTube’s Partner Program is actually a trial program. As in, its only available to a select group of YouTube members, and it will take some time for YouTube to evaluate whether they want to expand it out further to the general YouTube community. YouTube’s own partnership lead form link is not even an application form to be considered for the program. Instead, it just gives a short notice that people can fill out an information request form, and hope to be notified of any new developments “when more information is available.”
However, this is really not something that YouTube users, including search marketers, should feel at all left out on. YouTube already has several opportunities which are especially beneficial to search marketers, which can help with achieving rapid popularity and good branding. Even better, you don’t have to pay a dime for them.
Here is one often-overlooked resource that will build your audience with views, ratings and subscriptions: optimize your YouTube comments.
Optimizing your YouTube comments sounds strange at first, so here’s a definition of what I mean: Provide responses (i.e., feedback) to already popular videos and video groups on YouTube in creative and helpful ways. Optimizing your comments is an excellent and authentic means of “piggybacking” toward your own video recognition.
Unlike the advertisers in the Google AdWords program (whose ads show up over the videos) you don’t pay anything to “advertise” your own content with your comments next to the same video. Consider it the difference between paid results and organic results, only your results are guaranteed to automatically show up right underneath the video based on how recently they were posted.
The first step is finding where to provide your optimized comments on YouTube. When figuring out who to target, remember that YouTube has several key audience types:
Now that you’ve found your target videos and video areas (and hopefully you’ve listed them all out), review the comments which are already posted on those videos before you start posting anything of your own. You will want to make sure you’re adding something new and not being repetitive. You don’t have to agree with other commentators, but simply showing that you’ve been following the conversation thread can go a long way. First acknowledge the original content creator’s efforts. If possible, you can give a little kudos to a previous commenter, and then you can have a healthy dialogue with that person too.
Remember, the comments area in YouTube works best for you when you keep it to just getting the attention and interest of others. It is not the place to give a sales pitch or show something irrelevant to the original video subject material. Fail to follow that, and you’ll likely have your comments “flagged as inappropriate” and listed as spam. Even worse, it can go on your record, and harm your future reputation, should you ever be up for consideration as a YouTube Partner.
Have your video focus on being entertaining, then informative. YouTube video is still primarily about entertainment. Making the video comments entertaining gets the attention and interest, and that’s what will lead people to the next step; ready for more information and having their needs (and yours) met. Anything you have as a business goal (leads, sales, etc), must be several steps removed from the original YouTube video page, especially so you aren’t stepping on the toes of the original video content creator or anyone else.
Lastly, in both your text and video comments make sure you give credit to the original video creator. They are providing you with the opportunity, and can decide themselves whether to comment to you as well, possible even promote you if you play your cards right. Keep your comments open to suggestions from everyone, and encourage the process of discussion and helping other with online resources. Optimize your comments, and you can achieve all of the benefits of being a YouTube “partner” without any of the wait.