video

Focus on Youtube – Use Annotations!

by David Lee King on December 6, 2011

Youtube Annotations are cool. They’re an easy way to add in messages and links to a Youtube video without having to mess with fancy coding or weird additions within the video itself.

What are annotations? They are notes that can be placed within a video on Youtube. Annotations can contain links to other Youtube pages/videos/features or text.

Here’s a video I recently created (non-library video – it’s me telling the story of cracking my ankle. Pretty much all better now!). In the video, I use two annotations – check them out:

For libraries and other organizations, I can see three types of annotations being really useful:

  1. subscribe button – ask people to subscribe to your Youtube channel
  2. next/previous video – link to another video of yours – this keeps people watching your channel
  3. Text annotation – use it to ask people to like the video, leave a comment, or subscribe…

Why do this? Easy. It’s an easy thing to add in to a video, and has the potential to be another way to help you connect to your customers. Ask customers to take a simple specific action (remember those calls to action mentioned in a previous post?) like subscribe to your youtube channel, like your video, or leave a comment. Doing this helps you increase viewership, engagement, and subscribers to your Youtube channel … and therefore to the cool stuff your organization does, too.

video camera pic from Bigstock

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Youtube & Metadata – use it!

by David Lee King on November 30, 2011

Youtube is the world’s 2nd largest search engine in the world (the largest is Google … which owns Youtube. Go figure).

Guess what? Youtube understands searching and keywords. And they give us video creators plenty of opportunities to take advantage of that knowledge.

There are three areas surrounding a Youtube video that are full of keywords – the title of the video, the video description, and Youtube tags, which appear underneath the description box in Youtube.

Here are some suggestions for getting the most out of those “keyword heavy” areas:

  • Video Title – put important keywords in the title. Use a solid descriptive title for the video rather than a cutesy vague name, and put the most important keywords in the beginning of the title. If possible, make the title clear and compelling (so people will click and watch). Need to include branding in the title? Put that at the end of the title.
  • Video Description – Put a clickable link to your site up-front. After that, write a good description of the video. Include relevant keywords, links, etc. Here’s what ReelSEO says to do in the video description: “The first thing to appear should always be your URL, followed by a hard return. This is because it will make a clickable link to your web site. Next, put as many words as possible in your description. More often than not, a youtube marketer will only put one or two sentences. But a longer description (for example 500 to 1000 words) is better. Remember that spidering robots index text. So give them a little food to work with.”
  • Tags – Tags are used as search terms in Youtube, and you want to use as many of these as possible. Use both common and specific keywords. Include variations on words, and use quotes for phrases. If you can, use 12 or more keywords. If you’re creating video for your organization, create a set of standard tags that all your videos will use (ie, library, topeka, etc).

So – start peppering your youtube videos with relevant tags and keywords, and let’s see if your video views increase!

SEO Keywords pic by Bigstock

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Youtube – Calls to Action

by David Lee King on November 28, 2011

next stepsStill reading the Youtube Creator Playbook … do you include a Call to Action in your videos?

Being successful in online video, especially in Youtube, includes being able to build community engagement and an audience (which is done through subscriptions to your Youtube account). There’s quite a lot of potential community engagement built right into Youtube. Things like comments, likes, favorites, sharing, and subscribing.

Not getting those? maybe you aren’t asking.

Which leads us to creating a Call to Action in your videos. You could also think of these as Next Steps. Basically, your goal should be to tell people watching the video what to do next – give them something to do (something that actually relates to your organization).

Here’s what Youtube suggests:

  • Decide what actions you want your viewers to take for each video.
  • Use Youtube annotations to ask, or have the host in the video ask for it (I’ll talk more about Youtube Annotations in a future video).
Two simple steps! Some Youtube-ish calls to action might include:
  • asking people to subscribe to your video channel
  • asking people to like or favorite the video
  • asking a question, and then asking them to answer it in the comments box
  • asking them to watch an older video (and providing a link to the video)

This works on your website, too. Embed your video in your website, then ask viewers to leave a comment on your organization’s blog. Or point out an organization-specific action, like checking out a book or registering for an event. You could include a link to the event in your blog post, on your website, or even in the Youtube description box.

Either way – don’t waste your time creating a video if you don’t have a next step or a call to action. Give your viewers at least one “what should I do next” instruction, and see what happens. They just might actually DO it.

So here’s YOUR next step – tell me what types of next steps might work well in a video for your library or organization in the comments. That’ll give readers a great list of ideas that they can use next time they create a video!

Next Steps pic from Bigstock

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Youtube – The First 15 Seconds

by David Lee King on November 22, 2011

old fashioned timerWhat’s important in your Youtube videos? The first 15 seconds. According to Youtube’s Creator Playbook, you have 10-15 seconds to hook your viewer into watching the rest of your video. It’s extremely easy to click away from a video – just click and you’re gone. Especially if you’re watching in Youtube, since they have that Related Videos sidebar with other interesting-looking videos … click!

So those first few seconds need to be the best part of your video to keep people watching!

What do many of us do with those first 15 seconds?

  • a slow fade-in
  • cheesy music
  • attempt a flashy branded intro, titles, etc
  • or if it’s a screencast, we start right in with our computer screen – exciting stuff, huh?

Instead, here’s what Youtube says we should do:

  • Get to the point immediately – put your most compelling content first!
  • Quick teaser or summary of what’s going to be in the video, done by the person in the video. You can also welcome/greet the audience or ask a question/spark the viewer’s curiosity. Think inverted pyramid writing style, but for video.
  • branding, packaging, intros, … not as important, especially up-front. Let the content come first.
  • Intros should be minimal and short – 5 seconds is an optimal length

The goal? Make sure your viewers know what they’re watching. If they don’t know in 10-15 seconds … click – they’re gone.

Pic of hourglass from Bigstock

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Video, Youtube, and My Library

by David Lee King on November 15, 2011

I’m still thinking about Youtube and videos, which I started with my post Poking Around in Youtube Insights. So my next couple of posts will talk as bit about YouTube and how to tweak your videos to make them more watchable.

For starters, here’s how many subscribers and video views my library’s Youtube account has received so far (since March 6, 2007):

  • 191 subscribers
  • 191,000+ video views total
What types of video do we generally create?
  • occasional video series (focusing on technology or special collections)
  • one-off videos for upcoming programs
  • videos for the annual report
  • interviews with authors and artists
  • an occasional book review

Looks like we are creating videos for marketing stuff, videos highlighting a collection or service, interviews with speakers … and an occasional book review. Makes sense – sounds like a library to me!

Current direction

Our current strategy for creating video is a pretty simple one. It’s “please make video, dump it to Youtube, and share on our website.” Can’t get simpler than that! And that has worked ok so far – some staff have really embraced that and make a lot of videos. Others use it when it makes sense. What’s this gotten us? We have a lot of videos up on Youtube that shows off our library, services, and staff. Not a a bad thing at all.

Our videos are generally watched, too:

  • most popular video 23,300+ views
  • third most pop video – patron created content!
  • our 15 most popular videos are parody, interviews, interesting stuff about our collections, and kids and teens-related content

Our current video-making tools:

  • video cameras – Three Flip cameras (too bad they stopped making these), a Canon GL2, a Sanyo Xacti, and a couple other video cameras.
  • Software – iMovie, Final Cut Pro, Windows Movie Maker.
  • Staff also use their own cameras/software…

Here’s what we plan to do in 2011:

  • We have two new video series in the works (one that I’ll be directly involved with)
  • I have started adding tags, contact info and urls to every post/video in youtube. I’m also making sure comments are answered.
  • Working on a fledgling video room for staff. Currently, we have a room, we have a Mac and a PC, and we have a green wall.
  • Starting in January, I’m buying some dedicated video mics, lights, and backdrops.
  • And, we have a goal to be more multimedia-focused…

That’s what we’re doing, anyway. What are your library’s plans for video in 2011?

man with video camera from Bigstock

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