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Sharing is caring: video upload sites

Guest post by: Rob Lawson

Article Overview: Video sharing is now one of the major players in the game of online marketing. It makes sense - sure, every website needs terrific, keyword-full content to be able to attract, inform and engage a visitor. But how much easier is it to click a Play button and sit back and listen, then have to scroll through the unfortunately copious amounts of text many businesses feel they need to fill their website with. Videos are interesting, entertaining, easy to watch and can be relatively cheap to make. Many people learn better visually than through the usual text. And this is why video sharing has stepped up to the plate and hit a figurative home run for businesses across the online world.

Sharing is caring: video upload sites

Video sharing is now one of the major players in the game of online marketing. It makes sense - sure, every website needs terrific, keyword-full content to be able to attract, inform and engage a visitor. But how much easier is it to click a Play button and sit back and listen, then have to scroll through the unfortunately copious amounts of text many businesses feel they need to fill their website with. Videos are interesting, entertaining, easy to watch and can be relatively cheap to make. Many people learn better visually than through the usual text. And this is why video sharing has stepped up to the plate and hit a figurative home run for businesses across the online world.

The best of the best



When we think of video websites, it is safe to say that for most of us, our thoughts turn to the online sensation of youtube. Synonymous with video sharing, youtube is the website most of us go to for the latest film previews, music clips, interesting TV moments or recaps, and silly home-made videos. Yet look at the latest list of the most popular video-sharing websites online, and you may be surprised. Tucked safely before the second most popular youtube is Yahoo Video, with a better Alexa ranking and a better Page ranking (for all you beginners out there, these are tools used for measure website traffic).



Yahoo video - the big winner



What began as a video search engine became a video sharing tool in 2006, and was Yahoo Video re-designed in 2008 to focus directly on Yahoo-hosted videos. Besides searching, uploading and playing videos, Yahoo Video visitors can save their favourite videos, embed their favourites in their own websites, create personal playlists, and subscribe to channels. Yahoo Video themselves claim to be the ‘the most frequently updated video site on the web', and perhaps this is why its popularity has held on despite youtube becoming a household name. The fact that Yahoo is commonly used to as a homepage may also increase its video sharing popularity, as people choose to search for their favourites from their starting page.

It's a popularity contest

There are other video upload sites up there in popularity that English users do not use. The major Chinese video sharing site video.qq claims to be ‘China's largest and most used Internet service portal'. It aims to be the country's ‘one-stop online life service', having everything users might need on the one website. And that includes video. Flickr is the fifth most popular video sharing website, and is one that is increasing in recognition and popularity. Many think that Flickr is only photo-sharing, but it has gradually implemented video into its search results, and by its own admission, has ‘tried to include video on Flickr gently' and with a 90 second time limit, resulting in a ‘long photo' where only the good part of a longer video is shown. It seems to have worked, with Flickr Video becoming one of the most used video upload sites.

Share and share alike

People like to share. The Internet has opened up a can of social worms in terms of the way we interact with each other and what we are willing to share with one another. Once upon a time, the only people that would see that embarrassing fall during your wedding would be the family and friends you invite around to watch it. Now, it could become a world-wide sensation with a simple upload onto a popular video sharing site. Take US couple Jill and Ken Heinz' choreographed dance down the aisle on their wedding day in 2009. The video hit the Internet and become a world-wide sensation, pulling in more than 1.5 million hits on youtube just a few months afterwards. Why? Well, because it was something different, something interesting, and something definitely entertaining. That is the secret to success with video sharing. And that popularity could potentially link back to your business. The websites are there, with regular visitors and members scouring each day for new and interesting things to watch online. All you need to do is upload your video and get sharing.

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Article Tags: sharing videos, video sharing, video upload sites



Related Forum Posts
Re: How can I promote my site? - What's the URL? That's one way of promoting your site - you'll get a back link from here. Also, since it a video sharing site why not promote to your target market with video and distribute it among the other Video Sharing sites? my 2 cents... Andy
Re: Marketing blog - designing logos, brands etc - Sharing sites is the way to go. Thanks for sharing that blog. I had aa lot of fun there.
Re: Google Pagerank update inprogress - [quote:tow9udk3]Still, it gives a person a bit of a boost when the PR goes up.[/quote:tow9udk3] Yes, it does. I stopped caring about PR a long time ago because I have several sites sitting at the top of search engine rankings with little or no PR, and they are above lots of sites with high PR. I rarely even look at it anymore but I must admit it still gets to me a little when I see it drop or stay the same if I was expecting it to go up.
Re: Hit or Miss: Dancejam - There certainly are a lot of these video exchange sites out there. There's another one I found out about just two weeks ago - probably because they paid big bucks to be on the TV show NCIS. Called...okay, I'm having a senior moment.... I Can Beat That .com or something similar. Rather than videos, people upload t heir best photos for Best Ugly Face, Best Air Guitar photo, and so on. I looked at it just to see if the NCIS guys were actually on it, and they are... but never bothered to go back as its not something that interests me...
Re: Working with Camtasia - I absolutely love Camtasia. It's easy to use, and the features are amazing. You can produce your video in many different formats, including flash. As ideasuniversity said, you can create a web page with the video already built in with it's own player. I usually save it as an .avi, then convert it to .mpg to save on the file size, then upload it to YouTube. Very versatile. I was lucky enough to get it free when they were offering version 3 from their site. I use it now all the time. I like it better than Windows Movie Maker. The screen capture is great for creating tutorial videos. Just get yourself a microphone and start recording. Load video clips and edit and produce a new video. The new version is even more advanced. Overall I couldn't be happier with it. Alan


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