You’ve created a short video telling about your services or giving information to potential customer.  How do you share this clip?  I say post it to YouTube.

There are two compelling reasons to go the YouTube route: cost and publicity.

  1. Posting videos on YouTube and playing them back on your site is easy.  The service has a simple-to-use service to upload your video.  Once uploaded to YouTube, the movie is easily embedded in a customized player on your website.
  2. Videos on YouTube will be stumbled upon by the general public who otherwise don’t know who you are and would not visit your site and see your video.

Of course, you can manually upload a video to your website and you can also pre-convert it into the specific file format you want (Flash movie, Windows media file, etc.).  And, you can also create (or buy) a customized media player for your site. These options work fine, but they are considerably more time consuming than using the YouTube interface.

Unless you have a business need for a specific look and feel that YouTube cannot accommodate, why spend more time (and money on your web developer)?

In addition to saving money, YouTube has a social media component. YouTube asks you for keywords that describe your video.  Then, when you are on the YouTube site, YouTube will suggest other videos on the same topic that you might want to view.  When people look at those other clips, your video will be suggested to them as something they might want to watch. By intelligently describing your work on YouTube, you’ll get extra publicity and views for your video.

I’ve helped clients post trailers for their performances, their professional credentials, and simply examples of the fun they have in their activities.  Some people have posted just the one video that they came to me with.  Others have developed their own YouTube “channel”, have acquired YouTube subscribers to their movies, and regularly post video PR pieces online.

Here’s a fun public service announcement I posted on YouTube for a friend’s project a few years ago:

If Moki will share intimate details of his life on YouTube, you should feel comfortable posting your hot specials, interviews, and clips there, too.