Online Video-What Do I Do Now?

Mary Bowling | 8 January 2008 |

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AOL just announced that its video Search Engine, Truveo, has surpassed the one hundred million mark in indexed online videos. They expect this number to swell to one billion - yes, 1,000,000,000 - online videos by 2009. Are you ready for this?

Video has been a bit of a sleeper in online marketing, mainly because traditional marketers have a hard time seeing video as anything beyond TV ads and, if they can’t monetize it, they find it unimportant. These numbers, however, show just how dangerous that kind of old school thinking can be.

While some web businesses spend their time wondering how they can use internet video to make a buck, every day others are finding ways to mine its potential for online branding and for attracting traffic and links to their websites. If you’re not already thinking about how you can use video to help your online business, you’re certain to be playing catch up - and soon.

What Should You Do Now?

Survey The Landscape

Search for videos that relate to your business online - both in regular search and in the video search verticals of the major Search Engines. What’s showing up? Who put it there? And where did they put it?

Search for videos that relate to your business on video sharing websites, like YouTube, Blinx, Metacafe, etc. Here’s a long list of video websites from Joe Whyte to get you going.

Learn From Your Competitors

Are your rivals using video? Keep an eye on what they’re doing and how they’re doing it. Then, try to do it better. Improving is easier than inventing, so steal good ideas wherever you find them.

Ask Kids

Face it, your children, your friends’ children and the young people who work for you and live in your neighborhood know much more about what’s hot and what’s cool than you ever will, so conduct a little market research. Find out what they’re watching online. Ask them to forward their favorite short videos to your email address. Also, ask them what kind of videos you could use to promote your online business. Offer rewards for great ideas. Then, put them into action.

Start Shooting

Get a digital video camera and start using it. Take lots if videos and upload them all over the web. You either need to learn this stuff yourself or you need to hire someone to do it for you.