If you choose to post on video sharing sites like YouTube, search optimization becomes a key consideration. There are literally billions of videos on YouTube, how can you optimize your content so that it can be found? Although major tech firms such as Google, Adobe, and Amazon are developing artificial intelligence and deep learning technologies to automatically process, analyze and digest a video content, video search optimization largely relies on the text and the metadata around the videos. You need to make sure you have a machine-readable video title for the search engines to properly tag and archive your video. You should include tags with keywords and comments. A growing percentage of video content appears as social media posting on social media user pages. Almost all major social media platforms wrote out automatic video play functions and live video hosting capabilities in the last 2 or 3 years. We are witnessing a major shift in online video marketing and from pre-produced video content to live streaming. This leads to new marketing strategies. For example, Facebook Live is an effective way to magnify the impact of event-driven marketing by including a larger audience beyond the event venue. Twitter's Periscope app has similar features and functions. Snapchat is another online platform that is gaining traction among younger demographics. One of the principal concepts of Snapchat is that pictures and messages are only available for a short time before they become inaccessible. The app has evolved from focusing on person to person photo-sharing to featuring short video moments of 24-hour chronological content along with the capacity to let brands show ads supported short form entertainment. More and more brands are leveraging the power of the social media based and shared content to raise awareness, drive engagement, and build brand loyalty. Once your online video is published, you must track its performance. You'll want to analyze the various performance indicators and adapt your strategies accordingly. For example, being a part of the Google universe, YouTube provides a robust analytics platform wherein you can track your video performance. You can look at your views geographically as well as the popularity of your video in a particular region. You can also look at how long it takes for your videos to gain popularity and can use this insight to create new video strategies and tactics. On social media, you can also use the analytics tools provided by the platform to track important KPIs such as engagement and sharing. Let's turn our attention to paid online video ads. You can insert ads before or during a YouTube video or a streamed online video program. This is known as pre-roll or in-stream video ads. They function similar to TV commercials but are bought and sold like on-line display ads. Using CPM, CPC, or CPA pricing. In addition, you can pay to have your video recommended on YouTube. You're able to bid on searches or have your video content displayed alongside the search results of other videos. Paid promotions on YouTube are a cost effective and quick way to promote video content. Especially, if the content is topical, targeted, and controlled. For in-stream ads, you pay only when a user watches 30-seconds or more of your video. If your video is shorter than 30-seconds, you'll pay only if users finish watching the entire clip. For in-search and in-display ads, you typically pay per click on your video. This is a great opportunity for building brand awareness at a potentially low cost. However, some users find this form of advertising highly intrusive, particularly in markets where bandwidth is slow and expensive, and it may take several seconds for the ads to load before it can be skipped. After all, people choose to get their entertainment and information from online sources instead of TV programming because they don't like the disruption from TV advertising. Therefore, you must balance between achieving your goals and not upsetting the users given the ever-changing tech world. I would not cover the specific technologies and tools in this course. However, there are many great and dedicated educational and training resources freely available provided by major online content publishers and social media platforms. For example, YouTube offers many guidelines and tools for advertisers on their website. Facebook has developed a series of online courses for businesses, you should definitely check them out. Before I end this lesson, let's summarize the advantages and challenges of online video marketing. Video is one of the more engaging forms of media that we have. Online videos can be consumed in a variety of contexts on different devices, and they can be widely shared. The combination of engaging content, and social sharing, and commenting is a winning formula for driving your digital marketing at a low cost. Unlike TV commercials however, online videos do not have the advantage of leveraging the audience captivated by entertainment programs. Online videos themselves must be attention-grabbing, viewable, entertaining, and impactful for them to stand out. They also need to provide value to the viewers. Otherwise, it's not going to be shared and therefore would not have the impact that you want to have. In an online video marketing campaign, the marketers often also played a role of movie producers. You have to come up with new and engaging content regularly. This can be more challenging than it first seems. It demands continuous investment in human and technological resources. You will want to come up with a video strategy, and maybe even a content development and deployment schedule on a quarterly, biannual, or annual basis. While a successful online video campaign can save you millions in advertising budget, the results of this strategy can be unpredictable and hard to measure. You must be patient. Most importantly you must regularly evaluate the right set of KPIs against the specific marketing goals.
