Digital News South Africa

Marketing successfully on YouTube

YouTube is now the 12th most visited Internet domain in the US and it may well become more important for your brand or company to be on YouTube than to be advertised on TV, according to Marketing Profs.

The sites that receive more traffic than YouTube are MySpace domains, Google, Yahoo domains, Hotmail, MSN, eBay, Live Search, and Facebook.

With Google having acquired YouTube, it has a lot more resources at its disposal and you can expect YouTube to be one of the major players in consumer-generated media for years to come.

So how do you market on YouTube successfully?

BlendTec got it right with its Will it Blend videos.

And as a result of its viral video success, it scored mainstream media exposure too – the CBS News crew dropped by for a look behind the scenes at Blendtec for a segment on Internet Stars that aired 25 March 2007 and it was on the Jay Leno show on Friday 27 March.

Its advice?

Focus on something that is fun, with either the interviewer laughing or scratching his/her head, because only then will people want to pass it on. But don’t force it. It really should be something worth watching.

Clearly demonstrate the product. For Blendtec, initially it was 100% about branding. After the brand awareness has been established, there has to be a need, a problem in need of resolution.

The result?

A dramatic increase in sales of at-home and commercial blenders (which are sold to restaurants and coffee shops, etc). The “Will It Blend?” campaign targeted the home market and online web sales were more than four times greater than in the previous top-selling month. All other channels have seen big increases as well.

About Sally Falkow

Sally Falkow APR is president and co-developer of PRESSfeed (www.press-feed.com), the social media news hub. Originally from South Africa, Falkow now lives in Pasadena, California. She is an adjunct professor for social media strategy and content for public relations at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at USC in Los Angeles, California. She blogs at www.proactivereport.com and you can follow her on Twitter at @sallyfalkow.
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