In January this year I did this video, it’s important to watch to gather the context of this post.

Do you know that as of August 2010, 2 BILLION videos a day are watched on YouTube alone (not counting any other videos online. Getting over yourself and using video is incredibly important for your goals these days. It develops trust and credibility even faster than your blog can.

In July of this year, after loading videos regularly, but not really paying attention to what I can do with social media and YouTube (yes YouTube is a social media channel, you can comment, like, have favorites, friends and subscribe. You can market to those you are connected with as well), I decided it was time to build a strategy for success. So here is what I did:

1-I purchased this program ($10 a month) a steal!  TubeTool Box is a phenomenal time saver

TubeToolBox does target searches for the people I want to connect with for me, all I do is load the phrases, tell it to start and it finds 1000’s of connections for me that are a fit with my target market(it’s running as a write this, 355 my potential people as of this morning). Then, to make it even better, it will auto send the friend invites for you! The program is BRILLIANT because it knows YouTube’s parameters so you don’t get flagged as spam.  My friends have increased from 59 to 1630. My subscriptions (which I am not even trying hard yet) are up from 16 to 284!

2-I worked with some amazing friends of mine to develop a “video viewing program”. This program drives people to watch your videos to watch. Let’s face it, more views mean more opportunity. This program invites some of those 2billion views a day to YOUR videos. The result: My views are up in the 1000’s! I have also received 2 paid speaking engagements, a webinar and I am part of the YouTube Partner program which gives me a share of income from Google ads. So far the ads alone is bringing in about $200 a month! There are programs that do it for about $50 a month, but I think we have made ours quite affordable and do-able, (starting at $10 a month) so try it!

YouTube is a speeding train. Be the ENGINE of that train in your industry. Figure out the kinds of videos yuu can do product reviews, stories, fun, inspiration to attract your market to your product or service.

What is my point? YouTube works as a social media sales and marketing tool. But there are programs out there to focus your efforts to make it successful. It’s time to think about your marketing videos. Oh and I hope you will subscribe to my You Tube channel while you are there!

 

Ann M. Evanston is a “Chief Breakthrough Officer” teaching other Business Warriors how to slow down, and find the most unique part of their business that makes them stand out among the crowd. She has been named one of the top marketing consultants by About.com, is a guest blogger for Showcasing Women and takes pride in moving you from “blah, blah, blah” to “BOOM, BOOM. BOOM!”