First let’s get something out of the way and address the question “Should your business be on Youtube?”

Answer: Yes!

YouTube is a great marketing channel, there’s no doubt about it… but that doesn’t mean it’s a great content channel for your business!

Here are 10 reasons you should look elsewhere when adding videos to your website .

1. Bad Ads

Certainly you know videos you post on Youtube may be subjected to distracting, and possibly even competitive ads right on top. Even worse, ad previews on popular videos force you to sit through a commercial that has nothing to do with the video and for the small business owner, this is actually a missed opportunity! Those should be your ads, but instead they are from a 3rd party and they reflect badly on you. Of course, if you are a “premiere” product, they certainly cheapen your brand!

2. Control embedding: Share Everywhere! …or not!

To embed or not to embed… that is the question. On YouTube, you only get 2 choices (yes or no), but if you use a custom player like EZWebPlayer, you can literally decide not to allow embedding on specific sites, you know – like your competition’s website, on a complaint site or even other sites that may be housing inappropriate content.

3. Quality

Youtube is hit or miss. Sometimes video plays great but more often then not I find myself suffering through YouTube’s stop and go loading process which just drives me crazy!

4. Flagging & Copyright

Let’s face it, that “flag” button is a prime target for sabotage and Google isn’t exactly known for for it’s great customer service! I’m not suggesting you upload copyrighted material – please do not – what I’m saying is this, if anyone sends a take-down letter to Youtube, whether it’s in the right or not, your audio will be yanked first and questions will be asked later… if at all. This is not a risk you should be willing to take for your business videos!

5. Backup

What happens when you lose a Youtube video? What happens if your video is the subject of a take-down notice? Well… it’s just gone! You are left to find and re-upload that video.

6. Youtube’s Video End Page Sucks (for you)

This is the “other videos you may be interested in” end page which is basically competition for your content. You don’t want someone sitting there watching random Youtube videos on your website, especially if they’re your competitors videos! With a custom web video player you choose the action at the end of your video. Perhaps you would just like the video to stop on an information page or maybe you’d like it to play again from the top. Your choice.

7. SEO (more of a tip)

Ok, Youtube is the second biggest search engine in the world, and that’s great, but Google is still the first and they love blogs! Don’t rely on a YouTube Channel to deliver your videos! Setup a blog and embed your video on it. It’s a fact that Google indexes text better than video and that means you should at least include an outline of content with the video on your page. This will improve your page ranking exponentially!

8. Length

Youtube just raised it’s time limit to 15 minute, but that not appropriate for every project. Realtors, for example, may want to host walking tours or elaborate interviews and how to videos. For photographers, while a demo reel should be kept under the 15 minute time limit, sponsored programming won’t make the cut! It only takes a couple of segments and sponsored messages to land you way past the 15 minute mark! Wedding videos? Forget about it!

9. Live Streaming

You’ll need to turn to 3rd party vendors like Ustream to get streaming functionality and that’s just another account and more you have to learn! Choose an Online Video Player that offers uploaded or streaming video in the same simple to manage solution.

10. Statistics

Measuring clicks, views, referrers or whatever it is that you use to gauge success is key! Yes, you can get some stats from YouTube, but get used to “insufficient data” for videos with lower views and, quite frankly, other online video players will actually give you stats that are worth reading!

So what can you do about it? How do you get someone who’s watching your stuff on Youtube to click over to your site?

Steer those distracted Youtubers over to your website where they can watch your pristine high-quality web videos featuring your brand & your ads! It’s “E-Z” …here’s how:

1. Use Youtube’s annotation tool. This will let you send a click-able message to you viewers right from the video they’re watching! Create a note at the beginning of your video that says something like “For a better ad-free viewing experience click here! Watch this video ad-free at www.MyWebsite.whatever” (Link to YouTube Annotation Tool How to Video)
2. Insert at teaser line in your video’s description pointing to your blog or website. The more relevant content you can offer, the better!
3. Create an introduction for your video! No, don’t start your video with “Hey, go to my website and watch this!” – you’ll lose viewers. You need to be a little more clever than that. Create an introduction that pumps up your viewers about the upcoming video and, rather quickly, suggests that there is a better quality version available for them to watch & share over on your website.
4. Offer a second link option. In your tweets, for example, you can say something like “Check out my video: How to tell time on Youtube http://bit.notly or Ad Free on my site http://bet.ter.video”
5. Edit in a promo onto the end of your Youtube video, now you may be thinking “Why would I do that when the video is over?” …and that may be true, but hopefully that person will stick around to watch it, or perhaps they will share or bookmark your video. If they want to see it again they’ll go to your website and watch!

Thanks for stopping by!