Question: We started doing a Video of the Week to answer questions for our customers and we have been posting them on our YouTube page, is this the best way to use video on our site or should we be doing something else?
Just like you, I use YouTube to post videos on my page. For the most part because I find it to be an easy platform to use for creation and sharing. However, I do not directly send my viewers to YouTube to watch the video, rather I embed the videos on my page.
Now, there are good and bad to both ways of doing this. The good thing about posting and linking viewers directly to YouTube is that they will increase stats for your total views. For some reason this is how YouTube is set up, they do not show embedded views as views on your YouTube page. On the other hand, when you send them to YouTube you are kindly sending them off of your site (Last Click Attribution), and you are all but guaranteeing they won’t be coming right back. Make Sense?
While I know stats are very important, I recommend embedding video on your site and giving your viewers the option to see the video without leaving your site. As content creators we work very hard to get viewers to our site and we should really focus on not sending them away (easily).
With so many sites, like YouTube now enabling brands to deliver them content, I cannot emphasize how important it is not to send viewers on your owned sites away when you can easily let them view the video on your site. All while still using YouTube. It really is a win-win.
We work so hard to build an audience on our site, don’t chase them away. Make sure to keep the viewers there if at all possible as this is how we build trust and earn conversions. (The entire reason most brands create content.)
Do you use YouTube to add video content? Are you embedding or sending your viewers away? What is your reason for doing it the way you do?
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Daniel Newman is the co-founder of V3*Broadsuite and is an experienced C-level executive, serving as a strategy consultant for small and mid-sized businesses. He’s also an insight/analyst partner to four Fortune 50 enterprises and previously served as the co-founder and CEO of EC3, a hosted IT and communications services provider. Prior to that, he served as the CEO of United Visual, Inc. in Chicago Illinois.
He is a widely published writer who contributes weekly to Forbes, Entrepreneur, Huffington Post and industry publications such as Commercial Integrator, Sound & Communication and Corporate Tech Decisions. He’s also author of three best-selling business books including The New Rules of Customer Engagement, The Millennial CEO, and just recently Evolve: Marketing (^as we know it) is Doomed.
Daniel has established a reputation as a leading thinker in topics such as Social, Big Data, Cloud and Mobile. He has been named to many top influencer lists in all of these areas, including recognition by the Huffington Post as one of the 100 business and leadership accounts to follow on Twitter. He is also an adjunct professor of management at North Central College.
