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So you’ve just recorded a video, uploaded it to YouTube and are ready to exclaim it to the world. So what do you do?
This goes to the structure of your business. And the answer is completely dependent upon that structure. As a blogger, your home base is your blog. It is the property you own, you control, you monetize. As a blogger, your goal is to drive traffic to that blog, capture it and turn that audience into a community. Picture a bicycle tire where your site is the hub in the middle and your traffic comes from the many spokes of your online visibility.
Part of building that business is making yourself known to all those you could benefit. That means working to be seen by people using search engines. That means writing content so good people share your links. That means being active on the social media platforms with your community and in front of the new.
But not to be forgotten that means providing content across the web that can educate and entice those who stumble upon it. Some of those content hosts that command large audiences are sites like YouTube, BlogTalkRadio, Slideshare, Flickr, and EzineArticles. For a blogger these content hosts are the spokes on the wheel strategically driving traffic back to the center, to the blog, to home base.
So when does it make sense to link from the center back out to the traffic drivers (in other words from your site back to YouTube?) Well, it always makes sense via email because once you have captured their contact information, sending them to your YouTube Channel is part of building your community there. If you have their email address, by the way, your first goals of traffic and capture are complete, so move on the step 3.
But it doesn’t make sense to link out to YouTube videos prior to capturing your new reader’s contact information. With most content hosts like YouTube, Slideshare and Flickr you can embed the content directly on your site, in a blog post. In doing that you retain that new traffic on your site and still have a great opportunity to monetize or capture their contact information before they depart.
Always be thinking strategically about how your videos, blog posts, podcasts, pins and guest posts are going to be helping to grow your empire. Each should serve the purpose of capturing contact information, driving traffic, monetizing or enhancing your community. And ask yourself how does this help my prospects, my readers, and my cheerleaders 1 year from now.
Keep thinking strategically using these tips to improve your business.
P.S. Since views of a video are also counted when the video is embedded on your site, driving them back to YouTube to increase the views does not make sense. You can just as easily drive up the views on your site alone.
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