Smart Passive Income #273 - Are YouTube and PodCasts Worth the Effort?

Are YouTube and PodCasts Worth the Effort?

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In his post Pat asks himself the question:

Are YouTube videos and PodCasts worth the effort?

... his answer is yes ... that's it ;)

Why?

• It helped building his brand.
• He increased his reach ... he could address people who would never have heard about him otherwise ... it seems there are people out there preferring video and audio to written information ...
• The traffic to his blog has increased.
• He got new subscribers.
• He learned optimizing videos, creating screen casts, speaking on a microphone, and being more confident ...

Smart Passive Income #261 - Nontraditional Search Engines

Nontraditional Search Engines

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There are other search engines out there ... besides Google ... and some of them are quite powerful ... even when they are not traditional search engines.

Pat discovered four of them: YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and iTunes ...

YouTube shows you

• what people talk about ... get inspired, find new ideas ...
• who else (competitors) is out there ...
• what's missing ... find your very own niche ...

Twitter lets you run search queries, too. Try adding the following (Pat-approved) phrases to your keyword searches:

• need help
• what is
• i hate
• i love
• can't
• bit.ly
• twitpic.com

Facebook ... well, Pat just comments that it works as search engine in a fantastic way ... and it's really great ...

... iTunes shows eBooks and podcasts from your competitors ...

Smart Passive Income #247 to #250 - YouTube for Bloggers & Income Report

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Pat advises that all bloggers should be on YouTube. If you follow his advise you should

• provide quality content
• provide quality videos (1280x720 ... please note that HD does not actually mean that your video is high quality, it's just it's size ... don't just upscale your video ...)
• be different ... don't upload the same stuff others do ...
• don't be afraid ... the worst that could happen is that you are getting sued for copyright infringement ... so please upload only content you own the rights to do so ...
• add a watermark to your video ... not to ensure your copyright, but that people know who's content they are watching, and maybe want to visit your site/blog ...
• start with an overview ... which allows your viewers to stick around for the interesting parts ;) ... otherwise they might run screaming away after the first ten seconds ...
• add calls to action ... you know the "buy now"s and "click here"s ...
• use screen casts ... (don't forget the copyright part!)
• add an intro, outro and music ... but don't go overboard ...

... and he continues:

• be concise ... 10 minutes is enough ...
• split your video into (multiple) equal parts if it is longer ...
• embed the keywords in your title but make sure it still makes sense ...
• start the description with the URL of your blog
• use keywords as tags
• add an additional tag to link all your videos, e.g. using the name of your blog ... "passive income" might be to general, but "smart passive income" or "spi" might be nice ...

... and he continues further:

• place the video inside your blog
• post links to your blog/video to all possible social-media platforms
• use your video in comments to other popular (of course suitable/similar) videos
• add annotations to your video, e.g. a call to action ...
• make sure to choose a suitable thumbnail for your video ...

... and we reached July 2010 ... Pat's income for June 2010 tumbled down nearly 3.500,- USD ... to about 13.000,- USD ...

Smart Passive Income #142 & #143 - YouTube & Facebook to Conquer the World

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Pat posted his first YouTube video explaining how to create screen casts for (guess) YouTube videos ...

... and he explains how to increase your web traffic using Facebook ...