"It doesn't matter how great your video is," writes Larry Kim in a Pro article at MarketingProfs. "[I]f people don't know it exists, it doesn't have much business value." That means you have to optimize your YouTube video for maximum visibility. So, how do you get the crowd to turn and check you out? Kim recommends using strategies like these:

Aim for high quality and a short running time. Encourage views, links and comments with good production values, compelling content and a maximum length of two minutes. Also, don't skimp on the quality of your teaser. "During the uploading process," Kim suggests, "choose a high-resolution thumbnail image to represent your video in search results."

Place relevant keywords in a video's title, description and tags. "Search engines can't read video content directly," he notes, "so you need to tell spiders and potential viewers what they're in for by describing the content in the YouTube fields." Use full sentences when writing your description, and be sure to begin with your company's URL so that it displays in YouTube's search results.

Choose the most liberal YouTube settings. "[Y]ou have the option to make your video private and to disallow comments and video responses," Kim notes. "You can also prevent people from voting on comments, rating your video, and embedding it on their site." But don't do any of these things, he advises. While you might risk rude feedback—it comes with the territory—less restrictive settings bring much greater interactive rewards.

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