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192 P a r t I I I Managing Your YouTube Videos

Working the YouTube Community

With all the focus on YouTube as a video viewing site, it’s easy to forget that
YouTube is actually a video sharing community. As such, YouTube thrives on social
networking—and your channel and videos get more viewers if you fully participate
in the YouTube community. You can’t just post some videos and expect to get view-
ers automatically; you have to make your presence known to inform viewers of the
videos you’ve posted.

In reality, this means being an active viewer as well as a poster. You can’t just sit
back and wait for customers to come to you; you become a member of the commu-
nity when you view and subscribe to a lot of other channels. And you become even
more noticed when you leave comments with those videos and users that best serve
your needs.

Social marketing on YouTube is no different social marketing on Facebook or
MySpace; it requires active participation. As you should know by now, social media
is a two-way street. You can’t just ask for attention, you have to provide something
in return.

In most instances, that something is your own input—comments on other users’
videos or channel pages, subscribing to channel pages, and the like. You have to
become an active member of the YouTube community to be taken seriously.

Of course, this means connecting and contributing on a fairly regular basis. You—
either you personally or someone specifically assigned to your YouTube marketing
efforts—needs to connect often and personally. You don’t want to be anonymous in
these conversations; it’s better for users to connect with “Phil from Jascorp” than
with “Jascorp Marketing.”

Connecting with the YouTube community involves both your company presence
and your presence on other pages on the site. Yes, you need to establish a YouTube
channel page, but you also need to view and comment on other YouTube videos.
You have to get out there and participate; you can’t wait for your customers to come
to you.

For example, if work for a home and garden retailer, subscribe to your suppliers’
YouTube channels, if they have them. Seek out videos that have to do with garden-
ing and landscaping topics and comment on them, as well as subscribe to their pro-
ducers’ channels. Build a network of people interested in what you do, and establish
ongoing contacts with them.