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C h a p t e r 2 Developing Your YouTube Marketing Strategy 27

What Type of Video Content Is Best for Your Goals?

What type of video should you produce for YouTube? More immediately, what
types of video can you produce?

You have a number of choices to make when determining what type of videos to
produce for YouTube. It’s not a one-size-fits-all situation; what works for one com-
pany might bomb completely for another. In fact, what works today might not be
what you need to do tomorrow. And, of course, you’re not limited to a single
approach; many companies employ two or more different types of videos, each
designed to achieve its own specific goal.

With that in mind, let’s look at the most common types of videos that companies
incorporate into their online marketing mixes.

Repurposed Commercials

Many companies think that the best way to use YouTube is as an alternative distri-
bution channel for their existing television commercials. Their YouTube content
consists of repurposed commercials—the same 30-second spots they run on televi-
sion.

This might be an appropriate strategy—if your TV spots are uniquely entertaining.
To be honest, however, this is a losing strategy for most firms; YouTube viewers
tend to expect something new and different than the same commercials they see on
TV.

In fact, some companies have experienced the ire of the YouTube community for
unimaginatively commercializing the site in this manner. You win the support of
the community by doing something new and innovative; you lose their support
when you seemingly don’t put in the effort, or treat YouTube as just another type of
television station—which it most decidedly is not.

Tip

In my opinion, YouTube is not the place to recycle your company’s commer-
cials. Users will not go out of their way to view something online that they
try to avoid otherwise in the real world. Unless you have a clever, Super
Bowl–caliber commercial that people want to view again and again, keep
your ads to yourself and don’t upload them to YouTube.

That said, if you have no budget for new production and you do have a unique
commercial message, you might want to try uploading your existing commercials to
the YouTube site. Know, however, that what works on the big TV screen often works
less well in the small YouTube video window.