There aren’t that many legal get rich schemes but some very lucky individuals have struck gold by simply uploading a video to YouTube. Father of two, Howard Davies-Carr, uploaded a video of his two children showing one year old Charlie nibbling his three-year old brother Harry’s finger, a squeal of pain and the now immortal line “Charlie bit my finger – again!” have made the video a viral phenomenon with over 400 million views – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OBlgSz8sSM. The “Charlie bit me!” video channel has earned the family over £100,000 in advertising revenue with regular uploads of the boys’ latest exploits. Another recent viral classic is the short clip of a man trying to stop his dog Fenton chasing deer in Richmond Park – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GRSbr0EYYU
While these two examples are genuine personal videos that happened to have gone viral, companies are getting in on the act by capitalising on the number of views for a particular video. For example the ‘Debbie loves cats’ video – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTTwcCVajAc – gave dating website eHarmony a lot of free publicity even though ‘Debbie’ was probably just doing a personal spoof and not originally connected with the company in any way.
It’s almost impossible to predict what will and won’t go viral however, from a business point of view, that shouldn’t be the only intention behind uploading videos to YouTube. For the right business, YouTube presents a great opportunity to promote products and services as it provides an opportunity for sharing and comment plus links back to your main website.
If you have an unusual product or service then a simple YouTube video could do a more efficient job of explaining than multiple web pages. If your business is all about gaining personal trust such as finance, PR or marketing, then a well-produced video involving key personnel could be a great way of gaining credibility.
Here are some good links for more advice on using YouTube for business. Please get in touch with Dinesh on 01788 844014 for more information or fill out our Contact form.
http://sellitontheweb.com/blog/8-simple-ideas-to-market-your-small-business-with-youtube/
http://gigaom.com/collaboration/34-ways-to-use-youtube-for-business/
