Today I want to talk about Youtube. It’s been around for a long time. Since 2005 to be exact, but some people didn’t know much about it until Google bought it in 2006. So…about ten years now this great video platform has been a mainstay-and yet STILL people haven’t gotten familiar or addicted to it yet. (But it does have BILLIONS of views a day…so, those people are definitely the minority)

I put Writer Groupie Podcast on Youtube in October of 2014 with a great interview with Jodi Vaughn, paranormal romance author. I developed this idea for video interviews because I know as a consumer of media that getting stuff via video is pretty darn exciting.

Nearly two years later, I can honestly say that I’m not happy with the results of my test with YouTube to expand the WGP brand and audience base. Here are some quick numbers from my account as of today:

34 uploaded videos
802 views
18 subscribers

That’s an average of a little over 1 new video every week uploaded. Considering that the average length of my videos is about 30 minutes in length, you can get a feel for just how much time I’ve really dedicated to this “trial” – over 500 hours. This doesn’t include the time my producer edits the video or the time it takes to upload them and write the blurb for them.

It’s a huge amount of time invested, and you can see that I’ve earned a small number of views and a small amount of subscribers as a result, which has ultimately increased traffic to my blog and eventually to Writer Groupie’s blog as well. But of course, I WANT MORE!

I would love for more people to get involved with my Youtube channel. So if YOU haven’t yet, please do that here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1KfRhGaltQdaRV5GsiByAQ

I am not a YouTube expert, but I’ve picked up a few tips and tricks along the way. So, I think you may learn a few things here that will help you if you are deciding to try Youtube for your business.

YOUTUBE:  5 Things to know

1. It has to be good content. People have very short attention spans. You have to feed them something interesting and time-investment worthy.
2. Your video quality is important. This one was a hard one for me to learn. Everyone is not willing to wade through blurry, crappy visuals or audios.
3.  Try to be different. There are SO many videos out there now that in order for you to be a mainstream player with all that, you have to provide really good DIFFERENT stuff. 
4. Video really does work. No matter what you may think of it, video is effective. Think about how big Facebook is…now recall…they just came out with Facebook Live – a live streaming video program. There is also now Periscope and some others. Video really is a very popular and cool way to get the message out.
5. Be sure to ask people to like, rate, or subscribe to your channel! This is one I forget almost every time. People are less likely to do that if you don’t remind them. And those subscribers matter! Also it is a great place to advertise your other social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Okay, that’s all I can think of today. If you have more to add let me know by posting up a comment below…and as a reminder, coming up next Monday will be a blog tour post for Semblance of Guilt. You should plan on coming by and seeing it!