YouTube » SEO Vision

Yes, Virginia, social media is here to stay and video is a big, big part of it. Even if you’ve been under a rock, you’ve been to YouTube once or twice, and maybe that’s got you wondering — how can MY business take advantage of it? Fred and Chrystie chat about the biggest video site ever and how you can build your business by looking at it differently.

SEO Audio: Episode 30

Morgan Stanley has just revealed last month’s Internet Trends Report which has some very intriguing statistics regarding Social Networking sites.

Here are some of the highlights from the 72 page document:

• 6 out of the TOP 10 Most visited sites on the Internet ARE Social Networking sites. YouTube, Facebook, Hi5, Live.com, MySpace and Wikipedia all made the list.
• 5 out of the 6 didn’t even make the list in 2005. Within 3 years our internet experience has been drastically changed by the introduction of social media, networking and sharing sites.
• in 2008 YouTube has surpassed Google and Yahoo in number of Page Views
• Facebook has grown by 305% - largely in part to it’s ’stickiness’, open application platform, and recent open invitation strategy.
• Top 5 Facebook Applications are: Superwall, Top Friends, FunWall, SuperPoke and Movies.
• Top 5 Searches according to Google Zeitegist: iPhone, Badoo, Facebook, Daily Motion & Webkinz.
• Amazon.com is still the Largest Online Retailer
• Internet Advertising spend is up 26% making it the biggest advertising mover.
• 80% of Internet Users deem the internet as an important source of information, where as radio and newspaper only received 63% importance.

View the full Morgan Stanley Internet Trend Report:

| View | Upload your own

YouTube has remained on the bleeding edge of the web video for no shortage of technical innovation and controversy. The ubiquitous video sharing portal took another leap today with its announcement of new APIs allowing developers to upload to YouTube from other sites, reskin the tube player, modify data, and pull customized feeds.

This may not impress you much if you’re not an uber-geek, but the bottom line is it allows you to do much more with video on your website. Basically, you can use YouTube’s enormous resources and infrastructures to handle all of the heavy-lifting, and then rather smoothly integrate that content throughout your site, even minimizing the fact that it’s on YouTube! If you’re trying to keep your videos private, well, maybe this isn’t really what you’re after, but if you’re like everyone else who just wants their video to be seen to boost their brand and raise awareness for their company, this is a GREAT addition to YouTube’s already robust service.

Every day I read hundreds of blog posts. Between work, hobbies, and the daily ‘must reads’ my Bloglines reader is always chock full. As I rule, I bookmark articles and blog posts that I find interesting. I also tend to jot down new websites and ideas into a black notebook, my ‘internet black book‘. This week, I thought I would bust out my notebook and share with you the sites which have picqued my interest.

Picnik: A free and easy online photo-editing tool. Picnik allows you to upload and edit photos from your desktop and Flickr & Photobucket accounts. With Picnik you can crop, touch up, resize, and eliminate red eye, all from the same easy console.

TubeMogul: This one is cool, especially if you are into making and sharing videos online. TubeMogul enables you to upload your video and distribute it to the top video sites, including You Tube, Google Videos, and MySpace, simultaneously. If you’ve tried uploading a video to more than one video sharing site before you know how long it can take. TubeMogul allows you to upload the video just once, yet distribute it to all of the major video sites without having to upload it multiple times.

ScribeFire: (Thanks Matt!) This is an amazing time saving tool for those of you who contribute to multiple blogs. ScribeFire is a free Firefox Plugin which allows you to blog from one main console and then have it published to one, two or all of the blogs on your blogging list. Once installed, the ScribeFire icon will appear at the bottom right hand side of your screen. Anytime you come across a story or photo you want to blog about, click on the icon and it will open the ScribeFire console on the bottom half of that very same screen. NO more going back and forth between pages!

Now that I’ve shared my list, I encourage you to introduce me to other sites that YOU think are cool or innovative. Leave a comment!