Practical Wisdom from the Entrepreneurs Creative Edge by William Reed

Broadcast Yourself. That is the promise and power of YouTube, the sizzling subsidiary of Google. A lot of people are heeding the call. In March of 2010 YouTube surpassed a new landmark with users overall uploading an average of 24 hours of video each and every minute of the day. A full day’s worth of new content every minute makes for a crowded marketplace at http://www.youtube.com

YouTube imposes some restrictions, such as the 10-minute limit per video, the right to remove copyrighted or offensive material, and speed limits set by bandwidth or access to the Internet. However, it is also possible now to upload video in High Definition, add annotations and links, filter out the noise by creating your own YouTube channel, share and watch videos on your website, iPhone, or iPad.

YouTube is the first place many people go to search for news and information on the Internet, because of the accessibility of video. You can find information and advice on anything from fly fishing to job interview tips. It is easy and free to start an account, and within minutes begin Broadcasting Yourself.

With a YouTube account you can comment on other peoples’ videos, as well as upload and optimize your own videos for the search engines. One of the things that makes YouTube so popular is how easy it is to share videos with others in the format of your choice, e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, and many popular blog platforms. Best of all, you can easily grab the code to embed the video in your own blog or website, even customizing its frame and size. You filter out the Niagara of noise by providing a single window or channel, where you decide what gets on the screen.

But all of this is still in the relatively passive mode ranging from web surfing to video sharing. The real promise is still in the YouTube tagline: Broadcast Yourself.

Think how many ways you can extend your reach when you actually begin to do this. You could e-mail a link of someone else’s video to your friends and reach a few people, or you could reach out to your followers on Twitter and hope that it gets noticed by lots of people who may share it with their friends. However, one time posts like these are something like shouting into the wind, soon forgotten.

To have a more lasting impact, you create a home for the video on your blog. The clip resides on YouTube, but you can display it on your own website. You house and shelter it, you get to tell people what you think about it, but it is not of your own creation. For example, I captured a classic scene where cowboy meets samurai from the movie The Red Sun, starring Charles Bronson and Toshiro Mifune, posting it on my blog at: http://budurl.com/vccn

If you create your own videos, you can upload them first to YouTube, then add your video to your own website in the same way. Some things are easier to show in video than to write about in words. I use this process in uploading video interviews and demonstrations about applications of Nanba, the Art of Physical Finesse, on a site I dedicate for that purpose at: http://www.nanbanote.com

If you upload videos to YouTube regularly, it is advisable to create your own YouTube channel. It can be useful to store your videos in one place, as well as to track views and comments. People can subscribe to your channel for updates on new videos you upload. You display your videos in chronological order, by number of views, or by top ratings. However you display it, it is still a list that contains videos created at different times for different purposes, and may not be that easy for the visitor to navigate. View my YouTube channel at: http://www.youtube.com/taproot55

A video blog is the next step, where you effectively create your own Web TV show, using videos which you first upload to YouTube and then post on your website, as I have begun doing at: http://williamreed.tv

If you are serious about taking full advantage of the YouTube potential to Broadcast Yourself, you can learn a lot from the book, YouTube and Video Marketing An Hour a Day, by Greg Jarboe.

A lot of work, or a lot of fun? You bet! At whatever level you want to participate, YouTube is a great place to start. And http://www.youtube.com is a good place to search for videos on how to start an account, upload videos, embed videos on your website, or create your own YouTube Channel.

William Reed

WEBSITE: http://www.williamreed.jp

NANBA: http://www.nanbanote.com

JAPANESE SITE: http://www.reedcom.jp

BLOG: http://www.EntrepreneursCreativeEdge.com

WEB TV: http://williamreed.tv