This is the forth day of a 30-day trial. Follow the link to Marketing Ideas En Masse to find out more.

By now, you are probably wonder where in the world am I coming up with all of these different topics and ideas. If not, I will tell you anyways. I set up a few different Google Alerts and have been digging through them for little gems of info to pass along.

I believe videos will continue to gain major ground as Internet speeds increase and more people figure out how to upload their videos easily to sites like YouTube. With that in mind, here is a good tip for marketing your videos:

The first thing that you have to determine is where you are going to post the videos that you are making for your products and services. Some different places that you can post your videos are on your blog, on your website, and on video hosting sites like YouTube.

The point is that you want to have as many people as possible look at your video. You can also ask your online friends if they are willing to post your video on their blogs. There are places that are going to bring more results than others, and it’s a good idea to research which places are going to be the best for the results that you want.

You can read the rest here at Articlebiz.com

This is the forth day of a 30-day trial. Follow the link to Marketing Ideas En Masse to find out more.

More to think about

To see people who market videos for a living check out http://videooptimize.tv/

Now that all of the madness is over and the election is out of our control, it is time to pick up and move on. For the last year and half we have been completely inundated with political ads and rhetoric. Campaigning for the 2012 presidential election officially starts on November 5th 2008.

One of the last papers I wrote for my political science major was about the effect of the Internet on future elections (including this one). My argument was that the Internet leveled the playing field and would continue to spread videos and political messages even though election laws forbid certain campaigning the day of election.

I think the return on investment of an online video is far greater than that of a paid ad placement on one of the major networks. I talked about a video called Keating Economics released by the Obama campaign about McCain’s ties to Mr. Keating and the S & L scandal. The video was mini-documentary style and garnered 1.7 million views on YouTube. As far as I can tell, the Obama campaign is out the production and website costs. My guess is a couple grand.

I am also sure that the page more than paid for itself by all the donations buttons scattered about. So, technically I am sure the site netted a profit for the Obama campaign as well as shaped opinions about John McCain.

Could websites and YouTube videos be the future of marketing and advertising?

I think it is pretty obvious that the Internet and all online components have a significant effect on the future of marketing and advertising. Now with social networks, emails, newsletters, SEO, internet marketing, videos, Meetup groups and on and on, you can effectively build residual traffic and income for a tiny investment.

People are looking for ideas and other people that are just like them. When they find their community or “tribe” they feel at home and are comfortable. The key is to realize that you can’t just create a community or tribe and expect people to jump on board. They want truth, passion, excitement, entertainment, gossip and whatever else they might be into. If you can attempt to create something like that out of thin air without the full conviction or passion behind it, you’ll be called out and will most likely crash and burn.

Thankfully, starting ideas online is a lot cheaper than starting them offline where overhead costs can run very high. 13 years ago Matt Drudge of Drudgereport.com started posting up-to-date news articles he found online. He runs a single page website that received just under 800,000,000 page views last month. His site is now the 6th most visited news website. He makes his money from ad placements and with 800 million views a month, I am sure he is doing pretty well.

What we online have known for a while and what those outside of the Internet are learning is how effective advertising online can be. When your message has a clear purpose and contains relevant information to your tribe, the message will spread to millions in a very short time, like drudgereport.com or a YouTube video.

It amazes me that every segment of the evening news isn’t broken up and uploaded online to easily distribute like a YouTube video. You would think they would want people to spread their content and video far and wide. Who knows, maybe they would even get views from different countries and states who simply like what they have to offer. Not to mention they could embed advertising into the videos to boost revenue.

How about newspapers allowing their readers to write and add commentary to their online web pages? A news collaborative that builds upon itself like a mini Wikipedia. Simple measures like flagging inappropriate articles and comments could allow discussion to continue without the direct influence of the company or organization. The future involves catering to your readers and subscribers needs to enable them to share and take part in the activities surrounding your community (tribe). If they like what you have to offer they will stay. If they really like it they will share. Be an enabler to your community.