The increasing popularity on online video and websites such as YouTube and Google Video highlight the potential power of this medium as a marketing tool. Enterprising affiliate marketers have discovered that viral marketing with video clips is a highly effective way to promote a product, service, or website. Amateur video makers have become overnight sensations due to viral videos; so just think of what a great video can do for your affiliate business.

What Can Video Marketing Do for Your Business?
Traditional online promotional techniques are becoming increasingly competitive and expensive. In the past, a well-optimized Web page could shoot straight to the top of search results in a matter of days. With so many websites now vying for the top spots, advertising via natural search is an increasingly difficult and time-consuming strategy. While great website content that is optimized for search is still an important aspect of Internet marketing, you need to think outside of the box in order to draw in visitors and increase your conversion rates.

Viral marketing offers unique opportunities to expand your audience, increase link clicks, and raise the profile of your business. Approximately 50% of U.S. households now have broadband access to the Web. The increased number of individuals with high-speed Internet access has dramatically increased the demand for multimedia applications such as online video and interactive games.

How Does Viral Video Marketing Work?
The most difficult part of viral marketing with online videos is actually making the video. You first need to decide if your video will have a deliberately promotional message or if you will instead create a funny, quirky, or outrageous clip. While message clips are a great way to directly convey information, they can sometimes be difficult to promote. Videos that utilize humor or originality are much more likely to draw attention from a large audience of online users eager to share amusing video clips with friends and acquaintances.

While you will incur some expense creating your clip, the actual distribution and promotion of your viral video will not cost you a cent. Websites like YouTube, Google Video, and Yahoo Video offer free video distribution, giving you the potential to reach out to millions of potential customers. You can also promote the video yourself by sending it as an email attachment to your own friends and acquaintances, with a note urging them to pass it on to others who might be interested. While crackdowns on spam marketing have made email promotion more complex, video distributed through social networks have an advantage of reaching an almost endless array of interested viewers.

Video Marketing Tips and Guidelines

1. Keep your videos as short as possible. Brevity is important in viral marketing. With the vast wealth of multimedia available, you need to grab viewers’ attention as quickly as possible. Also, while high-speed Internet is increasingly common, many viewers lack the latest and most up-to-date technology. Keeping your videos short ensures that people will see your message without losing patience.

2. Make videos that are interesting. If you can’t grab the attention of viewers with an intriguing, amusing, or surprising clip, then don’t bother wasting your time or theirs. Be original and inventive.

3. Include links leading to your website. After all, what good is viral marketing if it doesn’t lead readers to your business? At the end of each video you create, include a link back you’re your website. Also, make it easy for viewers to share the clip with other users by including links to social networking sites such as Furl, del.icio.us, and YouTube, and Digg.

Viral video marketing is an emerging advertising opportunity. Spend some time deciding if this technique is right for your business or website before taking the leap into viral videos. With a little creativity and effort, you can produce a buzz-worthy clip that will help you reach out to millions of potential customers.

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