A growing trend in internet marketing is the use of videos to establish a deeper connection with the target market. Online video marketing is being used to educate, inform and entertain viewers or (potential) customers. Some examples include: testimonials; news bulletins; how-to videos; about us videos with talking heads; and even sweeping panoramas of the corporate showroom or warehouse.
Now that Google has announced that they are adding automatic captioning to all English-language videos on YouTube, the opportunity is even greater if you think about search engine optimization (SEO).
A problem with video is that sometimes you want to go to a specific part – skip the preamble etc. Or, there is a particular segment that you want to highlight. In the past, I have directed (potential) clients to my YouTube channel so they can see how I look on national television or to highlight my marketing experience. Instead of having them sit through 20 minutes of content, I created a link that takes them directly to the first instance where I appear. Other links allow them to skip ahead and go directly to the pertinent information – in this case, me!
How do I do that?
- Make note of the specific time (in minutes and seconds) on the YouTube video that you want to link to.
- Copy the URL of the YouTube video and add “#t=” followed by the time in minutes and seconds to the end of the URL (i.e. #t=2m53 means the 2:53 minute mark on the video)
- Bam! That’s it!
This is what it should look like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K–jbw_l4oU#t=2m53
Want to see a link to a specific part of a YouTube video in action? Clicking on this URL with the time appended takes you to the two minutes and fifty-three seconds point of the video – where I am first introduced by one of my favourite anchors…Dianne Buckner of CBC!
