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Monday, October 15, 2012
How to add closed captions to increase Youtube video views
The single greatest tip I could give anyone on how to improve their rank in Youtube Search is to add a close captions script to their videos. This is because Youtube Search cannot detect what is in your audio files anymore; they used to generate a "machine" script using voice recognition technology, but now Youtube uses this technology to match a pre-written script to timecodes in your video.
What this means is that if you write a text file with everything you say in your video, Youtube will be able to pull that data to generate a closed caption script for you. This is such an easy thing to do that there is no reason to not do it. And better yet every word and phrase in your script is going to be considered a keyword, helping your video gain more visibility in Youtube Search results.
How to choose the best tags for Youtube videos
In this video tutorial I show you an easy way to find the best tags to place in your videos. You can also use the Youtube Keyword Tool and the AdWords Keyword Tools but the information isn't always up to date. Using the suggest box you'll get the latest trending keywords for whatever topic you are titling your video, and be able to rank higher in the results.
Realize, however, that this isn't a secret tactic. Pretty much everyone does this already, so I wouldn't expect to get too much crazy traffic by doing this. However properly tagging your videos is a simple step that won't take too much of your time to complete, and will bring you at least a few hundred more views than you would get if you didn't tag your videos at all.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Fair Use and Cover Songs on Youtube
As Youtube gets bigger, Google has been working out deals with major companies to make more money. Some of these deals involve how Google interprets "Fair Use" on Youtube.
The most important thing people need to understand about Youtube is that it is a privately held corporation and they are free to decide what content they will and won't monetize!
By contrast, "fair use" is a legal doctrine intended as a defense against a lawsuit.
If no one is suing you, "fair use" is simply not applicable!
And despite what you may have heard, inserting something like, "This video is a review and is protected by the fair-use policy and was made for educational purposes" provides you absolutely zero protection from your video being disabled!
The reason is thus: because it is not cost effective to sue millions of people who upload copyrighted material, major corporations are working out agreements with Youtube to ensure they don't have to file lawsuits to have copyright infringement removed from Youtube. This means it becomes very important to comply with Youtube's policies concerning the use of material you don't own in your videos, which is described at http://www.youtube.com/t/copyright_permissions
If you are interested in making a cover song or song parody it would behoove you to obtain a license for the song to show Youtube when a Content ID claim is undoubtedly placed on your video, or your monetization request is declined by a member of Youtube's copyright team.
Obtaining a license is not always as expensive as you may think, because the entertainment industry is very complex. Although one corporation may own the rights to a song, many companies have licensing agreements to large libraries of songs and they are able to sell "sub-licenses" to others.
For example, https://www.songclearance.com/
This company tends to charge $15 to issue a license for making a cover song (which includes parody). You will also need to pay royalties of your song earnings, but this is better than the $0 you would be making without a license.
The most important thing people need to understand about Youtube is that it is a privately held corporation and they are free to decide what content they will and won't monetize!
By contrast, "fair use" is a legal doctrine intended as a defense against a lawsuit.
If no one is suing you, "fair use" is simply not applicable!
And despite what you may have heard, inserting something like, "This video is a review and is protected by the fair-use policy and was made for educational purposes" provides you absolutely zero protection from your video being disabled!
The reason is thus: because it is not cost effective to sue millions of people who upload copyrighted material, major corporations are working out agreements with Youtube to ensure they don't have to file lawsuits to have copyright infringement removed from Youtube. This means it becomes very important to comply with Youtube's policies concerning the use of material you don't own in your videos, which is described at http://www.youtube.com/t/copyright_permissions
If you are interested in making a cover song or song parody it would behoove you to obtain a license for the song to show Youtube when a Content ID claim is undoubtedly placed on your video, or your monetization request is declined by a member of Youtube's copyright team.
Obtaining a license is not always as expensive as you may think, because the entertainment industry is very complex. Although one corporation may own the rights to a song, many companies have licensing agreements to large libraries of songs and they are able to sell "sub-licenses" to others.
For example, https://www.songclearance.com/
This company tends to charge $15 to issue a license for making a cover song (which includes parody). You will also need to pay royalties of your song earnings, but this is better than the $0 you would be making without a license.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
How to monetize royalty free music on Youtube videos
This official Youtube video demonstrates how to monetize a video that has royalty free music included in it and for which you have a license to use the music.
Bear in mind, Youtube's full policy for monetization can be found here. You must still comply with all Youtube's policies for monetization.
How to monetize Youtube gameplay videos
As a Youtube Partner who creates video game reviews on my channel The RPG Fanatic, I frequently get asked about whether making video game reviews are allowed to be monetized or not.
The above video explains Youtube's policy concerning video game footage and fair use. This is important information to know because unless you have permission from a developer to use gameplay footage in your videos, you must abide by Youtube's fair use policy for videogame footage.
Youtube's policy is very strict. They will not allow you to place ads on gameplay if there is no audio commentary tracks you have created yourself, and your commentary must provide educational or instructional value. This means you can't just upload video game trailers and expect to make money; Youtube won't allow you to do that.
Youtube also has an official video that demonstrates how to file a claim for videogame footage if you are invoking fair use,
For more information about fair use and DMCA on Youtube, please check the following links:
Using some copyrighted content in your video:
http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=143457
Youtube Video Monetization checklist:
http://support.google.com/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2490020
Partner Help Center: Video Game and Software Content
http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=138161
Center for Social Media: Fair Use for Documentary & Online Video Makers
http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/fair-use
Sunday, September 9, 2012
How to setup a Youtube Show page
A Youtube Show is more than just a playlist; it is a powerful tool for promoting your videos. Youtube Shows receive top billing in Youtube Search results. If you make a show title that is exactly the same as a keyword, you will always have your videos shown at the top of the search page for that keyword.
For example, I made a show called "Online Games" for my MMORPG related videos. Online Games receives several hundred thousand searches on Youtube per month. My videos now rank at the top of Youtube search results simply because they are connected to my show that has those keywords!
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| Youtube Shows are more than just a playlist! |
Shows also appear on their own special search page, http://www.youtube.com/shows. They can also have the episodes made available for rental through Youtube.
Unfortunately a Youtube Show is an exclusive option for select Partners. Youtube does not give it to every channel. However networks tend to allow all channels associated with them to have a Show, so this tutorial can be useful to helping networked Partners learn how to use a Show page.
When naming a show, you should use the Youtube Keyword Suggestion tool to decide on the name. Try to pick something that is receiving lots of searches but doesn't already have a Show created for it. Youtube Search rarely displays more than one Show on the search page, unless that keyword is getting millions of searches every month.
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| It's important to fill out everything correctly to have a show approved! |
Several things can get your show rejected;
- Making a show that has the same name as an existing Show
- Adding videos which have "extra tags" in their description. All tag blocks should be in the "Tags field" of the video. If you want to use keywords in your description, put them in the form of a sentence.
- Not submitting high quality images for your Show.
- Not including any videos as episodes for your Show.
- Having video titles that are much too long or repeat words too much (for example, if your show is called "Bob's Game Reviews" then don't put "game review" in the title of your videos. Your show title will automatically be part of the title of all episodes attached to the Show page).
If a show is rejected, the Youtube employee will have notes saying what needs to be done for the show to be approved. Unfortunately you won't get an email if your show is approved or rejected, so you will need to check back on your Show tab to see if it was approved. It may take up to a week for someone to review your submission.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Mod Abuse at Animeshinbun.com and other social sites
Originally written on August 26th, 2012
This is why I hate the internet and social media sites like reddit, n4g and Wikipedia. They are such a pain in the ass to submit to, even when you're following the guidelines. And it has nothing to do with whether the site is user friendly or not; it's because these companies give way too much power to a select few users called moderators.
I was doing my usual social bookmarking of recently published articles from my website. In particular a piece about a Masquerade Ball held at the San Japan anime convention.
Because the event is anime related (it took place at an anime convention and more than a few of the people in the video are dressed in cosplay) and was Legend of Zelda themed, I submitted it to Animeshinbun rather than n4g (which is owned by the same company as AnimeShinBun.com, HavaMEDIA), because, in my experience, n4g's crowd tends to be extremely anti-anime and even more anti-cosplay.
My belief is the article would do better on Anime Shin Bun than n4g, and anyone who knows anything about these websites would agree with that assessment.
However, as sometimes occurs with these sites, some mod named lavalamp 1138 flagged it for "not being anime related" and told me to go post it on n4g.
I protested the flagging and so did several other users using the "Disagree" option, but lavalamp1138 manually set the submission to "Fail" when it looked like his report was going to be automatically over-ruled by all the Disagreements against his report by the user base.
Not one to give up easily, I decided to resubmit the submission but lavalamp1138 instantly appeared to reject the submission again.
Because I am so freakin tired of this crap constantly occurring, I decided to fight back.
I messaged lavalamp1138 with a declaration that I was reporting him, as well as PMing every other mod I could find on the site about what he did. Then I sent a ticket in the admins of the website as well.
I would show you a screenshot of the original submission and report filed by lavalamp1138 but in response to my threat, he used his mod powers to transform my failed submission back into Pending status in order to delete his original action against the submission (turning it to Pending deleted his original report and that he manually made it Failed), after I told him flat out I was filing reports against him.
I view this change of status to my article as only as an attempt to hide the evidence of what he was doing and most likely has been doing to many other user submissions. My belief is that he would manually set an article to Failed that belongs on the site so that his own submissions have less competition from high quality articles like mine which could be very popular with the users.
And that is why I've made this article; if he is doing it to others, it needs to be brought to light so his mod powers are revoked. Who knows how many other people he has been screwing over? Hell, who knows how many other mods are doing the same thing he is doing?
It would NOT be the first time volunteer mods at social book mark sites have abused their positions to get better exposure for their own promoted work. Such has been reported on by other news sources, and here are a few examples,
Realize I don't have any proof that Lavalamp1138 is a marketer, but it's the only answer that makes any degree of sense to me. His actions are completely out of character for what a mod at Anime Shin Bun should be doing with his powers if his goals are in line with those of the site he works for.
I mean, one look at Lavalamp1138's own submission feed shows he posts about many videogames which have nothing to do with anime. And as I pointed out in our conversation, The Legend of Zelda has way more manga books based on it than The World Ends With You does.
But it shouldn't even matter because the article I submitted took place at an anime convention and Anime Shin Bun is for anything about Japanese anime AND videogames. And Zelda is one of the most well known Japanese videogame franchises, right up there with Mario and Sonic.
And for the record, I did try submitting the article to n4g, where it received no votes and one troll comment,
By contrast, in the same amount of time the story has a 90 degree rating on Anime Shin Bun,
Now you might think this is nothing to get worked up over, but you'd be wrong. For an upstart website like Weekly Texas Jump which has no money for advertising, social bookmarking sites like Anime Shin Bun are vital for news to reach their intended audiences. Within a few hours of something hitting the front page of Anime Shin Bun, it can receive thousands of views.
This is a very big deal, because information sharing is now community driven. Users being barred from sharing information because it might be more popular than someone else's submission is a huge issue, and it's something I've been repeatedly experiencing from volunteer mods -- for example, a few months back I was banned from GiantBomb by a mod who deleted a several long threads where users were talking about one of my videos, and from GoNintendo's forums for daring to put a link in my signature that went to my Youtube channel.
And it's not like I submitted a beta key giveaway or something; this is a quality article and video which can demonstrate why Weekly Texas Jump is a good source of information related to anime and anime conventions in the Texas area.
Also unlike reddit, Anime Shin Bun encourages web masters to submit content from our websites,
It's basically like saying, "Hey you there Mr. Marketer. Would you like to be able to block other people's submissions from our website so you can get to the top easier?"
The people who submit the most content to social book-marketing sites are marketers. Don't think it's not true, because it is. Every action anyone takes has a motive and the simplest motive for submitting hundreds of entries to a site like Anime Shin Bun is because you're trying to market something for someone.
And I believe too many of these social bookmarking websites allow people to become mods because they prefer volunteers to do most of the community management tasks (so they don't have to pay them salaries) without ever questioning why a regular user would want to become a mod.
For many mods, their "volunteering" allows them the opportunity to deny others the ability to promote on a website while ensuring they and their company are able to. This abuse of their positions has been reported on by many other websites.
So here is what I propose. If you've stumbled upon this article because you've also had trouble with moderators on sites owned by HavaMEDIA, here's the contact form on their website. Send some complaints about their moderators, along with a link to this article.
Maybe if enough people complain they will make some changes to get rid of the volunteer mods and hire real employees who've had background checks and can ensure they won't use their mod tools to block rival news companies from posting to the service.
UPDATE: As of September 1st, 2012 the article is now public, but not before it entered Failed status one more time. Because the article ended up at the very bottom of the Pending feed nobody saw it. Fortunately one of the mods manually approved it, archaic, who is apparently the site community manager.
Though it finally went live, it is rather absurd it took over a week for this submission to to go live, all because of what lavalamp did. The silliness of the situation was even commented on by another user,
I'm not privy to what occurred between the mods but I hope lavalamp1138 was told to never do something like this again. But that's probably too hopeful.
What I do know is that the article has a 160 degree rating on Anime Shin Bun a day after going live,
...and on n4g it has a 20 degree rating even after 5 days on the site.
In the end I was correct to put it on Anime Shin Bun. This is where the submission belonged.
Enjoy this article? Follow Carey on Google+ to stay up to date!
This is why I hate the internet and social media sites like reddit, n4g and Wikipedia. They are such a pain in the ass to submit to, even when you're following the guidelines. And it has nothing to do with whether the site is user friendly or not; it's because these companies give way too much power to a select few users called moderators.
I was doing my usual social bookmarking of recently published articles from my website. In particular a piece about a Masquerade Ball held at the San Japan anime convention.
Because the event is anime related (it took place at an anime convention and more than a few of the people in the video are dressed in cosplay) and was Legend of Zelda themed, I submitted it to Animeshinbun rather than n4g (which is owned by the same company as AnimeShinBun.com, HavaMEDIA), because, in my experience, n4g's crowd tends to be extremely anti-anime and even more anti-cosplay.
My belief is the article would do better on Anime Shin Bun than n4g, and anyone who knows anything about these websites would agree with that assessment.
However, as sometimes occurs with these sites, some mod named lavalamp 1138 flagged it for "not being anime related" and told me to go post it on n4g.
I protested the flagging and so did several other users using the "Disagree" option, but lavalamp1138 manually set the submission to "Fail" when it looked like his report was going to be automatically over-ruled by all the Disagreements against his report by the user base.
Not one to give up easily, I decided to resubmit the submission but lavalamp1138 instantly appeared to reject the submission again.
Because I am so freakin tired of this crap constantly occurring, I decided to fight back.
I messaged lavalamp1138 with a declaration that I was reporting him, as well as PMing every other mod I could find on the site about what he did. Then I sent a ticket in the admins of the website as well.
 |
| My brief conversation with mod lavalamp1138 |
I would show you a screenshot of the original submission and report filed by lavalamp1138 but in response to my threat, he used his mod powers to transform my failed submission back into Pending status in order to delete his original action against the submission (turning it to Pending deleted his original report and that he manually made it Failed), after I told him flat out I was filing reports against him.
 |
| The altered post. Notice his report has been deleted, but the last change before was Failed. Rather than let the community decide, he manually blocked the submission until I raised hell. |
I view this change of status to my article as only as an attempt to hide the evidence of what he was doing and most likely has been doing to many other user submissions. My belief is that he would manually set an article to Failed that belongs on the site so that his own submissions have less competition from high quality articles like mine which could be very popular with the users.
And that is why I've made this article; if he is doing it to others, it needs to be brought to light so his mod powers are revoked. Who knows how many other people he has been screwing over? Hell, who knows how many other mods are doing the same thing he is doing?
It would NOT be the first time volunteer mods at social book mark sites have abused their positions to get better exposure for their own promoted work. Such has been reported on by other news sources, and here are a few examples,
Realize I don't have any proof that Lavalamp1138 is a marketer, but it's the only answer that makes any degree of sense to me. His actions are completely out of character for what a mod at Anime Shin Bun should be doing with his powers if his goals are in line with those of the site he works for.
I mean, one look at Lavalamp1138's own submission feed shows he posts about many videogames which have nothing to do with anime. And as I pointed out in our conversation, The Legend of Zelda has way more manga books based on it than The World Ends With You does.
But it shouldn't even matter because the article I submitted took place at an anime convention and Anime Shin Bun is for anything about Japanese anime AND videogames. And Zelda is one of the most well known Japanese videogame franchises, right up there with Mario and Sonic.
 |
| Final Fantasy is so anime, right?? |
And for the record, I did try submitting the article to n4g, where it received no votes and one troll comment,
 |
| 10 degree rating on n4g. As expected, n4g's crowd hated it cause it was cosplay. |
 |
By contrast, in the same amount of time the story has a 90 degree rating on Anime Shin Bun,
Now you might think this is nothing to get worked up over, but you'd be wrong. For an upstart website like Weekly Texas Jump which has no money for advertising, social bookmarking sites like Anime Shin Bun are vital for news to reach their intended audiences. Within a few hours of something hitting the front page of Anime Shin Bun, it can receive thousands of views.
This is a very big deal, because information sharing is now community driven. Users being barred from sharing information because it might be more popular than someone else's submission is a huge issue, and it's something I've been repeatedly experiencing from volunteer mods -- for example, a few months back I was banned from GiantBomb by a mod who deleted a several long threads where users were talking about one of my videos, and from GoNintendo's forums for daring to put a link in my signature that went to my Youtube channel.
And it's not like I submitted a beta key giveaway or something; this is a quality article and video which can demonstrate why Weekly Texas Jump is a good source of information related to anime and anime conventions in the Texas area.
Also unlike reddit, Anime Shin Bun encourages web masters to submit content from our websites,
"Submitting your stories to a newsboiler site can be a great way to promote your site and to gain new readers."I'm really quite fed up with the lack-luster attitude many social bookmarking sites have when it comes to how much authority they give a select number of users who are chosen not for real-life credentials but because they are active on the website.
It's basically like saying, "Hey you there Mr. Marketer. Would you like to be able to block other people's submissions from our website so you can get to the top easier?"
The people who submit the most content to social book-marketing sites are marketers. Don't think it's not true, because it is. Every action anyone takes has a motive and the simplest motive for submitting hundreds of entries to a site like Anime Shin Bun is because you're trying to market something for someone.
And I believe too many of these social bookmarking websites allow people to become mods because they prefer volunteers to do most of the community management tasks (so they don't have to pay them salaries) without ever questioning why a regular user would want to become a mod.
For many mods, their "volunteering" allows them the opportunity to deny others the ability to promote on a website while ensuring they and their company are able to. This abuse of their positions has been reported on by many other websites.
So here is what I propose. If you've stumbled upon this article because you've also had trouble with moderators on sites owned by HavaMEDIA, here's the contact form on their website. Send some complaints about their moderators, along with a link to this article.
Maybe if enough people complain they will make some changes to get rid of the volunteer mods and hire real employees who've had background checks and can ensure they won't use their mod tools to block rival news companies from posting to the service.
UPDATE: As of September 1st, 2012 the article is now public, but not before it entered Failed status one more time. Because the article ended up at the very bottom of the Pending feed nobody saw it. Fortunately one of the mods manually approved it, archaic, who is apparently the site community manager.
 |
| And also the admin for Bulbapedia.... |
Though it finally went live, it is rather absurd it took over a week for this submission to to go live, all because of what lavalamp did. The silliness of the situation was even commented on by another user,
I'm not privy to what occurred between the mods but I hope lavalamp1138 was told to never do something like this again. But that's probably too hopeful.
What I do know is that the article has a 160 degree rating on Anime Shin Bun a day after going live,
...and on n4g it has a 20 degree rating even after 5 days on the site.
In the end I was correct to put it on Anime Shin Bun. This is where the submission belonged.
Enjoy this article? Follow Carey on Google+ to stay up to date!
Sunday, August 26, 2012
How to use Tumblr to increase Youtube views
Tumblr is a blog format designed primarily for sharing images, and it has some easy to use share functions that can make content quickly go viral. Users primarily find content by subscribing to keyword tags like "gamer" or "roleplaying", and will then see any submissions users' post with those tags in their activity feeds.
For example, here are all the recent tumblr posts with the tagged keyword "youtube" and here are some with youtube-community.
For example, here are all the recent tumblr posts with the tagged keyword "youtube" and here are some with youtube-community.
Some people actually use Tumblr as their primary website but I personally find it more suitable as an auxiliary site to compliment my primary website with back-links and provide extra reach; for example, my tumblr RPG Video Reviews focuses on reaching gamers on Tumblr by using videogame related tags for my submissions.
Now there are a few ways you can use Tumblr to increase your Youtube views and in this article I'll talk about each one.
#1 Photo Sharing
This strategy works best in conjunction with the Pinterest strategy for getting traffic to your Facebook Page. Ideally, you want to add a funny or shocking image to your tumblr and then have the click-through link be to your Pinterest board where you already have images pinned from your Facebook Page and primary website, along with videos from your Youtube channel.
It's important to ensure you tag your articles so they will be seen. Fortunately tumblr will suggest popular tags for you based on what you are typing into the tag box, which makes it a'bit more useful than Stumbleupon which expects you to psychically pick up on what the most popular tags on the site are.
#2 Video Embedding
You also can embed your Youtube videos directly into Tumblr. The process is identical as it is with adding photos. Better yet, you can embed videos from your Pinterest boards into Tumblr posts, which gives back-links to both your Pinterest boards and your Youtube channel at the same time.
#3 Tumblr Communities
Additionally, Tumblr has some special communities you can submit video content to. Here's a couple of my favorites
http://reblorg.com/about
http://storyboard.tumblr.com/
http://www.pinterestyouaredrunk.com/submit
http://stupidshitonpinterest.tumblr.com/
You can also make your own Tumblr community; for example, I've made one for the Youtube Gaming Community to submit their videos to.
You can find information on how to add a submit button to your tumblr at their official help page.
#4 Customize your Tumblr to promote your social network accounts
You can customize your Tumblr to have your Facebook Page embedded into the sidebar, along with a link back to your Youtube channel. I also like to include my Twitter feed.
For instructions on how to customize your tumblr, check out this page. You'll need some HTML knowledge to do this.
As with anything else, always use social bookmark services like Stumbleupon to drive traffic to your recent Tumblr submissions.
Enjoy this article? Follow Carey on Google+ to stay up to date!
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| Set a click through link to something you want to promote! |
It's important to ensure you tag your articles so they will be seen. Fortunately tumblr will suggest popular tags for you based on what you are typing into the tag box, which makes it a'bit more useful than Stumbleupon which expects you to psychically pick up on what the most popular tags on the site are.
 |
| Tags are vital on Tumblr! Don't forget them! |
#2 Video Embedding
You also can embed your Youtube videos directly into Tumblr. The process is identical as it is with adding photos. Better yet, you can embed videos from your Pinterest boards into Tumblr posts, which gives back-links to both your Pinterest boards and your Youtube channel at the same time.
#3 Tumblr Communities
Additionally, Tumblr has some special communities you can submit video content to. Here's a couple of my favorites
http://reblorg.com/about
http://storyboard.tumblr.com/
http://www.pinterestyouaredrunk.com/submit
http://stupidshitonpinterest.tumblr.com/
You can also make your own Tumblr community; for example, I've made one for the Youtube Gaming Community to submit their videos to.
You can find information on how to add a submit button to your tumblr at their official help page.
#4 Customize your Tumblr to promote your social network accounts
You can customize your Tumblr to have your Facebook Page embedded into the sidebar, along with a link back to your Youtube channel. I also like to include my Twitter feed.
For instructions on how to customize your tumblr, check out this page. You'll need some HTML knowledge to do this.
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| Customizing your Tumblr will also help you look more professional, encouraging visitors to pay more attention to what you post! |
As with anything else, always use social bookmark services like Stumbleupon to drive traffic to your recent Tumblr submissions.
Enjoy this article? Follow Carey on Google+ to stay up to date!
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