Business Online

If you can’t read on youtube their rules I guess you can buy this book.

Because all it does is regurgitate the obvious and add in a few geek terms. DON”T waste your money
Rating: 1 / 5

As a mortgage broker, much of my time is spent deciding how best to generate new business. We have been using streaming video successfully for over a year, but only on our own site. We know we can get wider distribution of our content using social media (including YouTube), so I invested the huge sum of $16.47 and bought this book, hoping to get at least the basics of how best to leverage a YouTube presence.

I was very pleasantly surprised to find that the book exceeded my expectations. I didn’t find pages upon pages of “filler, tellig me things I already knew, like how to plug a webcam into a USB port. Instead, I found some practical tips on good video production–and, most importantly, a lot of discussion about the social aspects of YouTube: how to create an audience base for my videos.

The book is well organized and well written. I took just a couple of hours the first time through, highlighting sections for later review.

Highly recommended.

Rating: 4 / 5

I bought this book as backup research to validate a paper I’m writing on using online video for business marketing.

It seems to me that this author was so proud of the fact that he figured out how to use YouTube’s interface that he made an entire book on the process, and that’s it.

It should be called “How to use YouTube”, because that’s all it’s good for. Most anybody can figure out a website’s interface, but if you’re reading this book based on the assumptions the title has created, then you’re looking for strategies to implement in your business’ marketing channels.

After he so GRACIOUSLY points out that it’s basic marketing skills to figure out your target audience and desired result (then proceeds to tell us all about it anyways in terms that would make a child fall asleep), he then teases the reader with topics like “How will you measure the results of your YouTube video?” (which is included in the opening chapters, and is dedicated ONE ENTIRE PAGE! hooray). That topic is one of the REASONS you’d buy the book, to understand market psychology when it comes to video and how it can influence behaviour and how you can keep track of what metrics to validate a real return on marketing objectives for your video… but no.

Here’s what he says about measuring effectiveness:

“if your goal is to generate sales, measure sales.”

“if your goal is to measure traffic, measure traffic {…}”

… and my favorite,

“if your goal is to build brand image, measurement is more difficult. You need to conduct some sort of market research after your YouTube campaign has had a chance to do its thing {…}”

Overall, if you’re buying this book for learning what the title tells you, then save your money and read your old Marketing 101 chapter on “Marketing Goals” instead, then pop on the YouTube website and read their very informative “help” section.

… although, YouTube has far less pictures than this book, so if you’re horrible at reading instructions and guidelines, then buy this book to learn “how to upload your videos” and “how to create a channel”.

EDIT:

Michael Miller puts his YouTube prowess to use on YouTube with HUNDREDS of views on most of his videos!

Note how he leaves it up to the viewer to imagine all the “video editing techniques” he mentions in his book.

(example: watch his recent video on High Definition videos, and when he explains the “rule of thirds”, he opts to use hand gestures and simple language to explain the concept, rather than use “video editing techniques” to overlay a simple grid on the screen.)

Final Conclusion:

regretting not verifying that the author

a) has a proven track record using YouTube for himself or another business, and

b) knew something impactful about YouTube for business rather than guessing at it (which is what it seems like he’s doing)
Rating: 1 / 5