No one expected that when YouTube surfaced in 2005 it would take off the way it has. YouTube is a forum for people to visually share ideas, creativity, and new products through video. It has revolutionized the video marketing industry, as it’s provided a free outlet to reach people from all ages, backgrounds, and interests. Inc. Magazine notes “businesses who’ve tried it report this strategy [of posting online videos] offers huge advantages over simply hosting video within their own website.”

Inc. shares 4 helpful tips for businesses that hope to reach wider audiences through video media such as YouTube.

1. Provide quality. Nowadays it seems everyone exists in a realm of information overload and advertisements are so common that we hardly notice them. Make your video original and creative. Spark people’s attention; don’t simply chant “buy my product.” Take advantage of the imagination that can explored through video, capture ideas that a still picture or written advertisement could not.

2. Do not write off the text. Most companies figure the video will speak for itself and don’t put much thought or effort into the accompanying text. However this is vital for getting views and “likes” because detailed text descriptions help your video pop up in appropriate search engines – in fact, without any text, a video is not seen at all by any search engine.

3. Promote your video. This seems obvious but it’s very important in gaining traffic to your video and therefore your product or company’s website. Link your YouTube video to any blogs, social media, or other website because gaining views helps optimize your chances of showing up in search engines. Also embedding a link to the matching video on your product’s website can be helpful in driving people to your website.

4. Track your results. This can be done by close monitoring of views and “likes.” An easy approach is to add a query string to the URL link from the video to your product’s website. This shows the traffic to your video.

Today more and more people are utilizing the internet for marketing and business purposes. While television used to be the most effective means of reaching vast audiences, the internet is now taking its place. As television-based marketing and advertising drops, the public’s expectation of internet video is increasing dramatically, especially over the last couple of years. Now customers expect to see the same creativity and high quality in an internet video as they would a television commercial. Gone are the days when the kid in the mailroom could shoot a video on his home camera! You really NEED that quality to remain unique and competitive (okay, yes, like the quality offered here at CLAi. along with our understanding of producing for multiple media).