15 ways to promote your video online :
1. Submit to social video bookmarking sites:
Digg.com, Video Bomb, Flurl, StumbleVideo – all these sites have the potential to send a lot of viewers if enough people vote for your video.
2. Email video blogs and websites to tell them about your video:
Email blogs which post interesting online videos. Use Google and Delicious to find such blogs.
3. Email blogs that talk about your videos topic:
If your video is about an Apple Mac then email Apple Mac blogs, if your video is about making pizza then email recipe blogs.
4. Submit to regular social bookmarking sites:
Don’t forget the regular social bookmarking sites like Delicious, Reddit, BlinkList etc. These sites will link to videos and if enough people vote for it you can get a lot of visitors
5. Submit your video (or a teaser video) to the busiest video sharing sites:
YouTube is busier, but so is Daily Motion, MetaCafe, and many others. Check out a huge list of video sharing sites here. If it’s a teaser video or you want people to visit your website write your website in the description and also show it within the video.
6. Post your video in relevant discussion boards and forums:
Read their rules first and don’t spam. Make sure what you post is relevant to the forum and choose the busiest forums to post in.
7. Tag and describe your videos:
It is important to put the keywords that describe your video in the associated tags and description so search engines know what your video is about.
8. Read the SEO guide for video:
The video search engine Blinkx published a guide on optimizing your video for search engine traffic.
9. Send out a press release:
If your video is especially news worthy you may want to send out an online Press Release.
10. Make videos regularly and create your own website and MySpace:
A one-off video may get popular but if you make videos regularly and place them on your own website AND MySpace you can build up a large following.
11. Enter competitions:
There are plenty of video competitions out there so look around and enter any you can for more exposure. For example the Network2 contest, BrioBox contest, Acceptable.tv etc.
12. Get help from your friends:
Get your friends to help by adding you to their MySpace, bookmarking your video on social bookmarking sites, adding your video as a favorite on YouTube, posting about your video on their site etc.
13. Choose the right thumbnail:
When ever you decide to watch a video it is heavily influenced by the thumbnail (the little picture of the video clip) that you see first. If you can choose the thumbnail do so and make it sharp, clear, eye catching and relevant to your video.
14. A catchy title:
A catchy title is just as important as a catchy thumbnail to encourage people to click that link to watch your video.
15. File Sharing:
This is often forgotten but if you are giving away your video for free why not distribute a copy for free over file sharing networks. Depending on the niche of your video this can work well. Don’t forget to include the name of your website in your video.
