Making a You Tube Video

Making Videos for You Tube

When you make a video for You Tube, think about the thumbnail You Tube will display for users to click on.  In a full video with no images and text screens, the half-way, one quarter, and three quarter point will be given as a thumbnail selection in the edit video screen of your video.  If your video has a lot of text and images, it is sometimes random, but usually the very beginning and end and 'somewhere' in the middle will be your selections for the thumbnail.

Having a tempting thumbnail is important to getting a lot of views from video response postings, related video lists, and search queries.  You want your video to stand out from the rest.

I use Windows Movie Maker to edit videos and make slide shows.  Most people don't even know that Windows Movie Maker is on their computer.  To open it, click start at the bottom left of your screen, then click

All Programs and look in the accessories menu.  It is a really good tool to have and it is free.   It does take a little playing around with it to get the hang of it.  But, once you know what everything does, you will be editing videos like a pro.   

Make you videos short.  The shorter a video is the better it will do.  Videos that get watched all the way through are the ones that get the most PR (page rank) points for You Tube's algorithm that decides which video to show where.  If everybody who clicks on your attractive thumbnail doesn't finish watching your video, it doesn't get put on many related video lists.  And the ones it is on, it is placed towards the bottom.  However, a long video that is getting watched all the way through really racks up on PR points.  It is calculated with the length of the video.  I like to aim for less than two minutes on a video.

Own your video content.  If you use music sharing sites like Limewire to get music to put on your videos, it is only a matter of time before You Tube catches you and deletes, not just that video, but your entire You Tube account.  You Tube's AudioSwap feature has tons of songs you can overlay into your video.  The good thing about AudioSwap is when the video is used as a featured video on your channel page, it is set to auto-play so every channel view you get also counts as a view for that video.  Most people do not watch a video from channel pages and do not let the video finish playing unless it is short.  Does the algorithm cut any slack for incomplete views from a channel page?  No one knows.  The bad thing about AudioSwap is you have to overlay it to the entire video and can not edit in voice over or sound effects.  Learn You Tube's Terms and conditions before starting your first channel.  It is better to learn it now, than to start getting a gazillion views only to have your account zapped because you overlooked a tiny detail called copywrite infringement.