People who want to promote things using YouTube are in luck, as we’re returning to that subject this week.  Moreover, rather than random advertising reps who dabble and pick up lessons here and there, the advice comes straight from YouTube employees who get to see everything that goes on.

Matthew Yeomans and Bernhard Warner are responsible for YouTube Brandwatch, a blog that reports on how companies use YouTube to their advantage.  There’s a big opportunity for individuals to get a head start in this area, as they agreed, “[T]he majority of major brands remain tone-deaf to the power and influence of a medium like YouTube despite the fact that it has a community of millions that interacts with it on a daily basis.”

So here’s the problem: “They are putting the videos up, but providing so little detail about how it’s made, who’s in it, what’s that music playing in the background.  For now, the YouTube community is going in and filling in these holes in the detail, but we rarely hear from the marketers again after they post the ad.  In effect, they are abandoning their most attentive followers.”

Try to stay in touch, then.  And note that this doesn’t mean you have to exhaust yourself producing new videos on a daily or even weekly basis; you can just swing by the comments section to answer questions or thank fans.

YouTube remains free, of course, so doing this is really one of the cheapest possible ways to promote something.

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