How to Easily Translate YouTube Videos into Different Languages

I was on a client call this week and I got stumped. Yep… It happens.

I was asked, “How should we go about translating our YouTube videos?”

Me, “I’ll need to do a little research and get back to you, because I have never done it before.”

What happened next was a flurry of discovery.

First, I found out that YouTube has a world of translation options.

Next, I tested all the options and put in a request to translate a few of our YouTube videos.

This all took about four minutes.

Then I called a quick company training and showed everyone how to do it. In the meeting I told the team, we can now offer this service to clients. It is really that easy.

Yep, we move fast around here.

After that I wrote this blog. Ready to learn? Let’s go!

HOW TO TRANSLATE YOUR TITLES AND DESCRIPTIONS

So there are basically two sections of content to translate when it comes to your YouTube videos. The first piece is the titles and the descriptions. It is a very easy process and here are the steps.

1. Go to your Video Manager.
2. Next to the video you want to translate select Edit. Make sure the video isn’t set to private and has at least one subtitle or closed caption track.
3. Under the video, select the Translations tab.
4. Select Buy translation and confirm the original language of the video title, descriptions, and captions already entered.
5. Check the boxes next to all the items that you want translations for.
6. Next, check the boxes next to all the languages you want the title, description, and captions translated into.
7. Choose a vendor and follow the on-screen instructions to pay. Keep in mind that many vendors have a minimum order price.

HOW TO TRANSLATE YOUR CAPTIONS, TITLES AND DESCRIPTIONS

Now, it is a little confusing, because you can also translate your titles and descriptions from another area. But the difference is that in this area, you can also translate your captions. So if you want to translate all three this is the best place to do it.

Here are the steps to make this happen.

1. Go to your Video Manager.
2. Next to the video you want to translate select Edit. Make sure the video isn’t set to private and has at least one subtitle or closed caption track.
3. Under the video, select the Subtitles and CC tab.
4. Click Add new subtitles or CC and choose the language that you want to translate your video title, description, and captions into.
5. Select Buy translation and confirm the original language of the video title, descriptions, and captions already entered.
6. Check the boxes next to all the items that you want translations for.
7. Next, check the boxes next to all the languages you want the title, description, and captions translated into.
8. Choose a vendor and follow the on-screen instructions to pay. Keep in mind that many vendors have a minimum order price.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

After you have purchased your translations you just sit and wait. When they are done, they will publish them automatically.

MORE ABOUT CAPTIONS AND AUTO TRANSLATED CAPTIONS

Now it is important to keep in mind that captions are only available for the videos where they have been added. But if they have been added, users have the option of using auto-translated captions anytime. You do not need to pay for this, it is already there as an option. Google simply uses Google translate to make these captions happen.

This is how you enable them on a video.

1. Click on the captions icon at the bottom of the video
2. Click Options
3. Click Translate Captions
4. Click to select a language
5. Click OK

CAPTIONS PROVIDED BY THE OWNER

Now you can also provide captions yourself.

If you want video captions provided by an owner you see them like so.

1. Click More underneath the player.
2. Select the transcript icon. As you watch the video, the transcript will scroll to show you the current caption text.
3. Click on any line of caption text to jump to that part of the video.

SO WHERE DOES THIS LEAVE US WITH YOUTUBE VIDEO TRANSLATION?

You Can Buy Them

You can pay to have your titles and descriptions translated.

If you enable captions, you can pay to have all three translated.

You Can Not Buy Them

If you want, you can also translate all of this outside of YouTube and upload it manually. YouTube gives you this option.

You Can Use the Auto Translate Feature

There are auto translate options for users that will take your captions and translate them. This is not true for the video transcript though. It will not do this automatically.

Should You Shoot New Videos in the New Language?

The answer to this depends entirely on the ability of the people in the video to speak that language and the amount of time and resources you have. Let’s chalk that one up to a business decision.

What to do Now?

The translation services are really cheap. My recommendation would be to enable captions and translate the captions, titles and descriptions of all of your most popular videos into your top languages. Do it now, it’s pretty cheap!

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Seven Tips for Driving an Emotional Response to Video Marketing

The ability to elicit emotions in people has been an integral part of marketing for decades, and for online video advertising it is particularly important if you want people to share and engage with your content. 

But the emotions people feel in response to particular video ads differs greatly across the world, and between different demographics such as age group and gender.    

In this post I’m going to cover some key global trends in terms of emotional reactions to online video ads. 

The trends data comes from Unruly, which collected first-party data from more than half a million consumer responses to thousands of video ads across the world.  

And to learn more on this topic, book yourself onto Econsultancy's Video Marketing Strategy Training.

1. Online video ads are most likely to make people feel happy

Across the world, the emotion people are most likely to feel when watching a video ad is happiness, which I suppose is kind of nice even for a cynic like me. 

Google’s Friends Furever ad is by far the biggest happiness-inducer of all, making people who watch it feel four times happier than the average video ad. 

Not only that, but the iconic Android ad is also five times more likely to make people laugh than the average video ad.  

It’s also the most shared video ad of all time, with 7m global shares at the time of writing.

Worth bearing in mind when planning your own video marketing efforts. 

2. But laughter is the least common reaction

With happiness so far up the ranks you’d think laughter would fair well too, given how closely linked these emotions are.

But surprisingly laughter is actually the least common reaction to online video ads across the world. 

Some brands are still trying to be funny, though, and long may they continue, particularly when they’re producing content like this classic from PooPourri…

And pretty much anything Old Spice puts out gets my vote… 

3. Location matters

Depending on where you are in the world your emotional reaction to the brand in question changes after watching a video ad. 

People in the USA are far more likely to love a brand or buy a product after watching a video ad online than European consumers.

Brazilians are even more easily influenced, with two-thirds of them having a more favourable view of a brand after watching a video ad, compared with 58% across the ASEAN market and 41% in the US.

Europeans are much less likely to be influenced by online video ads. Only 28% of UK consumers think more favourably about a brand after watching one, and only 26% of Germans. 

4. Some videos ads can have a negative impact

Think twice before doing anything too ‘out there’ and make sure your audience is actually going to appreciate it, because in some cases video ads can do harm as well as good. 

A fifth of people who watched Mountain Dew’s Super Bowl ad, ‘Puppymonkeybaby’, had a less favourable view of the brand after watching it.  

Can’t think why…

5. Christmas ads cause inspiration and exhilaration

Who doesn’t love Christmas? It’s cold, almost certainly raining, you get to spend lots of money you don’t really have on stuff that nobody really needs, and by the time the big day comes you’ve already been subjected to at least four months of festive joy. 

Despite what the more cynical among you might think, however, Yuletide marketing does actually make people feel good. 


The launch of Christmas ads in November and December (or August in some cases), results in a global spike in inspiration and exhilaration. 

The 2015 John Lewis Christmas ad 

6. The age & gender split

Age and gender play a significant role in the way somebody reacts emotionally to an ad. 

US males aged 25-34 are most likely to feel happiness, inspiration and pride while watching video ads.

Their baby boomer counterparts, however, are most likely to feel confusion and disgust (I’m picturing my dad here and chuckling away to myself). 

Women aged 25-34 in the US are similar to their male counterparts in that they’re most likely to feel happiness and inspiration when watching a video ad.

Female baby boomers, while also confused, are most likely to feel warmth and surprise as well. 

This is all very interesting, but the question we’re clearly all thinking is: why do baby boomers find video ads so confusing?

Answers in the comments below, if you would.

7. Reasons for sharing differ around the world

Depending on where you are in the world your reason for sharing a video ad might differ somewhat. 

In the US and Europe, emotions are the key drivers of video sharing, so play to the heartstrings if you’re targeting that market.

Those in South-East Asia, Brazil and Turkey, however, take a more logical view, and the focus in those markets should be more on giving consumers a practical reason to share content.

Conclusion: know your audience and think positive 

The first thing to take away from this research is that you can’t show the same video to everyone and expect a positive result across the board. You need to cater for your audience. 

That means getting to know them first, either through research like this or by carrying out your own investigations into your specific audience. 

The second big lesson here is that positivity seems to win the day, and if you can make people feel happy they will be more likely to share your ad and feel positive about your brand as a result. 

But again, this depends on your audience. I can imagine certain charity brands, for example, might find it inappropriate to put out a smiley, upbeat video. 

So take findings like this and use them to inspire your video content, but remember that a blanket approach is never a good idea. 

What worked for one brand might not work for yours.

To view the original article Click Here

How to Grow Your YouTube Channel Using Analytics

YouTube has quickly become the second largest search engine in the world. Companies across every vertical have taken advantage of the tool to build brand awareness, grow audiences, and communicate directly with prospects and customers.

While almost every company has a YouTube channel (YouTube currently reaches more 18-49 year-olds than any cable network in the U.S), there are a couple proven strategies you can use to outgrow your competition and better reach your target audience. Fortunately, YouTube offers a ton of free analytics for its users, and Simply Measured offers next-level YouTube reporting. These statistics have been the foundation for the growth of our YouTube channel (there’s my one shameless plug) and can undoubtedly help you grow yours.

Understanding the Basics

There are a couple entry-level data points you can utilize to better understand your content and optimize it for success. While there’s often more value to a channel than views and likes, they can be an important base metric to help you track the growth of your channel.

Views: The most vain of vanity metrics. Don’t get too bogged down by views, but pay attention to your growth over time. Do certain kinds of videos have spikes in viewership at a specific time of the week, month, or year?  This can be helpful when determining when and what content you release.

Shares: One of the most underrated metrics. From what we’ve been able to tell, authentic shares have a direct impact on how a video does in search results. Since YouTube is one of the major social channels existing today, it’s likely Google has built a decent amount of value into the amount of times, where, and how a video is shared.

This chart from the Simply Measured YouTube Channel report shows one brand’s daily video views over time.

We’ve noticed promoting a video immediately after release really helps it climb the rankings quickly for the keywords we track. Keep an eye on these numbers and try to keep the shares coming when you see a drop in viewership. YouTube allows it’s users to see the various methods through which a video is shared (including copy to clipboard, WhatsApp, Gmail, Twitter, etc.) that can help you further refine by whom and how your videos are consumed.

The Middle Ground

It’s important to keep an eye on more than just the basics. Mastering these statistics can help you start to really refine how your viewers experience your brand and your channel.

Watch Time Reports: Information like audience retention can make a huge difference when trying to optimize a video strategy.

If you see a huge dropoff after 3-4 minutes, it might be helpful to shorten the length of your video. You can also keep an eye on audience retention to see how various popups such as cards and annotations impact viewership.

If you have a bunch of distractions throughout, it’s likely folks will find another video. Lastly, it can also be really helpful to see how different demographics and countries are watching your videos so you can cater your content appropriately.

Engagement Reports: How your audience engages with your content can have a significant impact on your overall strategy. Depending on how often your videos are liked, shared, or commented upon you may want to asses how often you should release that kind of video. We tested a few different styles of video (this talking to camera video flopped tremendously) and from the engagement reports were able to optimize our strategy.

This chart from the Simply Measured YouTube Channel Report shows one brand’s daily engagements over time.

Another helpful feature within engagement reports is how often your video is embedded in other channel’s playlists. That can be a helpful metric for determining what audience is best resonating with a certain kind of video. If a bunch of IT companies are adding your cloud videos to their playlists, you can start targeting them more appropriately.

Lastly, within engagement reports you can also see how your viewer are engaging with calls to action and additional information YouTube gives you access to like cards and annotations. This can be really helpful to drive traffic to your site and get additional attention for your brand. If an annotation has a lot more closes than clicks, it might be in a bad spot. Time to test a new location! (usually the end works best). 

Deep Tracks

There are several simple techniques to make your channel the content platform you have always dreamed it could be.

SEO: You can optimize your videos to show up higher in YouTube’s search as well as in Google searches through a couple of simple techniques. If a video does well enough on YouTube we’ve seen it jump ship to page one on Google before. If you optimize your videos well enough, you could be in luck!

Instead of titling your videos what you want to title them or think they should be titled, see what people are searching for! We made a video a few years ago about business intelligence that was initially titled “Business Intelligence 101.” After auditing our YouTube channel, we went back through and renamed the videos based on the autocomplete feature in YouTube. If you search for business intelligence in YouTube the first autocomplete is for “Business Intelligence Tutorial.”

Since that fit the description well, we renamed our video to that and voila, our video shot straight to the top of the charts for the most popular BI search term.

You can also use more conventional approaches to SEO, such as inserting 10-15 keywords in the tags section you want your video to rank for. Add a hefty description to the video, a transcription, and even name the file you upload what you’re hoping to rank for. These are likely all pieces of metadata YouTube uses when ranking videos.

(Also if you’re wondering why we classified the aforementioned agile video as a flop with 400+ views, that shows the power of a well optimized video).

YouTube Studio: YouTube’s latest mobile app provides extra insights you can’t access from the analytics tab in the web interface. There are a lot of really great categories that give you access to metrics from the past 7 days, 28 days, 90 days, year, and all-time if you want to dive in deeper.

1. Real Time views: Helps you see what your audience is watching at the moment. Can be really helpful to see what is popular at what time of the day.
2. External Sources: My personal favorite. Where are people finding your videos outside of YouTube? If you haven’t heard of some of the website on the list (we definitely haven’t!) there’s a really unique opportunity for potential partnerships since they already value your content enough to post it on their site.
3. YouTube search terms: This is what your viewers are searching for to find your videos. Can be really helpful for not only naming your content but figuring out what your audience is interested in.
4. Interactive Content: Really helpful insights into what cards and annotations are doing the best. Everything from top cards to card clicks per card shown to top videos by annotation clicks can really help you better optimize your content

While not everyone has enough videos or data to start making the most of YouTube analytics, it’s never too early to start poking around and see what your videos have done historically. Even the most basic insights can help you propel your social video strategy forward. YouTube analytics can also be really helpful if you’re looking to test new videos and strategies. If you discover there’s an audience there, keep pumping out great content!

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Two YouTube Features You Need to Enable Right Now

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but the right video can be worth a lot more than that! And as the second largest search engine in the world, lagging only behind the almighty Google, YouTube is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to video. You’d be foolish to ignore the incredible potential and opportunity that can be unlocked by publishing videos on YouTube.

Just as there are innumerable tactics and techniques for improving your search rankings in Google, the exact same thing can be said about getting your videos ranked in YouTube. Today’s post doesn’t talk about that directly. Instead, it’s about what you can do to maximize the benefit once a new viewer comes along and watches one of your videos. How can you capture them? How can you retain them?

While the two features being described in today’s post aren’t exactly new, I’m still boggled by the number of so-called YouTube experts and professional Internet marketing folk who aren’t taking advantage of these features. If you don’t already have these features enabled, you need to enable them right now.

Featured Content

On your blog, you are likely utilizing some strategies to reduce your bounce rate and to keep readers on your site for as long as possible. You want them to read your related posts. You want them to browse through your archives. YouTube is no different.

Whenever you watch a video on YouTube, you are usually presented with a list of related videos along the sidebars. You may also be presented with related videos at the conclusion of whatever you’re watching. To help keep people watching your videos (and not the ones published by other people), you’ll want to use a feature called “Featured content.”

In effect, this puts a clickable thumbnail in all of your videos that will then direct the person to watch another video from your channel.

To activate this feature, log into your YouTube account, click on your profile picture in the top right corner and choose Creator Studio, assuming that you are logged into the right account and channel.

After that, click on “Channel” from the resulting navigation sidebar on the left. This opens up a sub-menu for additional options. Choose “Featured content” from this resulting list.

Once here, click on the “Feature content” blue button. This will bring up a dialog where you can choose between your most recent upload and the option to choose a specific video or playlist. After that, you can choose to have the thumbnail displayed at the end of the current video with optimized timing or at a custom start time. It’s up to you.

Be sure to click the blue “Update” button when you’re done to save the changes.

Branding

The other feature that you’ll want to enable is called “Branding” and it places a logo watermark on your videos. Yes, you can add watermarks yourself through your own video editing software, but you unlock two added bonuses with the YouTube option.

First, when a user hovers over your logo watermark, he or she will then be shown the name of your YouTube channel and the number of subscribers that you have. Second, if the user clicks on your logo, he or she will then be sent to your YouTube channel page. You can use this page to promote your other social media, additional videos and playlists, and so on.

Enabling this feature is very similar to enabling the featured content thumbnail. On the same Creator Studio page, click on “Branding” underneath the “Channel” section in the left navigation sidebar. Click on “Add a watermark” to bring up the dialog box.

YouTube recommends that the logo you upload has a transparent background and only uses only color. I personally have a two-color logo and I think it works just fine. They recommend a file format of PNG or GIF with a maximum file size of 1MB. Upload and save accordingly.

Next, you can pick to have your watermark displayed at a custom start time, at the end of the video or throughout the entire video. If you’re going to have your featured content at the end of your video, you probably don’t want to pick the same for your branding watermark too. Click the blue “Update” button to save and you’re ready to go.

Will these two features miraculously boost your YouTube subscriber and view count numbers into the astronomical range? Probably not, but not enabling these features could seriously hurt your performance and you’d be foolish not to activate them.

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Why Millennials Love Video Marketing (Infographic)

If you’re not incorporating video into your content marketing strategy because you think it’s too expensive or ambitious, you’re missing a big chance to make an impression on millennial consumers. Recent research from Animoto shows that Generation Y is primed to spend more than $200 billion annually starting in 2017, and that video marketing plays a starring role when it comes to influencing what they buy.

As Wired reports, YouTube reaches more millennials than “any single US cable network,” and according to Omid Kordestani, Google’s chief business officer, the average mobile YouTube session lasts over 40 minutes. During that time, young people are watching everything from cat videos to movie trailers to even branded content. Animoto found that 76 percent of millennials follow brands on YouTube, and a whopping 84 percent do so on Facebook.

Why is this so important? Because 80 percent of millennials use video to help them decide which products to purchase.

Take a look at the infographic below for more useful data on the power of targeting millennials with video.

To view the original article Click Here

How to Optimize YouTube Videos for Search

Do you regularly post videos to YouTube? Are you frustrated by the lack of views and engagement your videos are getting? If so, the problem could very well be that they aren’t properly optimized for search.

Fortunately, giving your videos the best chance at getting found isn’t highly technical, and shouldn’t take you a ton of time. This post will walk you through exactly what you need to do to optimize YouTube videos for search – both for Google search and for YouTube’s on-site search.

How to Optimize YouTube Videos for Search:

1. Video title

Your title is perhaps the single most important feature for getting your video to rank in search. Just as you spend time doing keyword research for your website content, be sure to work at finding popular and relevant keywords to use in your video title. Be sure to choose keywords that your audience will be looking for, but that aren’t so competitive that they will be impossible to rank for. If possible, use your most important keywords near the beginning of your title and your branding keywords (i.e. company name) near the end.

2. Video description

Your description is where your keywords can really shine. By accurately and comprehensively describing the content of your video, you have a better chance at getting found for both short and long-tail keywords. Most experts recommend making your description a minimum of 200-250 characters, but longer is almost always better. Use as many characters as you need to accurately convey the content of your video. Just as with your video title, be sure to include your most important keywords near the beginning of your description.

Another important strategy for your video descriptions is your website URL. If possible, put your URL near the beginning of your description. Make it as easy as possible for viewers to visit your site or contact you for more information!

3. Tags

Think of your tags as a list of all your relevant keywords. Include all the keywords you have found in your keyword research, but also consider adding long-tail phrases that speak to the problems your viewers might be trying to solve. For instance, “How to carve a turkey”, “Thanksgiving turkey carving”, or “Turkey carving tips”.

4. Video transcription

Transcribing your videos is not only useful for your hard of hearing viewers, it can also help boost your search rankings. There are two ways you can do this: either by manually adding captions via your video manager, or by creating and uploading your own plain text transcript file. For instructions on how to do this, see YouTube’s help article.

5. Video thumbnail

While your thumbnail image won’t actually help you rank in search, it can have a significant impact on how often your video gets clicked on in search. You can choose to use either an automatically generated image, or upload your own custom thumbnail. In either case, it’s a good idea to keep the following best practices in mind:

• Use clear, close-up images so viewers don’t need to zoom in to see the image
• Use professional-quality images that accurately convey the topic of your video
• Overlay your video title onto your image
• Use good lighting to make sure your images are clear and the subject is easily identifiable
• Use bright colors that will stand out against YouTube’s white background
• Avoid using your logo as your thumbnail. Trust me when I say it will NOT help entice people to click on your video!

Keep in mind that YouTube also factors in user experience as a ranking factor. This means that the more views and engagement (thumbs up, subscribes, etc.) you get, the higher your videos will rank. For this reason, avoid using irrelevant keywords or other sneaky tactics, as these strategies will not get you ahead in the long run.

What other strategies do you use to optimize YouTube videos for search? Share below!

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