I have some super cool YouTube tips here for you, I hope they will come in handy and enrich your YouTube experience.
Video thumbnail
When you upload a video in YouTube, you will have the choice between 3 thumbnails to select for your video.
Maybe you would like to have that same thumbnail as a jpg to post on your blog or website or email.
These thumbnails are also very useful if you want to create a video sitemap.
For every video uploaded, YouTube generates 4 thumbnails. To find the thumbnail image location, replace the 11 digit alphanumeric code with your own VIDEO ID or any YouTube video id for that matter, in the following examples.
The green part is the place where you have to insert your video id and your video id are the 11 digits you see after the “=” in the URL of any YouTube video.
0 http://img.youtube.com/vi/m_XzyTSHpK8/0.jpg (480*360)
1 http://img.youtube.com/vi/m_XzyTSHpK8/1.jpg (120*90)
2 http://img.youtube.com/vi/m_XzyTSHpK8/2.jpg (120*90)
3 http://img.youtube.com/vi/m_XzyTSHpK8/3.jpg (120*90)
Embed your channel with subscribe button in your blog’s sidebar
You can do this with the YouTube channel gadget and generate more channel subscriptions through your blog!
Clickable link in your video
YouTube doesn’t allow a clickable link in your video. Only when you want to link to another YouTube video you can do this using annotations.
But there sure is a way to do this. Linkedtube gives you the opportunity to add your clickable link in your YouTube video when you embed it into your web page. So on the embedded video on your webpage, the clickable links will work. Not for playing videos on YouTube.
Creating video episodes
If you are uploading videos in episodes or in series, then you can make sure viewers can click immediately on the next part.
Submit the next part as a video response to the previous. If you have a series of videos as part 1, 2 ,3 , 4, then submit part 3 as a video response to part 2.
YouTube will show your own video response separately and the ones submitted by other users together. A good way to get your next video noticed.
Queue videos
When browsing for videos or seeing related videos you can go over the thumbnail with your mouse. This will reveal a little + sign in the bottom right corner. When you click on the + you can choose the option: watch later. These videos will appear on the right side of whatever video you are watching, everytime when you log in.
This way you can queue videos that you don’t want to forget to watch.
Keywords left
Put the most important keywords of your video most left in the title. This will certainly increase your views as YouTube gives more importance to the left most part of the title.
Brand your videos
Whenever you upload a video, always add in your own logo. You can place it at the start or the end, or have a small logo in the corner. This will help to build your brand value and to get your name out there.
Also placing the URL of your blog at the end of a video is a great way to generate more traffic.
Watch 3D videos on YouTube
YouTube gives you the possibility to make your video in 3D.
Just ad yt3d:enable=true in your video tags and your video will will automatically change into a 3D version.
You do need the special blue and red glasses to see the videos in 3D, but I’m sure you’ll find one of them around.
Link to a specific time in your video
If you have a specific time in your video that you would like to point out to your viewers, you can put #t=0m48s at the end of your video’s URL. Place the time for the minutes in front of the m and the time for the seconds before the s.
This link you can post in your video description or use it in emails.
Play snake in YouTube
When you wait for a video to buffer or when you put the video in pause, press the left arrow key for 2 seconds and then press the arrow up. Your YouTube screen turns now in a game of snake. Not very useful but kind of a cool gadget.
YouTube live
YouTube started with a live channel where you can watch live video streams. Go to YouTube live
Watch movies on YouTube
Most certainly, you can watch full movies on YouTube categorized into different sections. It’s not the most popular movies you will find there, but there is a good number of movies available so perfect for that lonely evening 🙂 Go to YouTube movies
Tube Radio
Tube Radio is is a very interesting site with an iTunes look and feel. It lets you pull in YouTube videos that you can search using the search function built in in the site.
You can arrange video songs, create playlists and save them. Worth checking out.
Loop an embedded video
ad &loop=1 to your video’s URL when embedding the video in your website. The video will start again without intervention after it reaches the end.
Disable related videos
When embedding a YouTube movie into your site you don’t always want other people to see related content at the end of the video, that can be in competition to you or urges the viewer to click away.
Just add &rel=0 to the end of the URL part of the embed code and you have turned off the related video suggestions.
Get around regional filtering
Some videos are only available in certain parts of the world. Your IP Address is used to determine your location and then access will be allowed or denied to the video. I hate that when that happens 🙂
Change the URL from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
http://www.youtube.com/v/
I hoped you enjoyed these YouTube tips, maybe more will follow in the future.
I also love it when you place comments so feel free to share your thoughts.
