If that doesn’t get your gamer heart excited, then maybe this will.

You can monetize your gameplay videos on the Web!

Of course, the very first step is making a video recording your gameplay. In the days of yore this would require wiring the video and audio outputs of your gaming console to the inputs of a VCR. But this is the 21st century. That recording device you will be using will of course be your computer.

If your computer has a video card or dongle that has video inputs you’re all set. If not, you will need to beg, borrow or invest in the hardware required to allow you to capture video from an external source. Once you have your inputs set up properly you should be seeing live video from your game or console. Open that up to full screen because now it’s time to capture video.

If you’ve ever seen or made a screencast from your computer you probably understand what you’re about to do. Instead of capturing you doing some computer-stuff on your computer, your desktop will be filled with the playback window from your game.

Of course if your game is computer-based, your gameplay window will already be visible on your desktop.

In order to capture your game’s video window you will need computer software capable of recording screen capture videos. If you’re on a PC, two very popular programs used by gameplay video makers are Bandicam and Fraps. Some programs do allow you to try before you buy, but don’t be surprised if those demo copy recordings come with a watermark on the screen. Do yourself a favor and pay for a full copy before you post your videos. The watermark will not make for the best first impression with your potential viewers.

Good news for you Mac users out there. If you’re running the latest version of OSX you will notice that the built-in QuickTime program already has screen recording capabilities!

Now, allow me to put the cart before the horse for a moment. If your goal is to post these videos online somewhere where people will see them, and possibly to monetize them, there is a consideration you need to make. Because the characters, designs, sounds, music, artwork and animation in video games is copyrighted by the companies and individuals that created and publish them, popular video sites like YouTube and Vimeo have specific rules governing what they will allow you to post. Since this generally extends beyond the boundaries of what is known as “fair use,” your safest bet to help mitigate the risk of having your videos taken down without your control is to create what can be somewhat categorized as “new use.”

Gaming videos that have commentary over them tend to fall into that grey-ish area that video game publishers tend to allow online. I don’t mean the in-game chatter between you and your Call of Duty platoon mates. I’m talking about the type of sportscaster-like commentary that describes what is going on onscreen and offers insights as to what is going through the player’s mind as things happen in the game.

To be clear, some game publishers are cool with you posting any and all videos, but some are not. Minecraft, for example, is well known for giving fans the right to publish. You should always check a game’s Terms of Service before posting a video about it online to make sure you don’t violate any policies.

Once you decide to create commentary for your gameplay video, you are going to have to decide whether you want to do it live while you are making your screen recording, or after you play back what you have recorded. If your plan is to do it live, you will need to make sure your screen recording software will not only record the audio from the game, but also from whatever microphone you are using to record your voice at the same time. You may find it difficult to concentrate on playing well and describing the action at the same time, in which case you will want to record your commentary track afterwards.

This is known as an overdub.

The next step is to import your gameplay into some type of video editing program. At the very least you will want to chop off those moments at the beginning and end of your recording that have nothing to do with gameplay. Editing is where you can do the types of things that gameplay video makers often do like speeding up and/or slowing down parts of the video and adding sound like a commentary track or possibly a webcam feed showing you playing the game.

Once you’ve edited your video, you’ll need to export the final movie. Try to keep your final render in HD. 1080p is best, but if you want a smaller file and shorter upload times, go with 720p. M-peg 4 (mp4) compression with a bit rate of 15,000 works great as an online movie format. Make sure you keep your framerate at 29.97 (or whatever your game’s native output may be). Since sound is an important part of the experience, choose AAC as your audio output format with the highest bitrate (up to 384) that your program will do.

Boom. You have your final video. Now it’s time to put it online for the world to see.

Once you get experienced with making gaming videos, you will probably want to know more about how others make money doing them. The good news is that there are lots of people out there monetizing their gameplay videos and it’s not difficult to figure out where to go.

If YouTube is your flavor of choice, you will need to be part of their Partner program. Becoming a YouTube Partner is easy because everyone is allowed to join, however, the terms vary by country. Connect your YouTube account with a Google Adsense account and you’re on your way. Just know that you may have to grow your viewership in order to get some of the advanced branding and monetization options that the successful YouTube Partners have. Just remember though that even if YouTube’s Terms of Service allows your video today, what their lawyers will allow can change at any time which could mean your video could be taken down.

Hence, what may be the single best option for serious gameplay video creators is to create an account at Twitch.TV.

Twitch.TV is one of the fastest-growing gaming sites on the net with over 23 million visitors a month! Twitch was formed as a community especially so that gamers could share their gameplay videos. On Twitch they host live gaming tournaments and broadcast web shows about gaming, but the vast depth of their platform comes from gameplay videos.

Here gamers become celebrities based upon their gameplay skills or even just their entertaining commentary. Twitch also has its own partner program to help you monetize your videos and the way it works is simple. The more people you can get watching your videos, the more money you can make – and the sky is the limit!

Lastly, after all the hard work you’ve put into making your videos, I would be remiss not to share a hard truth with you. We all want to believe that posting videos inside an established community or video sharing site can help you get noticed. Often though, it’s quite the opposite for those just getting their feet wet in the deep blue sea of Internet video. Those video makers out there who are racking up the kind of views you dream about hold the added advantage of being established in the sphere. To complicate things even further, it’s not as easy to get noticed today as it used to be. With more and more creators getting into Internet video, you can’t expect what worked a year ago to work for you now.

But it doesn’t mean it’s impossible. No, no. It’s still very possible.

You can’t get recognized unless you can be found. When it comes to the Internet, the best way to be found is by having your own branded website. Building your own brand inside someone else’s site makes it harder for search engines to locate you. Ask people who have built any sort of successful brand on the Web and most will tell you it’s not just about the content, it’s also about the ability of those who like what you do to easily be able to tell others where to find you. If you’re worried about racking up those view numbers, you can take the videos you’ve uploaded elsewhere and embed them on your site.

When you create your own branded Web portal, you not only show people you’re serious about what you do, but you gain the ability to market yourself in ways that video-sharing sites don’t allow. When you have your own site, you don’t have to have a competing video producer’s video thumbnail and link show up next to yours and possibly steal eyeballs away from your work. Also, when you host your own videos on your own site, you don’t incur the risk of running afoul of some other site’s Terms of Service changes — especially the kind of changes that can result in videos being taken down without your control.

Branding isn’t just for mega-corporations. It’s the difference between those who walk the walk and those who just talk the talk. Show the Web what you’re all about. Plus, you can even more clearly brand yourself with a .tv site to help you make that all-important first impression as someone who is serious about making videos.

Gaming and gaming videos aren’t just kids play anymore. When you can make an income doing what you love, there’s nothing better in the world. Plus, you’ll finally get to prove something to all those people who wondered why you were wasting all of your time playing video games. Just think of how sweet it will be seeing the look on the next doubter’s face when you show them the royalty check you just got for your gameplay vids.

Where are you sharing your gameplay? Send us a tweet or comment here, on our Facebook page or our YouTube channel.

To learn about getting started with a .tv website, please visit the Get .tv  section on Watch.tv.

Thanks so much Lydia for a great interview – we’re looking forward to watching (and playing!) Mojang and seeing what you do next!

What was your favorite point from Lydia’s Interview? Send us a tweet or comment here, on our Facebook page or our YouTube channel. We’re so inspired by Lydia that we’ll be posting on how to Share Your Gameplay for this week’s Watch.tv Teachniques on Wednesday.

To learn about getting started with a .tv website, please visit the Get .tv  section on Watch.tv.

Chances are you would never, in your right mind, build an actual house on a piece of land you didn’t somehow have control over. What if you were offered that land for free but with the catch that things could change and you could be booted off the property without notice? What if it also stipulated the actual landowners could put anything they wanted next to you, even if you didn’t agree with it or it competed directly with your own interests? This is similar to the position you are in when you sign up to post videos on YouTube or almost any other video sharing site.

So how do we fix this conundrum?

Lucky for you, it’s not as complicated as it may seem. If you want to gain a whole lot more control over the disposition of the videos you choose to upload, there is a simple answer.

Host your own videos.

Your site. Your videos. Your control.

Truth is, you may have to pay for Web hosting and that’s something you’ll have to weigh against your own opinions as to how free is “free.” And, of course, you will have to agree and adhere to the Web hosting companies own Terms of Service regarding what files you can store on their serves.

One thing that doesn’t change is that you will still have to do your own marketing to get viewers and constantly provide good content. However, bringing viewers to your own site — one that is full of good content, like videos — creates potential for a stronger connection between creator and fan. Your ability to build a sense of community around your content on your own branded site is one of the undeniable strengths to having a place on the Internet that is wholly your own.

In addition, one of the best ways to mitigate concerns about Internet discoverability is to become the owner of your own site and not just another participant in someone else’s. On some video sharing sites, most videos and channels look alike at first blush — almost like how people on the ground look like ants when viewed up high from the top floor of a skyscraper — which can make it harder to stand out from the crowd.

On your own site, you can custom-tailor the first impression you want people to have to help ensure your site is memorable. Savvy creatives use sticky branding tricks like employing unique sites with .tv domains to make it instantly clear their site has video.

All this aside, the most important reason for staking your own claim on the net with your branded site could be the fact that your competition isn’t. What are you currently doing to set yourself apart from those who are competing for the same views and eyeballs as you are? Distancing yourself from the pack is often a factor of being better branded. No matter what you may think now, the more successful you become at your Web video enterprise, the more you will come to realize that in order to be taken seriously your brand will have to exist on the Internet as something other than the name on the right side of the slash that comes after someone else’s domain name.

And every day you wait to establish yourself, is another day you’ll have to play catch up against your competition.

I’m not here to make you believe that YouTube and other video-sharing sites are bad. That’s not the case at all. These are great places to find entertainment, but that’s not to say that there aren’t risks that you’d be better off knowing. Being informed is much better than being blindsided.

And being branded is better than being left wondering why you aren’t as far along as you want to be. Sure the Internet is full of shifting sand, and uncertainty. Nobody can guarantee your success, but you can definitely sleep better at night when you know that the hand on the steering wheel belongs to you.

How are you setting your site apart from the competition? Chime in – send us a tweet or comment here, on our Facebook page or our YouTube channel.

• We started off February strong with a Watch.tv Spotlight Interview with Small Business entrepreneur and author Marcus Sheridan talking with C.C. Chapman about the importance of video in small business marketing strategy.
• Marcus also wrote a terrific guest post for us on the Small Business “Visual Revolution”. Great points for Small business including 5 Myths Regarding Using Video in Your Marketing
• Our Watch.tv Teachniques post from that week was “ Make Your Website Mobile-friendly or Risk Being Left Behind” 
• We put together a highlight reel from our time at the IAWTV Awards last month – a lot of great tips for people who are getting started in online video (and uploading it to your .tv!)

• On Facebook, we highlighted some of the new How-To Videos on Watch.tv by our .tv Advocates, including How to Deal With Online Criticism by Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff , The Effects of Darkness on Camera by Amy Mac , Chris Cavallari’s video on using The Softbox, and our entire section about Building Your Brand online  - all packed with really great information about getting your (and your company’s) message out there!
• We wrapped up our mid-month with a terrific guest post by Lee Odden – The 3 Reasons Why Video Must be Part of Your Marketing Mix 
  

Do you have a favorite post from February so far? Send us a tweet or comment here, on our Facebook page or our YouTube channel.

To learn about getting started with a .tv website, please visit the Get .tv  section on Watch.tv.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video must be worth millions. The ubiquity of Internet access and availability of video creation, consumption and sharing applications makes video the “go to” digital marketing medium for 2013 and beyond.

Companies can demonstrate products, share their expertise, interview satisfied customers, and show employee and brand personality all through video that can be consumed on a computer, tablet or mobile device.

Whether you’re a big business or small, B2B or consumer focused, video is a hot online marketing commodity that should not be overlooked.

From content marketing to advertising, investments in video are on the rise. And for good reason:  A study by the e-tailing group and Invodo reports that over 50% of Internet users believed that online product videos helped increase confidence in their purchase.

Companies are sensing those trends in consumer media consumption and adjusting budgets accordingly. According to eMarketer, spending on video for content marketing has risen by 44%. 

While the evidence is compelling for the growth of video creation and consumption, some companies, especially small businesses, may feel uncertain about where video may fit in their marketing mix. Here are 3 reasons to do just that.

1. Video is Social – There are hundreds of video applications that make it easy to capture, edit and socially share video. Twitter recently announced its entrée into the short form video creation space with Vine, a smartphone application that enables users to take 6 second, looping videos and share them on social networks. Brands are already experimenting with Vine in creative ways.

Such outlets for creativity are entirely amenable for sharing, enabling small businesses to proactively leverage video to create compelling, creative and socially sharable video content. Don’t believe me? According to a study by the IAB, 90% of viewers share mobile video content. 

Creating great content using apps and software that are designed to make social sharing easy means it’s easier than ever for small businesses to get into the video marketing game.

2. Video May Be A Mobile Marketer’s Best Friend - It is estimated that the number of US consumers that watch video on mobile devices will rise to 110 million by 2016 – that’s 1 in 3 Americans consuming video content on smart phones and tablets.

Consumers are watching more than short, YouTube form content on mobile and tablet devices. Tablets have become as popular as computers for watching video, ranking second only to televisions.  However, rather than compete with TV, mobile content serves as a second or third screen for many consumers.

Companies that get creative around events on TV and cable might consider creating content that consumers will seek out while watching the show. It might be facts and backstory or clever connections between the company’s product and what’s being watched. Small businesses have used such tie-ins with their advertising for years, such as promoting snacks and beer with Super bowl themed ads.

Mobile consumption can extend the reach of online video normally consumed through computers as well. Companies just need to make sure their video content is available and optimized on mobile friendly platforms.

3. People Love Video and So Do Search Engines – YouTube is often cited as the second most popular search engine with over 4 billion hours of video watched every month. While video content isn’t as easy for search engines to understand, the content can be transcribed to text and when combined with the video title, description and tags on a website, the video is easier to find.

When videos are embedded from a hosting service like YouTube or Vimeo onto a webpage or blog post, the descriptive text can be optimized for easier discovery on search engines. Video content is more interesting than text and more likely to attract links and social shares. Those links and social signals help search engines rank web pages that contain embedded video more prominently than boring old text content.

Video consumption is a worldwide phenomenon. According to Nielsen, 80 percent of Internet respondents in 56 countries reported watching video content at home on a computer. Combined with video consumption on mobile devices, that means video might just be the perfect opportunity for companies that want to excel at attracting and engaging with their customers to increase awareness, interest and sales.

Thanks Lee – terrific post. A lot of great validation for why companies – including small businesses – should be using video as a significant pillar of their 2013 marketing strategy. 

To learn more about getting your business started with online video (plus any other tips you might need!), please visit the How To section on Watch.tv.

What did you learn from Lee’s post? Send us a tweet or comment here, on our Facebook page or our YouTube channel.

Marcus Sheridan, @TheSalesLion

After the interview he did with .tv Advocate C.C. Chapman, we asked Marcus Sheridan to write a Watch.tv guest post on the power of video for small business. Marcus is a successful Small Business entrepreneur, a passionate speaker and author and well-known for his simple and direct communication style. His post today is focused on the “Visual Revolution” and the power of video in a small business marketing and sales strategy – something he has a lot of experience with.

By this point, most of us have heard the stats:

Over 60% of all people are visual learners…and the number is growing.

It’s pretty easy to see how this happened. Digital technology opened up a world of immediate visual stimulus at our fingertips. These days, before most kids are out of diapers, they’ve developed a relationship with buttons, screens, and swiping–all in the visual form, and all before they’ve learned to write their first letter.

The profound nature as to how this has occurred is quite fascinating, but one thing is exceedingly clear–the “visual revolution” is not going anywhere any time soon. In fact, it will exceed all of our wildest dreams.

It’s because of this trend that the reality of businesses using video in their sales and marketing process has now become an absolute need that cannot be ignored. Unfortunately, because we are in a transition period right now for many of these companies (going from an older generation to a younger, more tech-savvy one), especially small business owners, there are many misconceptions and misinformation regarding this profoundly important medium.

As a small business owner myself of a swimming pool construction company as well as a marketing consultancy firm, video was one of those things that literally intimidated the heck out of me just a few years ago. But like with everything else in this world, the minute I decided to change my approach to it, and instead embrace its possibilities, the magic happened. Today, my pool company’s videos have been viewed well over a million times on YouTube and more importantly, have led to sales and brand growth that have kept our company above water in a time when so many in our industry have closed their doors.

During this journey, I’ve had the opportunity to talk to many other small business owners and hear their questions, concerns, and triumphs with video. Based on these experiences, as well as my own, I’ve come up with the following advice and tips to help those businesses that have either not yet embraced video marketing, or are not yet fully experiencing the success of this this powerful medium.

The first half of the article will address some of the most common myths and misconceptions of video marketing, and the second half will discuss some of the strategic benefits and tips of the medium. Here goes:

5 Myths Regarding Using Video in Your Marketing

1.  The Perfection Myth:

Let me make this very clear:

Video marketing is NOT NASA. This is not a process of launching a space shuttle. Everything does not have to be, nor ever will be, perfect.

Notwithstanding this truth, there has been a myth perpetuated by many that all videos emphatically must be “great” or “incredibly well-produced” or “just right” or “super professional,” otherwise they will damage your brand and turn potential customers off.

Folks, I’m here to tell you this is complete and total bull. The first videos I produced with my swimming pool company were terrible– bad lighting, bad audio, bad script…just plain bad.

But I had to start somewhere, and that “somewhere” was not going to be at perfection. The following video is a perfect example of this. It was the first video I ever made and it’s plain awful. Notwithstanding, the video has generated traffic and sales but more than anything, it was a victory in overcoming something I’d never done before and was the start of something great.

Do you realize who the ones are that keep perpetuating this myth that videos have to be perfect and super professional otherwise they’ll damage your brand? The ones that are saying this are the companies that make videos for businesses in the first place. Yes, that’s right, professional video production companies.

Please understand here that I’m not saying our “goal” shouldn’t be quality and improvement with each and every video we make. Clearly, the idea is that we get better and better. But perfection is impossible, and those companies that are willing to be imperfect, and learn as they grow, those are the ones that end up dominating their industry and building their brand the most.

2. “I never watch online videos so why would I bother producing them?”

Let me share a hard truth about marketing in the digital age that I’ve come to realize:

Your opinions, preferences, and actions don’t matter.

In fact, neither do mine.

The only thing that matters is what the consumer wants and what helps advance them along the buying process.

Just as some folks “never watch video” online there is another set that “never reads articles.” Fact is, there is a big mix out there in the way people want to consume.

Furthermore, the way people consume information can change as they advance along the buying process. To give you an example what I’m talking about, my company has found that most people, when they start the research process for an inground swimming pool, tend to focus on quick articles that answer their most basic questions. Once they’ve done this, they will start to take the time to watch videos–typically shorter ones. Finally, once they get really serious, they are often willing to watch much longer videos as their buying decision approaches.

The bottom line is that we’ve got to allow consumers to learn about our products and services in *their* language (text or video) no matter what stage of the sales process they find themselves on.

3. “I don’t want to show my face”

When you think about the fast food restaurant Wendy’s, who comes to mind? How about Kentucky Fried Chicken? Or Papa John’s Pizza? Naturally, Dave, the Colonel, and the Papa come to mind– something that these companies have intentionally done to help customers develop a relationship of trust with an actual face.

As we’ve all heard a million times, consumers buy from those they trust. It’s that simple. And as business owners, we have to make a critical choice:

Are we going to allow small, often make believe insecurities to prevent customers from knowing, liking, and trusting us sooner?

The advent of social media has pushed this reality even further. Consumers expect personal relationships. They want to see who they’re giving their money to. And as business owners, if we have the audacity to ask consumers to trust us enough to give us their money off camera, then why wouldn’t we demonstrate the same trust by showing them our face on-camera?

4. “Video is only for Techies”

Don’t consider yourself a “technical” person? Fear not. In fact, just get in line with the rest of them that had this same “problem” yet managed to overcome their fears. As mentioned previously, four years ago I had never attempted to edit a video, much less upload one to YouTube.  The same applied to my business partner Jason, but notwithstanding we managed, little by little, to become pretty proficient with making videos, so much so that today we use advanced editing software, green-screens, and professional equipment, as you’ll see in the following video of a recent sale we were having:

5. “Video Marketing is Expensive”

Again, not true. Our first camera 4 years ago cost about $100, and that was the only money we spent on our original set of videos that have hundreds of thousands of views to date. Today, we own a nice camera, microphone, editing software, and green-screen studio that cost about $2,500 total—a number very affordable for most small businesses.

4 Video Tips Every Small Business Should Consider

1. They ask, you answer:

The golden rule of marketing in the digital age is a very simple one:

If the customer has ever asked the question, as a business it’s your moral obligation to answer it.

No consumer questions should ever be ignored.

This rule not only applies to textual content like blogging, but it also heavily applies to video as well.

In other words, if anyone has ever asked you the question, then it’s worthy of doing a video showing, telling, or demonstrating the answer to said question.

This is exactly why you should never run out of content ideas for videos. Whether you think it’s a silly topic or not (remember, our opinions don’t matter), allow the customer to dictate what your showing via video.

Speaking of silly, a few people in the swimming pool industry laughed at me when I said I was going to make a video showing how to clean a filter cartridge. Considering the task is “common sense,” few others saw its importance. Notwithstanding, this simple video has over 70,000 views to date, proving once again that the “golden rule” is all that matters.

2. Search Engine Optimization Cannot Be Overlooked

As you may have heard, YouTube is the second most utilized search engine in the world behind Google itself. Not only that, but Google weighs videos heavily in their search engine results.

Because of this, if you upload videos to YouTube and apply sound SEO principles  (like using strategic titles and tags to match phrases consumers are looking for), there is the chance for your content to show up in multiple places within search engine results. This is especially true if you post a video on your site within a blog article– giving search engines like Google more than one opportunity to show your content, as shown in the following screen shot. The top arrow in the photo shows how the YouTube video we made about air bubbles in swimming pools was ranked #1 of the keyword phrase, and the blog article on our website where the video was again posted was ranked #3 is search engine results.

3. Video is the gift that keeps on giving

Not only can video provide visits to your website for years to come (through SEO), but it can also be utilized in a variety of manners to enhance your content marketing efforts. For example, let’s say your company produces a video on YouTube. Here are the further ways it can integrate into your digital and content marketing:

1. Embed the video into a blog article

2. Embed the video into the sidebar of a page or multiple pages of your website.

3. Share the video on your Facebook page and allow it to reside there permanently

4. Share the video on Twitter

5. Use the video in your email marketing process. (Can be used to announce sales, give product demonstrations, address prospect concerns, etc.)

6. Embed the video on your company’s Google Places page (it will now show up in local search results) as well as your Google Plus page

7. Use the video in your sales process (If you have sales staff, it can be part of their pre-sale process, the actual sales presentation, or the post-presentation follow-up)

These are just a few of the means whereby one video can be turned into a far reaching marketing tool for your company. But as mentioned before, it starts with one.

4. Kill Multiple Birds with one stone

One of the great components of video marketing is that it gives you the ability, in one video, to accomplish many things. As an example from my swimming pool company, I used to have a two-fold problem:

1. Many prospects thought pools were hard work and that cleaning and vacuuming a pool would be very difficult.

2. After we taught a new customer how to vacuum and clean their swimming pool, many forgot what they’d been taught and asked us to come back out to show them again, which ended up costing us time and money.

To address this problem, my solution was a simple one—I recorded a short video of my 6 year old son showing viewers how to vacuum a swimming pool.

By doing this, the video had 3 main benefits:

1. When viewers see a 6 year old vacuuming a pool all by himself (start to finish), their fears about it being “too hard” are eliminated.

2. When a pool owner forgot how to vacuum their pool, all they had to do was go to our website and refer to the video. This alone has saved literally hundreds of man hours for our company over the past 3 years since the video was produced.

3. One final benefit of this video was the fact that because my son was in the video, potential customers would watch it and not only learn that pools weren’t as much work as they thought, but they were also able to get a much more personal feel for me and my family.

This is just one example of many videos we’ve produced over the years that serve multiple purposes with prospects and clients, and is an essential principle of any great video marketing campaign.

The Time is Now

I could literally go on and on about the sheer power of video to enhance small business sales and marketing, but I’m sure the point is clear. As I mentioned earlier, the key to all of this is the willingness to be imperfect, launch, and then improve as you go. Your unique journey will certainly have its own set of obstacles, but I can promise you the magical results will be well worth it.

• Chris Hardwick – The Nerdist Channel
• Tim Street – http: 1timstreet.com
• The Digits – WatchTheDigits.com
• Wilson Cleveland &Yuri Baranovs – LeapYear.tv

We put together a highlights video of some of these fantastic tips from the IAWTV Red Carpet – take a look:

We appreciate everyone who stopped to speak with us – all were incredibly generous with their time and expertise. To learn more about how to get started with online video (plus any other tips you might need!), please visit the How To section on Watch.tv.

What was your favorite tip from the video? Send us a tweet or comment here, on our Facebook page or our YouTube channel.

Even websites that are being created as you read this post run the risk of premature obsolescence because they aren’t prepared to handle the type of Web traffic that is growing by leaps and bounds across every quadrant of society.

I’m talking about mobile traffic.

Between 2010 and 2012, mobile Web traffic quadrupled and stands to further explode in 2013 thanks to the unstoppable proliferation of smartphones and tablets. In 2012, over 820 million smartphones and tablets were purchased by consumers. This year, that number is expected to top 1.2 billion! You better believe these people aren’t just using their pocket gizmos to make phone calls, take pictures and read e-books.

In 2011, which seems like another Internet era already, 13.4% of all traffic to the top 500 e-tailers came from mobile devices. A year later that number ballooned to just under 25%. When the calendar turns another page, that number will hit 40% and by 2015, a staggering 60% of internet commerce will be done via mobile. Even now, 70% of all moms shop from their phones and tablets.

What you have to understand is that mobile is a completely different animal than you may be used to. Mobile search and SEO differ greatly from desktop traffic search. Because this traffic originates through telephone company networks, mobile search is routinely optimized for local results. Telcos and carriers understand the vast amount of e-commerce taking place through mobile which is why localized results satisfy the immediate needs of the mobile Internet user.

Now stick with me, because this is where it gets really interesting.

That need for customer immediacy is also why mobile search is highly optimized for video.

Ah-ha….

So yes, if you have video on your website you stand a decidedly greater chance of catching more of that mobile traffic than someone else of your size who doesn’t.

But what do you think is going to happen if those mobile eyeballs you steal away from your competition have trouble accessing your content or navigating through your site on their magical pocket gizmo? That’s right, buh-bye.

That same need for immediacy also makes people impatient. The worst part is that a bad experience on your site stands a good chance of preventing that person from ever coming back to your site again.

Ouch.

It used to be that you could just build an app as an access point to your brand. Truth is most mobile users prefer to access your site directly with their browser instead of taking the additional steps to go through an app that may just offer them a watered-down experience of your brand. Because smartphone and tablet screens are smaller and connection rates vary from lightning fast 4G to near analog dial-up modem speeds, the complicated HTML masterpiece you devised to greet your web visitors may be a turn-off for mobile users. Regardless of the fact that mobile browsers continue to offer a much fuller web experience, not every website translates into the kind of experience that the end-user is looking for from your brand. Flash, animations and some nested menu choices may render your awesome site into a mobile disaster area.

The mobile user doesn’t want a tiny version of your site squeezed onto the small screen of their device. They want a version of your site that gives them access to what they came for and navigation that is as transparent as the type they may experience from a desktop browser. If at the very least your site doesn’t give them that, then you aren’t prepared for mobile traffic.

Going mobile-friendly can be as easy as installing the right WordPress plugin or switching your site template to one designed to automatically detect mobile visitors and serve them mobile-optimized pages. For some of you it may be more complicated than that. Regardless, if the idea of tinkering with your website makes you uncomfortable, you should ask for help from a Web designer experienced with mobile sites.

A great deal of the talk about the massive growth of mobile Web traffic has to do with monetization and a general concern that mobile users don’t click on ads at the same rate as desktop users do. Remember, the mobile Web user craves immediacy. Don’t get caught up in the narrow short-game mindset that advertising is the path to mobile monetization.

Brand building is your ticket to growth. Growth is your ticket to success.

Reap the whirlwind of mobile traffic to increase the hits to your site and the size of your audience. A small investment of your resources to make your site mobile-friendly will pay dividends now and in the immediate future because I can virtually guarantee that if you don’t, your competition will, or already is.

So instead spending sleepless nights staring at the ceiling and worrying about this growing deluge of traffic you are potentially missing out on, it is imperative that you take steps to make your website mobile-friendly or run the risk of being yet another site that looks like it has already past its expiration date.

Is your site ready for the Mobile Web? Send us a tweet or comment here, on our Facebook page or our YouTube channel.

Enjoy!

Thanks Marcus for a great interview! A lot of great points that small businesses can use to get up and running right now with online video! Marcus has also written a post on the “Visual Revolution” and some of the myths (excuses) companies use to avoid getting started in online video and also some great tips that will make it easy to move ahead, which we’ll post here on the Watch.tv blog this Thursday (Update: Mrcus’s Guest Post will be up on Monday 2/11).

To learn more about getting your business started with online video (plus any other tips you might need!), please visit the How To section on Watch.tv.

What did you learn from Marcus’s interview? Send us a tweet or comment here, on our Facebook page or our YouTube channel.

• We launched our Small Business and Online Video focus with questions on our Facebook and Twitter pages on our 2013 Bucket Lists and the video trends we’re seeing for the year.
  

  .tv Advocate Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff and IAWTV Chairman Paul Kontonis

• We announced that .tv was sponsoring the Web Series track at NMX in Las Vegas with a great interview with IAWTV Chairman Paul Kontonis, which includes the importance of producers utilizing their own domain, some great stats on distribution platforms, the growth of the web series category and how the cable companies are getting interested.
• Throughout the weekend we posted photos and updates across our social networks from NMX where we got to speak to great innovators such as Scott Monty, Global Head of Social Media at the Ford Motor Company, Justin Levy, Global Head of Social Media at Citrix, Author and .tv Advocate C.C. Chapman and Travis Richey, the creator (and lead actor!) behind the fantastic web series,The Inspector.tv.
• On the IAWTV Red Carpet, we spoke with so many talented nominees and award winners, including Chris Hardwick, Felicia Day, The Cast and Crew of “Husbands” and Teal Sherer. Take a look at our recap here.
  

  .tv Advocate Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff talking with Nerdist Chris Hardwick on the IAWTV Red Carpet

• We posted a terrific interview with .tv Advocate C.C. Chapman and Entrepreneur/Author Jason Falls on the role of online video in a small business content strategy, how it influences search results and how businesses can justify the resources to move forward. Jason also contributed a wonderful guest post  on “Optimizing Your Videos For Search And Social”. As an extra – Jason also put together a great How To video that really makes the optimization process look easy, which can be seen at the end of the post.
• Verisign’s SVP of Marketing, Scott Schnell, wrote about brands that are increasingly using video to engage with their customers , like the new site Lipsy.tv, and how building audiences on .tv domain names is helping them achieve their goals on the “Between the Dots” blog
• Be sure you check out our Watch.tv Teachniques series to go beyond the basics of online video!
• Finally, this week we posted a fantastic interview with Small Business and Entrepreneur Becky McCray, where she spoke about the importance of “Local” for Small Business – thinking and connecting with your community using online video. Becky also wrote a thought-provoking Guest Post discussing that your “Customers want Local” and how small businesses can use online video to build relationships with their community and promote their products/services.

Did you have a favorite post of our Small Business and Online Video focus? Was there a particular point or post that prompted you to just get started? Send us a tweet or comment here, on our Facebook page or our YouTube channel.

To learn more about getting your business started with online video (plus any other tips you might need!), please visit the How To section on Watch.tv.