Want to get your content marketing questions answered by the experts speaking at the Social Media Examiner Content Success Summit in February? If so, this is the place. Welcome to our new Guest Expert Series.

To Participate

Participating is easy! Simply post your questions for this week’s Q&A host Ileane Smith (@ileane) in this thread.

About Our Guest Expert

Ileane is founder of Basic Blog Tips where she provides tips on WordPress blogging, social media, podcasting, YouTube marketing and technology! She provides valuable tutorials through her blog and podcast on subjects like Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, and YouTube.

Hi, Ileane … thank you for hosting.

How do you define “content marketing”? Is it different from or the same as, let’s say, advertising or email messaging?

How important do you think YouTube marketing is during these changing Google times. I’m finding that including YouTube videos in all my blog posts helps me rank higher and faster in Google, especially when I include video FIRST in my post, let it ride for a while, and then come back in and add written content to that post. What’s your experience with YouTube and blogging?

Robin Carlisle

Hi Robin!I’m an avid YouTuber and the majority of my videos are tutorials. I see the traffic as a two-way street where I’m getting lots of traffic on my blog from YouTube but at the same time I also send traffic to my YouTube channel (although not as much, which is just how I like it). 

YouTube is the number two search engine but people who are doing searches there are specifically looking for videos. The YT search engine works on a different algorithm than Google search and there is even a separate keyword tool for YT search. https://ads.youtube.com/keyword_tool

Embedding YouTube videos has helped some of my posts rank higher in Google Search also and the added benefit is that people spend more time on the page. 

I have two tools that I use to increase engagement and get email subscribers through YouTube videos:

1. Viewbix
2. LeadPlayer plugin for WordPress

Since you are already using video, I recommend that you also test those two tools to see which one gives you the results you want. 

@ileane

Thanks, Ileane, I’ll mosey back over to Scoop.it and check that out. I’m wondering if I’m already following you over there… as I pretty much following anything or anyone related to YouTube. Wish it had been around when I was a young thang, as I surely would NOT have ignored it for so long. I was one of those old-timer video freaks who edited tape with a real blade. Eeeeeckkk! So I’m like a kid in a candy store now with all that YouTube and cool internet vid tools can do for me now. 

Now tell me how you pronounce your name… Is it I-Leen? Or ih-leen? Or ih-lee-ah-neh? (Hey, that’s how they pronounce that in former Soviet Georgia). Since we’re all so international these days, I always try to ask before I pronounce someone’s name the wrong way, lol.

Robin Carlisle (that’s Carl – Isle, as in the Isle of Carl or Island of Carl… though i’ve never met a Carl in my life, lol).

And about that “Time On Page”… In six weeks, I went from less than a minute to 16.40 minutes today… and Daily Page Views per reader went from 1.7 pages to 8 pages per reader. VIDEO has made a HUGE difference!

Now I must confess, as an experiment, I have stopped writing first and started blog posts with nothing but video and related posts now… letting it stew and get ranked by Google,… then going back and adding seo titles, descriptions, and keywords… and finally adding my own written article. By the time I write, it’s already gone and come back full circle… ready for my little article. Kind of a twist on Chris Munch’s seeding (Hook Pigion) where I use videos as the hook instead of viral photo/memes. It started as kind of a mistake or mis-take where I started a large project but had an emergency and had to leave it sitting incomplete for a long while… but has ended up being a reeeeeeally nice little firestarter and without any original articles whatsoever. Just plain old video, but lots of them on very targeted subjects.

Of course, knowing YouTube… and Google… I’m expecting it all to change and blow up and crash and burn any day now. But for the time being… I’m just giggling and enjoying this ride.

Robin Carlisle

Hi Ileane! Happy to come across you here and on Google +. Ever heard of Empire Avenue? Recently, a fellow content marketer mentioned it on LinkedIn and then while listening to some LA bloggers on a panel, it was mentioned as a great way to distribute and promote your content. 

Says its about page at Empireavenue.com It uses gamification described as missions to get people to watch your vids, comment on blogs, etc.

Trust me I’m not selling it. This platform may either be a waste of time or a real useful tool. I’d like the opinion of it from people who’s opinions I do trust when it comes to social media.

AND speaking of engagement and interactivity with YouTube videos. Check out SceneChat! You can even PAUSE the video until viewers respond to your questions and send viewers to an exact spot in your video based on their answers. Way cool!

Thank you, Ileane, for the definition. 

“Content Marketing” has become a buzz word open to definition. Folks want it to be something new — but it really isn’t a new concept at all. It’s just a new term for an old process. Benjamin Franklin used content marketing in his Poor Richard’s Almanack.

So, Ileane … why has content marketing come in vogue? Is it a passing flavor of the week, or something we should be paying attention to?