How to Add YouTube Video Cards to Your YouTube Videos

Would you like to drive more traffic to your website from your YouTube videos?

Or maybe you want to raise money for a project you’re working on?

YouTube Video Cards can be a great tool to build engagement and grow your online presence using your YouTube videos.

In this article, you’ll learn how to add YouTube Video Cards to your YouTube videos.

What are YouTube Video Cards?

YouTube Video Cards are a way to make your YouTube videos more interactive.

You do this by adding cards to your videos.

Here’s an example of YouTube Video Cards in a video.

Example of YouTube video cards
Use YouTube Video Cards to deliver a call-to-action to viewers

YouTube Video Cards are similar to annotations.

Right now, cards are not replacing annotations (yet). I would think of them as an evolution of annotations.

Unlike annotations that didn’t work on mobile devices, video cards will!

One other nice feature about video cards is that you can add up to five cards to each of your YouTube videos at a time.

This way you can include a different call-to-action based on the part of the video someone is viewing.

Types of YouTube Video Cards

Adding YouTube Video Cards
Some video cards might need to be enabled

There are six types of YouTube Video Cards you can use with your videos.

1. Associated website

If you have your website setup in your YouTube account, you can use this card to link off to it.

If you need to setup your website on your channel, you can do that here.

2. Fundraising

Encourage users to contribute to your projects or supported fundraising sites.

In order to use the fundraising card, your project needs to be on a white-listed fundraising site.

Approved fundraising sites for YouTube Video Cards include:

  • Indiegogo
  • Patreon
  • Subbable
  • Kickstarter

3. Merchandise

Feature a licensed product on supported merchandise sites from a YouTube Video Card.

Examples of approved merchandising sites include:

  • Google Play
  • iTunes
  • Spreadshirt
  • District Lines
  • Topspin
  • Cafepress
  • Jinx
  • Shopify
  • Songkick

4. Video

If you want to promote another YouTube video, you can use the video card option.

In order to link to a video, it has to be a public YouTube video.

If you link to an individual video in a playlist, your YouTube Video Card will default to the playlist.

5. Playlist

If you want to promote a specific playlist using video cards, you can do that as well.

To do that, go to your playlists on YouTube and copy the URL.

YouTube video playlists
Add single videos or an entire playlist to YouTube Video Cards

5. Fan Funding

Allow fans to show their appreciation for the videos you create my making a monetary contribution.

In order to use the fan funding card, you need to enable this option in the YouTube status and features section.

Fan funding in YouTube Video Cards
Add the fan funding card to let fans back your YouTube videos

To learn more about approved retailers and fundraisers on the whitelisted external URLs page.

Now that you know about the types of cards, let’s take a look at how to add YouTube Video Cards to your own videos.

How to Add YouTube Video Cards to Your Videos

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How to Be Pinteresting and Build Influence on Pinterest

How to Be Pinteresting and Build Influence

Do you know how to be Pinteresting? We all know what Pinterest is, but what does the term Pinteresting really mean? Basically Pinteresting means that you’re interesting on Pinterest.

Why be Pinteresting?

Before we talk about how to be pinteresting, think about the people and the pinboards you currently follow on Pinterest.  Why is it that you follow them?  Is it because they are boring?  I hope that’s not the case.  Why would anyone want to follow a pinboard that’s boring?  Instead, if you want to grow your Pinterest following and get more repins, you have to be Pinteresting.

If you’re pinteresting, not only will it help you get more repins and followers, but it will also help boost your online influence on Pinterest because people will find the content that you curate interesting and in-turn, share it with their friends.

Although most of the users on Pinterest are women, Pinterest continues to see a lot of men join the network.  This makes it a great a platform for businesses to boost their online influence and helps them to reach their target audience.  By targeting the right audience and getting into their minds, you can influence Pinterest users to not only buy your products, but to also help build your brand, promote your business, and grow the size of your Pinterest following at the same time!

Be sure to check out this Pinterest infographic on the different types of Pinterest users, what they do, and where they shop.  You may want to connect with like-minded users to help boost your online influence with Pinterest.

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Twitter protected tweets – why they’re not a good tool for engagement

What are Twitter protected tweets?

Chances are, at some point you’ve come across the following image on Twitter.  What this means is that this Twitter user has turned on Twitter protected tweets.

Twitter protected tweets

In order to be able to view their tweets, you’ll need to request to follow them and have wait for them to accept you. Once they do, you’ll then be able to see their tweets. Sounds complicated doesn’t it? It is.

In fact, whenever I come across someone who uses Twitter protected tweets, I keep moving. That’s because to me, it shows they’re not active, they have something to hide, and they don’t value my time because they’ve made it so difficult to connect with them.

With so many barriers of entry just to see their tweets, why would I want to go through that much work just to follow someone? Sure, if you want to be on Twitter, but have this fear that someone can see your tweets and you don’t want to them to, then Twitter protected tweets are a great tool for you.

For the most part though, Twitter protected tweets, really don’t serve much purpose if you’re serious about using it as a social media tool to build and grow your online presence.  Not only does it make Twitter frustrating to use if your tweets are protected, but there are a lot of other things you need to consider before turning on  Twitter protected tweets as well – things that could stunt your growth on Twitter before you even begin to use it.

What happens when I protect my tweets?

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5 ways to grow your business with YouTube

Growing your business with YouTube

When you mention the terms, social media and business, a lot of people instantly conjure up images of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Google+ – along with a long list of questions.  What they often forget is that while these are social networks aimed at curating content from around the web, you have to have content to share on them to keep them growing.  Enter YouTube, an online video sharing community.

In addition to being the number two search engine (behind Google), YouTube is a tremendous social media tool where you can create your own online videos, build an audience, and drive traffic back to your business in a number of ways – by posting a video on your favorite social networks like Facebook or Twitter, encouraging visitors to check out your website, sign-up for your newsletter or as a way to leverage word of mouth marketing where viewers tell their friends about your video.

YouTube Beginnings

When I first got started making YouTube videos I’ll admit, I was pretty scared. Some of the questions I wondered about were if I could amass any considerable number of views – I also had a lot of questions about YouTube videos – will viewers like my content, will I even get viewers and how do I deal with comments and so on.

These are questions that anyone who is just getting started with online video might ask themselves.  But just two years later (and 750,000+ views), I’m happy to say that I enjoy making videos – almost more than blogging. And it’s not because I’m shy or anything. I just find they allow me to express my creativity through story-telling along with the creativity that goes into writing each video.

So to help you out, I’ve come up with 5 ways you can use YouTube to grow your small, medium, or large business.

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13 ways to spot a Yelp! user [Infographic]

If you’ve ever taken a photo of your food, read reviews about what others had to say about a new restaurant you’re thinking about trying, claimed an deal from Yelp! or read up on a new shop that opened in your area,  then you’re probably a Yelp! user.

In fact, Yelp! is a seriously powerful social network. For instance, if you’re using Apple Maps, you’re also using Yelp! as store information, photos and Yelp! reviews are integrated  into Apple Maps.

Let’s take a moment to check out 13 ways you can spot a Yelp! user – do any of these describe you? I can identify at least five items. How about you?

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How to embed tweetchat in WordPress

For those of you looking to leverage the social networ Twitter, to engage with your followers, one of my favorite tools to use for this is Tweetchat.

If you’re unfamiliar with Tweetchat, what this tool does is it allows you to hold a chat on a specific Twitter hashtag. There’s no need to refresh your screen or sift through multiple hashtags. You simply enter a hashtag and it Tweetchat creates a room where you can tweet and chat with your followers.

Tweetchat features

Here are a few features of Tweetchat

  • Put blinders on to everything else going on on Twitter and focus on one hashtag
  • Feature certain accounts so that they stand out
  • Converse in real-time
  • Have fun!

How I use Tweetchat

Personally, I’m a big fan of Tweetchat. I use it during conferences by broadcasting it to LCD and plasma screens that I have setup. This way, attendees can follow what is being talked about on Twitter while they’re walking around. If they want to participate, all they simply need to do is visit Tweetchat and sign-in to their Twitter account and they can easily add to the conversation from their mobile devices such as their smartphone or tablet and it will show up on Tweetchat.

Another way that I like to use Tweetchat is to embed it into my website. This way someone can easily join the conversation from my website. The great thing about Tweetchat is that if you want to, you can embed tweetchat into your WordPress blog,

Embedding tweetchat into your WordPress blog takes just a few minutes. Here’s how to do it.

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The History of Photography [Infographic]

A Brief History on Photography

It’s hard to believe that photography has been around since 1826.  Over the past 100+ years, we have seen a number of technological advancements in photography.

For example, in 1878, high speed photography made its first appearance.   In 1960, film gave way to digital photos taken from the moon.  Then in the 80s, Polaroid introduced the instant camera, where you could take a photo and have an instant print-out within seconds.  Fast-forward and photography has taken another GIANT leap.  This time, courtesy of social media and mobile phones.

Past vs Present

In the past, cameras used to be expensive and required film.  Because of this, only professionals tended to own one.  Today, nearly anyone with a smartphone has a solid, quality camera at their disposal because the advancements in photography have helped to shrink the size of the camera, reduce the price, and reduce the need for film, replacing it with a hard drive instead.

Additionally, the proliferation of social networks that have popped up in recent years have encouraged users to share more of their daily lives – and because of that, they’re taking more and more photos.

Because we’re taking and sharing more and more photos, social media has helped us to expand the size of our networks as well as turn us into budding photographers, allowing us the opportunity to pay homage to cameras from decades past with the help of photo filters.

Take a moment to check out an infographic on the history of photography – it’s pretty remarkable how far we’ve come.

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6 Useful Pinterest Tools to improve engagement and get more repins

In just 2 short years, Pinterest has rocketed to the top of many users favorite social networks.  Weekly visits to Pinterest jumped 2,183% – a staggering increase, given its short life. So how can you take advantage of this popular social network without spending all of your time doing it?

In this article we have compiled 6 useful tools for Pinterest to help you create engaging content, schedule pins, curate pins about your brand, and set Pinterest alerts for your website. Together, you now have a powerful toolbox full of userful Pinterest tools to help you grow your engagement, increase your influence with others and get more repins on Pinterest.

Check out these 6  Pinterest tools to help you create more engaging content and get more repins!

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10 ways social media is good for the workplace [Infographic]

Over the years, many people have wondered if social media is a fad. Having been heavily involved in social for 6+ years, I would have to say no, social media is not a fad.  Sure, other networks will come along and replace what’s hot at the time – just look at how Facebook overtook MySpace.  While you cannot stop new networks from popping up, one thing that won’t be disappearing anytime soon is how businesses market and interact with customers and employees.

Judging from the numbers Compliance and Safety reported, some 75% of businesses said they were behind the curve with social media and technology. While consumers have been embracing social media for years, the workplace seems to be just getting around to it.  In fact, check out this infographic on 10 ways social media is good for the workplace

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Don’t know what to post to your social networks, go ask your mom [Infographic]

One of the questions I often get asked about on building a successful Facebook Page or any social media account is what should I post?

Not knowing your business, what you do, what you offer and which channels you’re currently using to engage with customers, I can offer one piece of advice.

Continue reading Don’t know what to post to your social networks, go ask your mom [Infographic]