Website Plus YouTube for How-To Author Platform

I've barely touched my experimental new website in the last three or four months, but it passed a milestone this weekend all the same. After eight months, the YouTube videos that are embedded in the IFITJAMS.COM how-to website pages have passed 100,000 views. That compares with less than 50,000 views for my self publishing videos which I started publishing more than sixteen months ago. The simple how-to videos currently average over 600 views per day, while the much more time intensive self publishing talks average 100 views a day. Yes, there are three times as many how-to videos, but they are much shorter



About the only thing the self publishing videos have going for them is more subscribers. On the other hand, the how-to website gets less than 5% as many visitors as this website. Looking at it another way, the how-to videos have drawn more a few more views on YouTube that the how-to website has drawn visitors in its entire exisitence! On the other hand, the FONERBOOKS website draws more visitors most weeks than the self publishing videos have in their entire existence. So which approach is better for your author platform?

It depends. The reason the how-to videos are so successful isn't because they are particularly well done or because the website is making them popular. It's because how-to videos of all sorts are incredibly popular on YouTube. And it's not a youth movement, most viewers were in the 35 - 54 age range, with more senior citizens than kids making up the remainder. The vast majority of the viewers find the how-to videos by going to YouTube and searching on key words. So if you are writing a book on a how-to subject, or a subject you know generates a lot of interest on YouTube, you should invest serious time building a platform there, in addition to building a website. The two will reinforce each other.

Views of the self publishing videos, on the other hand, are driven almost entirely by this website. There just aren't that many people going to YouTube and looking for self publishing advice. I could try changing the video titles and keywords to see if it would generate more views, but based on the work I've already done I doubt it would make much difference. The main take-away from this experience is that you need to experiment with which platform works best for your work and the audience you are trying to reach. And while the self publishing videos aren't doing anything in terms of helping my business, I like to think they are helping somebody, so here's a double helping:-)



And the original: