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Online video has finally hit prime-time. In 2008, video marketing and video sharing is the newest and most exciting field of online promotional marketing.

Certainly we have all heard about the biggest online video sharing website out there, Youtube. In 2007, Google purchased Youtube and even before this acquisition, the site was growing in popularity each and every day. Youtube is a wonderful site for users to get started with sharing online video content. However, because your video is converted to flash upon uploading it to the website, you need to learn the tips and techniques that will optimize your videos for the best quality result after uploading to the site.

In order to be able to share video online, you need to first have the equipment available to shoot video, capture it, and edit it for online usage. As for cameras, if you dont have a camcorder, most digital cameras, and even some cell phones have video functionality. As for Video editing software, there are many choices for everyone from the beginner to the expert. If you are short on change, most computers already come with tools like Microsoft Moviemaker or Apple iMovie in addition to the literally hundreds of free web-based video tools that you can use online.

While Microsoft MovieMaker is a great introductory program for video editing, it does not do well with videos that are created using a mobile phone. If you are going to capture video from a cameraphone for use on youtube, I would suggest getting Quicktime Pro from Apple. This is a very inexpensive upgrade and can handle conversion in multiple formats.

It is important to note that youtube does not support all of the many many different video formats that are available, and for good reason. However, as a result, you should try to utilize a format such as mp4 or even mov. Most video editing software will support this but if yours does not, I would suggest downloading another program.

The video should be set to the YouTube recommended size of 320240 QVGA. Your camera may have shot the video at a different aspect ratio than the 320240. So be prepared for some exercise but do not stretch or pull the frames.

When discussing which quality, or bit-rate, ideally you will be targeting a final file with a bit rate of 700-1000. I would suggest using 1000kbps, but anything higher is almost a waste as it does not result in much better quality and takes much more time to process.

Once you are ready with size, codec, and quality set up, it is time for the selection of your audio format. It is better to use the MP3 audio codec, which should be standard on your editor.

When you are done editing and exporting your video as a .mov or as a .mp4 format, you would obviously want to preview the video and make certain that it meets your standards for quality. If your resulting project is OK by you, go ahead and upload your video to Youtube.

The uploading of your video, depending on your connection, can take several minutes and if large enough file size, can take up to an hour on a slow connection. After you upload your video, Youtube then automatically begins the process of converting and encoding your file as a flash or flv file. This process compresses your file further but if you followed the suggestions above, you should have a nice resulting quality video on YouTube.

In terms of video search engine optimization, it is always important to know the keywords and phrases that are most relevant to both your content and of course, your target audience. You will want to be certain that you include these words and phrases within the video title, description, and tags. It is also important that you choose the most appropriate category on Youtube to submit your video to.

Choose and appropriate but popular category to post your video in and allow users to post comments, ratings, and embed your video elsewhere as this attracts incoming links to your video page on Youtube and provides you with the opportunity to show up in the Google search results as a result of their universal search initiative and purchase of Youtube.

Good luck to you and your video sharing success.

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