YouTube: An Insider's Guide to Climbing the Charts

Playing the Game

It helps, in real life and on the Internet, if you know how to play the game. You may have also heard it referred to as selling out, or buying in—but whatever you call it, it works. I do it, and I haven't compromised any of my ethics in the process.

Everyone has something to offer others. Maybe you're good at writing short, catchy theme songs or music. MysteryGuitarMan started making some big friends on YouTube after recording brief intro songs for popular users to insert at the beginning of their videos. These users were grateful, and a few made shout-out videos (as discussed earlier in this chapter), which drove traffic to MysteryGuitarMan's profile:

www.youtube.com/user/MysteryGuitarMan (URL 7.3)

Don't let this example of MysteryGuitarMan selling his songs to drive traffic to his profile undercut his talent and video-making skills. As I've stated numerous times throughout this chapter, I can drive traffic to your page, but you have to supply the content. MysteryGuitarMan had the content and then used his catchy, out-of-key themes to drive the traffic.

I met my first few "YouTube celebrities" after creating free banner images for them. I have a knack for graphic design, saw the need (the first few banners were horribly pixilated and designed; early partners had no idea what they were doing), and the gesture netted me a few backlinks and shout-outs in videos.

I've spoken a lot about the community in this chapter, but there is more. Collaboration videos, video responses, ...