Well, when people go to YouTube they are looking for one of two things: information or entertainment.

Making a genuinely entertaining video is a good way to get a lot of views and potentially even go viral, but it is also much, much harder to do, especially if you are also trying to sell something.

To make a video that is really entertaining you need to be able to throw in some humor and it doesn’t hurt to have fairly high quality video editing skills. Not Hollywood quality, but along the line of people like Frank Kern, who have other people - professionals - shoot and edit their videos for them.

It’s much easier to create a video whose primary purpose is to inform. There are countless “how to” videos on YouTube and a lot of people would rather get their information in video form than in written form.

You can make a how to video for just about any type of product or service. The key is to give away some good, helpful information to show peo-ple that you are knowledgeable in your field.

For instance if you are promoting a cookbook, shoot a series of vid-eos showing how to prepare some favorite dishes.

If you are teaching golf, shoot some videos demonstrating some golf tips.

If you have a product about designing a website, you can create a slideshow with audio, showing some of the steps that you would take designing that website.

It’s a good idea to start your video with a very short jingle - no more than 5 seconds - and to use transition effects between shots, along with a few titles.

People have short attention spans these days, and showing them one long monotonous shot will bore them.

Some programs that allow you to create slideshows and capture screenshots are:
www.photozig.com
www.camtasia.com
www.keynote.com and www.imovie.com (for Macintosh computers)
www.camstudio.com (free)
www.hypercam.com for Windows - free trial
www.jingproject.com (free, for Mac and Windows!)