Review by R. van den Boogaard:

Unlike some other books on the topic of video marketing, Greg Jarboe really GETS it. You can really tell that Jarboe is a PR-professional that knows what he’s talking about. Whereas most books describe YouTube’s features one-by-one, his advice is solid-as-rock and genuinely helps in mapping out a video marketing strategy and implementing it on a daily basis. I love his quote that “YouTube is the center of your video marketing strategy, but not the circumference”. What Jarboe means by this statement is that you should not ignore other video sharing platforms (e.g. Vimeo, Metacafe, MySpace, Blip, etc.), but use YouTube as the core of your video marketing efforts. For one, ability to embed is universal, allowing yourself or other users to spread your content to other social networks.

Review by Brian K. Seitz:

When I received YouTube and Video Marketing: An Hour a Day I dove straight into it. I’m a technical person and have been working with Marketers all my life either to build systems or help in presales engagements. As Marketing has is becoming an online experience more and more, it makes sense to arm oneself with knowledge of the various media options. YupTube, like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook are become forces to deal with in the online world.

Initially I expected a Step by Step, how-to guide. However as I dug through the book I kept asking myself when I was going to get to the first step. It isn’t until halfway in that I started to find some technical aspects of how-to. But even these were not the “here’s how” I expected. After completing the book, I initially felt I had not really gotten what I had hoped for.

However, I then reread the book. This time with a marketer’s perspective. It reads more like a novel than an procedures manual and has one linger and investigate how others are engaging community and creating effective followings through YouTube Marketing. My opinion changed from a (2) to (4) stars after that insight. If you are looking for a technical step by step of loading videos, skip this book. If however, you want to get a flavor of how ours are being successful marketing with you tube and the elements to build your own campaigns. This is worth the investment and a second reading.

Review by Robert S. Robbins:

YouTube is my favorite web site so I didn’t really need to read this book. I only bought this book because it is about YouTube. The authors deserve a lot of “hater comments” because they merely describe how to use the web site. YouTube has already updated their web site, ensuring that this book will quickly become obsolete. I would have preferred a book that explored the social networking aspects of the YouTube community. They could have devoted more chapters to video production as well. There is also no mention of Stickam which is a web site you need to know about to become a YouTube insider. Also, I think potential vloggers should be strongly warned about the extremely malicious harassment that is being allowed to flourish on YouTube.

Review by YOLANDA VARGAS:

I BOUGHT THIS BOOK YOUTUBE FOR DUMMIES I LOVE IT IT’S VERY HELPFUL HAS A LOT OF EASY TO USE INFORMATION AND INSTRUCTIONS IN IT IT SURPASSED ALL OF MY EXPECTATIONS. THE PRICE I PAID FOR IT WAS LOW I SAW THE SAME BOOK IN A LOCAL STORE THEY WANTED FOR IT. THE COMPANY I BOUGHT IT FROM IS VERY GOOD THEY SENT IT OUT AND I GOT FAST. I VERY HIGHLY RECCOMEND THIS BOOK YOU WONT BE DISAPPOINTED

Review by Jeff Lippincott:

I loved this book. It is well outlined and well written. And it is very topical in today’s business marketing world where small businesses can use YouTube to enhance their online marketing efforts significantly. The book has 16 chapters divided into the following five parts:

I. Marketing your business online with YouTube (1-3)

II. Producing Your YouTube Videos (4-8)

III. Managing Your YouTube Videos (9-11)

IV. Working with YouTube Video Blogs (12-13)

V. Promotion and Monetization (14-16)

And each Part is concluded with a “Profile” which applied what had been discussed in the chapters preceding it. I found these profiles very helpful and informative. Not too long ago I read and reviewed “Show Me: Marketing with Video on the Internet” (ISBN: 1884230016). I had high hopes for that book and wanted it to be like the instant book being reviewed. Unfortunately it fell short of my expectations. However, after reading “YouTube for Business” this other book might be a good companion read?

Internet marketing today seems to be about putting together successful ways to generate traffic to your company or nonprofit Web site. You can do this by performing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques. You can do this by creating lots of content pages in your Web site. You can do this by writing articles and posting them on free article-posting sites online. Each article will have a by-line directing traffic back to your site. You can generate traffic by creating one (or more than one) blog which will direct traffic back to your site. And after reading this book you can generate traffic by creating simple videos you post on YouTube that will direct viewers back to your Web site.

The really neat thing about YouTube traffic generation is that it not only generates traffic, but it allows you to get your face and voice in front of people as though you were standing there talking with them. You can become three-dimensional rather than just two.

My favorite part of the book was Part II where the author goes into some depth into how to produce videos for posting on YouTube. And it is these same videos you will want to paste into your main Web site and your blog posts. I highly recommend this book for just about any small business owner who wants to make a name for themselves better and quicker. 5 stars!

PS. Take a look at the Search Inside material offered by Amazon so you can examine the Table of Contents of this book and more fully understand what this book has to offer.

Review by Tami Brady:

Lately everyone seems to be talking about YouTube. What started out as a place to waste a few hours watching stupid people tricks has grown into the next big marketing thing. It makes sense. Where else can you get your infomercial or other video blurb in front of millions of people without paying a cent?

Many people are jumping on the bandwagon without thinking. They post their old commercials or send in a clip without much thought about if they should be using YouTube. While YouTube can be a great opportunity, it has to fit your company and your product. Like any marketing plan, you have to know your target audience and find out they need, want, and desire. Then, tailor your product and your marketing to suit them.

YouTube for Business goes through the complete process from figuring out if YouTube is right for your marketing plan and shooting a video through editing and formatting concerns to posting your video at YouTube and other like-minded sites. If you are the least bit curious about online video marketing, you have to get this book. It will help you figure out what you need to do and how to go about do it.

Review by Robert S. Robbins:

Finally, a book about YouTube that shows a clear understanding of the web site’s potential for social networking. The authors have really done their homework (or research) well and picked up on things that other writers have missed. For example, they noticed that YouTubers often extend their social interaction to other sites like Stickam. And they caught the controversy over the Partner program which served to divide the community.

I’m very invested in the YouTube community so I found it fascinating to read the observations of social scientists on this cultural phenomenon. The authors have done an excellent job of explicating the significance of YouTube as a creative community and cultural force.

In summary, this book is quite impressive. As an active participant on YouTube I can attest to its accuracy. I even found some insight into certain aspects of the online world through phrases like “attention economy”. The YouTube community is certainly the biggest group of attention whores you’d ever meet and it is important to realize how much of their creative endeavors and drama is a fight for attention in a media economy driven by attention.

Review by Midwest Book Review:

Instant, accessible video has revolutionized the world. “YouTube: Digital Media and Society Series” discusses the impact that the video website has had on society by making a wide variety of videos available for the public’s perusal. Advertisers have flocked to the sight, pop culture revolutions have been fueled by it, social crusades have been forwarded using it. The authors, both experts in media studies and creativity and innovation, provide a scholarly look at YouTube and why it has come to dominate the internet as it has today, making “YouTube” a powerful addition to any internet studies collection.

Review by Allen Stenger:

This is a thorough introduction to creating videos for YouTube, aimed at the absolute beginner. It is especially strong on explaining how to tell a story and on how to behave yourself as part of the YouTube community. The emphasis is on making art, not on making money.

It is not a techie book. There’s a long chapter called “99-Cent Film School” that covers the mechanics of creating a video, but it’s very basic and deals mostly with the selection of equipment, with some discussion of editing. The book is unusual in that it is not Macintosh-centric: the authors use Windows and claim there’s no need to consider Macintosh because Windows is cheaper and has more software.

The authors summarize their position on p. 248 as “Don’t watch the media, be the media.” This is a good sound bite and gives the flavor of the book, although it is not really accurate since they encourage watching and commenting on the videos of other YouTubers. (Besides, if no one watched the media, would there be any media left?) The authors detest traditional media, especially television, and they detest much of the new media too. This doesn’t have much impact on the book, except to cause occasional outbursts of gratuitous nastiness. For example, on p. 244 we read, “Social networking provides websites to people who shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a computer.” Although there’s some truth in this, it is unnecessary to state it here. The isolation from other media also gives the impression that YouTube is its own universe, with no connection to anything else.

The nastiness comes out in concentrated form in the Preface, which attempts to explain “Why You Should Buy This Book” by trashing the competition. Be sure to skip this section of the book! It’s not representative of the rest and reading it will turn you off from an otherwise-good book.

There are a number of rough spots that could have been improved by better copy-editing. The book is somewhat rambling. Although it does explain all the YouTube and computer jargon, it may use a term many times before defining it. For example, the term “partner” is used throughout the book but is not explained until Chapter 11. The index is often no help; “partner” is not in the index as such (you have to look under YouTube Partners), and acronyms such as RSS and NLE are not indexed at all.

YouTube URLs are cryptic pseudo-random character strings, and a Very Good Feature of the book is that the authors have placed every URL as a hyperlink on one page on their web site, so you just have to click it. This is not quite as good as feature as it could be, because the cryptic URLs on that page are not annotated other than with a cross-reference number such as “URL 9.3″; if each had a short description or title the page would be easier to navigate and would also be great for browsing.

Review by Melissa D. Anelli:

I know very little about YouTube – or, at least, I did, before reading this. I missed the growth of YouTube as a phenomenon for self-made videographers, and as such only knew the basics: You can upload, you can subscribe, and it’s fun. Reading this book got me up to speed instantly: I learned about subscriber etiquette, how to legitimately make better videos and expand my userbase, and most importantly how to keep on having fun doing it. The title is apt: “An Insider’s Guide.” Alan and Michael have clearly spent a great deal of time inside YouTube, learning its tricks on a very micro level, and distribute them with clear writing and relaxed wit. Highly recommended!

Review by Waldemar Puszkarz:

I have come across this book in my local Borders bookstore just today and as a huge fan and frequent user of YouTube I must say that I like it a lot. The book is perfectly suitable for beginners and I believe that it was written with them in mind. However, because of its pretty comprehensive character, it can serve well as a basic reference manual for all other readers as well. I highly recommend it to everyone who wants to learn more about YouTube.

Review by Bruce B. Razban:

YouTube 4You is an Excellent Start, and More…

I picked this book since I wanted to quickly come to speed with YouTube.

This book did exactly that!

Also, like other work done by Michael Miller, this too is an impressing work. It is very clear that the author knows what he is talking about, and he is good in making difficult things easy to understand.

Chapters 1 to 11 are great introduction 4 everyone and viewers, on how to create and share videos including legal issues!

Chapters 12 to 16, which is 4 Advanced Users goes beyond introduction and helps you join the YouTube Community, adding your Blog, and even profiting from your videos as well as how to troubleshoot.

Excellent, brief and to the point, with pictures and examples, and professionally written!

It is also well worth the price.