YouTube has just launched a great new feature called Video Annotations. Video Annotations allows you to add speech bubble type boxs to your videos & link these speech bubbles to another YouTube video or even to your YouTube channel. This is a great little feature.

It means that while a user is watching your video you can send them to a related video or even an infomercial or sales video related to what they are viewing. I’ve already set one up & you can see it in action on my Yahoo Answers Video

As the viewer is watching the video about 17 seconds in a clickable speech bubble pops up saying ‘Click Here For Free Website Traffic‘ as the viewer is already watching a video about website traffic this is very relevant to them & when they click it they are sent to my video about the Traffic Transformer.

This feature can be used for any niche. For example if you’re in the dog training niche & have a dog training video, during the video give the viewer the opportunity to go see some information about your product, an infomercial or some testimonials. This is a great way to deliver information to a potential customer & makes it very easy for them to get more information about you and your product.

Also the googlesystem blog says Annotations are a new way for you to add interactive commentary to your videos. Use them to add background information about the video, create stories with multiple possibilities (viewers click to choose the next scene) or link to related YouTube videos, channels, or search results from within a video.” Here’s an example of an interactive card trick video created using annotations.

Here’s what YouTube’s help center says about annotations:

“Video annotations are a new way for you to add interactive commentary onto your videos!

You control what the annotations say, where they appear on the video, and when they appear and disappear. You can even link from an annotation to another YouTube Video, Channel, or Search result.

To get started, log into your YouTube account and choose one of two options:
Option 1:

1. Click “Account” at the top of any page.
2. Under “Manage My Videos”, click “Videos, Favorites, & Playlists”.
3. Find the video you’d like to add annotations to.
4. Click the “Annotate Video” button.

Option 2:

1. Choose to play one of your videos.
2. At the bottom of your video description box (on the right) you have “Video Owner Options” on a blue background.
3. Click the “Add/Edit Annotations” button.

For more info on how to create and edit annotations, please visit: “How do I create or edit video annotations?”

Video annotations, once published, are shown by default. You can turn them off while watching a video through the “Menu” button on the bottom right of the video player.

Please note: Video annotations are available now as a “beta” feature. We’re working hard to get this out of beta and, once we do, annotations will officially support languages other than English, embeds, and full-screen playback.”

Looking for targeted website traffic? Check out the Traffic Transformer

Got a comment about YouTube Annotations? Leave it below….

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