Admittedly very few people now a days wants to do things the Poor Man’s way; but sometimes we are forced to (as I have been).  We are told that in business we have to create our own content whenever possible and that videos in Blogs increases their reading rates.  That little trick of putting [Video] in the title brings them in even more!  All true in most cases, whenever possible you should brand yourself and/or your company in a video.  But what about when you have no way of doing videos or simply do not have the resources or time to do it?  There is a way!

I am not a shy man and I am very methodical, if I do a blog I always do a video to get the Triple Whammy—Blog, Blog with Video, and  Youtube!  I know some people just starting out do not have the means to do a video, or may be too shy, or perhaps do not speak the language well, or perhaps like me have a hang-up about their thick accent; there are many reasons for not being able to do video, but for all of this is there is a simple solution.  No, it is not a secret, and definitely not earth shattering news, but it is effective and some people simple will not consider it.  The tip is: use someone else’s video as long as it supports your blog!

Why do I think this is so important to write so much about it?  Well, among others, some people may not think about it and some people may not consider it for fear of copyrights or fear that their competitors on the video will get the client instead of them.  Please do not worry!

As long as you are using Youtube or most of the other video distribution services, you need not fear—they want you to spread it everywhere and they even make it easy for you by giving you the code.  Regardless of who owns the copyright, once you upload to Youtube you give them the license to use the video anyway they see fit based on your privacy settings. So there are no copyright issues about using someone else’s video from Youtube in your blog.

While it is true that if the video is related to your profession it is likely a competitor did it, but not always.  For example here is a video from Hubspot from someone giving a great tip which I have used in another blog:

Are they a competitor? Mostly no, they do deal with inbound marketing and social media marketing like me but their business is not the content production itself. So they provide me with a great video, I promote them a little, and my potential customer learns from me and them with little chance of me losing them.  Like this there are many other examples.  Here is an example of how I have used other’s videos in the past: http://blog.awiserstart.com/2010/09/unleash-internet-privacy-can-of-worms.html  and I even do it in our sister website such as http://awiserstudyabroad.com/index.php?s=272 the videos on the site are great marketer but he does not compete directly with us!  So do not worry so much losing your potential customer, just find the right kind of video and go for it!

For 7 months I have been stuck in Shanghai where Youtube is banned.  It is a great country and city but the internet ban is the only thing I hate about it.  No matter how much I try even using proxies, uploading videos to Youtube, Facebook, or almost any other site is completely impractical.  I had used videos from others before, but it just never occurred to me to use them again.  Until I found the video above that sparked my imagination again, I simply did not even consider it.  So while this blog may seem very basic, it really sometimes does come down to thinking about it!

No matter the reason, if you do not have a video of your own go ahead and find another video you can add to your blog as long as it supports the blog!  There is no reason why not to do it as you are legally able to do it and in fact encouraged to do it, and if you are a bit careful, your competitors will not get your customers when you use other’s videos.