Announcing: The Partner Communication Hub

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Today we’re excited to announce the launch of the YouTube Partner Communication Hub: the go-to spot for news on the latest features, updates, and events for partners globally. In addition to surfacing the latest and greatest in YouTube happenings, the Hub also provides an easy way to access our various Help resources.
You can visit the Hub here: https://sites.google.com/site/ytpartnercommunications (don’t forget to bookmark it!)
The Hub is a place to:

• Connect with other partners in our Partner Help Forum
• Connect to our Partner Help Center
• Review YouTube's current site issues
• View the partner support team's most recent YouTube video
• Receive site updates and announcements
• Keep up-to-date with YouTube blogs
• Get optimization tips

We encourage you to visit the Hub bi-weekly for updates. You can also receive automatic updates via RSS feed by subscribing to the feed below. You can add it using Google Reader:
https://sites.google.com/site/ytpartnercommunications/Announcements/posts.xml
Mahin Ibrahim, YouTube Partnerships, recently watched the “LittleDog Robot”

Our Must-See CSR picks: Five cause marketing videos to watch

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(This article first appeared on Advertising Age's GOOD WORKS blog.)

If you look at studies about Millennials' penchant for service or society's growing fascination with all things green, it's not surprising that businesses are thinking more and more about how they can increase awareness for social causes as they increase their margins. Earlier this year, Pepsi decided to forego its million-dollar Super Bowl spot in favor of an enormous social media campaign focused on investing in communities and giving back.

Cause marketing isn't new to YouTube -- businesses such as Starbucks and Timberland have been churning out videos on behalf of causes for years, through contests, viral marketing spots and disaster relief pleas. But some are doing it better than others. Here's a look at five videos companies should watch before launching a corporate social responsibility campaign on YouTube:

1. Help the Honey Bees, Haagen-Dazs

This video had YouTube buzzing in 2008. Capitalizing on the popular B-boy/dance battle trend on YouTube, the video mixed impressive dance moves with a catchy beat and kept the audience's attention until the end--when it revealed that it was a video to raise awareness about Colony Collapse Disorder and the widespread disappearance of bees from our environment.



2. The Girl Effect, Nike Foundation

Nike is known for its creative advertising, so it's no surprise that the Nike Foundation's Girl Effect video found an immediate audience on YouTube. It is often said that the most successful corporate cause marketing initiatives help boost a company's bottom line as well as support an important cause. Nike captures women's attention and succeeds on both fronts with this catchy animated short.



3. One Day Without Shoes, TOMS Shoes

With its "One Day Without Shoes" video campaign, TOMS Shoes reinforced a valuable YouTube message: Empower others to become your video advocates. TOMS asked YouTube users to create their own original videos endorsing the campaign (and promoting the TOMS brand by default), and received numerous pieces, including this one from user Rashnu; one from the Jonas Brothers; and this vlog from one of YouTube's most popular users, Mitchell Davis.



4. The Cove PSA: My Friend Is..., Participant Productions

If you're a production company that has just released a documentary about an important cause, you're probably thinking about how to fill those theater seats. Participant Productions cleverly decided to use its connections to create this funny YouTube trailer starring such Hollywood heavyweights as Jennifer Aniston and Ben Stiller. The video seeks to help prevent the fishing of dolphins while getting people excited about the main documentary event.



5. How to Clean Ovens, Seventh Generation

Seventh Generation is a cleaning brand that has built its business on its environmental reputation. But you may not know that the company is also a huge supporter of WAGES, Women's Action to Gain Economic Security. This how-to video series from Seventh Generation stars members of the WAGES community and shows the company's willingness to put the people and ideas it supports front and center.

Posted by Ramya Raghavan, Nonprofits Manager

June Homepage Opportunities

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A bunch of you tagged videos that came in very handy for our Mother's Day and Pac-Man's birthday spotlights last month, so thanks for reading and contributing!

Now we're thinking about Spotlight Videos (if you don't see this module on your homepage, add it here) for the month of June. Spotlights run a few times per week and showcase interesting and timely videos from our community and partners, all organized around an event or theme. Tag any appropriate and relevant video with the tags below to be considered for these spotlights, and please do so well before the date listed below. Please also note that themes and dates are subject to change and spotlights may be added or dropped without notice.

6/10 - World Cup: who's your team? what are your predictions? let's see what *you* can do with a soccer ball (tag: ytworldcup)
6/17 - E3: we're looking to feature the latest from this year's video game expo (tag: yte3)
6/20 - Father's Day: we've already got a curator for Father's Day set, but if you've got other dad-centric videos tag 'em for our Twitter stream (tag: ytdads)

Mia Quagliarello, Product Marketing Manager, Community, recently watched "Take a Look at My (Moo) Card."

Second Season of Effie Worldwide's "Ideas That Worked" Webinar Series

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After the huge success of last year’s webinar series, which we co-hosted with Effie Worldwide, we are proud to announce that we shall be reprising the series again this year. Today we invite to you register for the first installment in this free series, which will take place on July 20, 2010 at 2 pm EDT. All the webinars and tons of great case studies are always available for you on theEffie Worldwide YouTube Channel.

If you join the webinar, you will hear directly from the esteemed agencies and marketers responsible for three off the best Effie Award-winning video and social media campaigns:

• P&G/Old Spice & Wieden+Kennedy- "Swagger: The Scent That Makes A Difference"
• Jack in the Box & Secret Weapon Marketing- "What Would the World Be Like Without Jack"
• Intel Corp & Venables Bell & Partners- "Sponsors of Tomorrow"

Posted by Peter Sherman, Product Marketing Manager, recently came back from VidCon 2010

It's moving day! Find us on the main YouTube blog!

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Faithful BizBlog readers, it’s been a little over a year since we launched this blog to focus on what matters most to advertisers and partners on YouTube. Thanks so much for your readership!

In an effort to make sure you get all YouTube info in one place moving forward, we’ll be consolidating the BizBlog back into the main YouTube blog starting Tuesday. We’ll be posting business-related updates with the tag “BizBlog,” so here’s how you keep up with us:

1) Subscribe to the YouTube blog and sort by the “BizBlog” label
2) Follow us on Twitter or friend us on Facebook
3) Are you a small business? The Google Small Business Blog brings together all the info you’ll need to know about Google’s products and features.
4) Let us know what you want to read going forward by filling out the survey below



See you on the main blog, and thanks again for visiting the BizBlog!

The YouTube Team

Campaign Insights Comes to YouTube

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YouTube is increasingly becoming a key advertising platform for marketers of all kinds, from new display advertisers to some of the biggest brands in the world. A common need for all advertisers is to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns beyond click-through rates or the basic number of impressions. This is especially true for video advertising, which can have a powerful, lasting brand effect beyond click-throughs or conversions.

Last year, Google AdWords launched Campaign Insights, a powerful tool that can give advertisers reliable data about how a campaign has raised brand awareness, or active user interest, in a particular product or service. Campaign Insights compares the impact of a campaign on a large groups of users who were exposed to a display ad campaign with the impact on a similar group who were not exposed to the campaign. Specifically, it then calculates the incremental lift in both online search activity and website visits -- a good indicator of advertising effectiveness. Our models are even sophisticated enough to identify the incremental lift that was specifically caused by the display campaign (as opposed to incidentally correlated.)

Today, we are now able to provide Campaign Insights results for some YouTube advertising campaigns that are reserved in advance (not bought in the AdWords auction). We can currently only measure the effects of relatively large campaigns, but we’re working hard to expand this opportunity to smaller campaigns as well.

Representative graph showing potential effect as measured by Campaign Insights:


Please contact your Google sales representative if you are interested in measuring the effectiveness of your YouTube campaign using Campaign Insights.

Peter Sherman, Product Marketing Manager, recently watched “The Cove”

Watch The Webby Awards on YouTube!

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The 14th Annual Webby Awards were held last night in New York City at Cipriani Wall Street, attracting the best and the brightest of the Internet. Viewers across the globe can get a taste of the evening’s festivities, including highlights, behind-the-scene footage, and 5-word winner speeches, on the Webby Awards YouTube Channel at youtube.com/webby.

To bring a unifying design to the stage and to the site, Tribal DDB New York, a digital marketing agency, created the overall look for the award show. They enlisted Shepherd Fairey’s Studio Number One and The Wade Brothers for creative graphic elements and an original film opener for the 14th Annual Webby Awards.

Now in its second year, the Webby Awards YouTube brand channel experience began with public voting for The Webby People’s Voice Awards. This year all the nominees for Online Film & Video were hosted on the Webby channel (they are still there for viewing now) and for the first time ever, viewers could vote for their favorites -- not just give a star rating -- right on the brand channel itself.

Footage from last night’s event also includes red carpet interviews with celebrities including Vint Cerf, host B.J. Novak’s opening monologue, all winners’ acceptance speeches, and much more including user-generated content from winners in attendance shot live at the event. Check out these clips and more at the Webby Awards YouTube Channel at youtube.com/webby.

Congratulations to all Webby Winners!

Deeksha Hebbar, Product Marketing Manager, recently watched 14th annual Webby Awards highlights.