Josh Rimer dot Com
How I'm getting famous and how you can too!

Seeing a news report about someone being discovered on YouTube and getting into a movie, and another one getting into a TV show, are what convinced me to give YouTube a shot for my own acting career (and come up with the $1000 YouTube Experiment to get attention and break through the crowd).

Now those kinds of stories are only getting bigger and better for YouTubers at the top.  You might have heard about 17-year-old Lucas Cruishank, who portrays a fictional character called Fred Figglehorn on a series of YouTube videos that have become a viral hit to kids and tweens. Well, Cruishank recently starred as his famous alter ego in his own movie for Nickolodeon – not just a role in the movie, but a movie all about his YouTube character.  A pretty significant achievement.

So how did he do it? Well, he caught the attention of Nickolodeon producers by getting so many views on YouTube.  Cruishank had more regular viewers than many TV shows do.  He has over 2 million subscribers, which is a pretty incredible number of “regular” viewers.

YouTube experts believe that while unaware of it, Cruishank was hitting all the right formulas to achieve the level of success he had on YouTube. For example, in his video “Fred Goes to the Dentist,” he targets his audiences very well by doing silly things that would surely draw laughs from little kids. These included talking about “underwear”, deliberately humiliating himself by stuffing his mouth with cotton as a gag, and singing a silly love song for his love interest, Judy. His videos are all DIY too and look like a regular person did them, not some big production company. Yes, sometimes having lower budget looking stuff on YouTube can be to your benefit!

In a nutshell, it is still very possible to achieve some type of Hollywood fame through YouTube. YouTube might be filled with one-off viral hits of cute kittens and news bloopers, but it’s also a great breeding ground for mainstream entertainment, and the more popular online video gets in general, the more we’ll start to see YouTubers on TV and in the movies.

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YouTube Comments of the Day – Rihanna – Only Girl (In The World) Parody – Only Gay:

bootscootincrooner has made a comment:
This is hilarious! My boys in the gay bars will LOVE you!
Strawringslove has made a comment:
Wow that was creepy..but hilarious
proudmommy9 has made a comment:
WOW this is good !!!! I loved it !!! Let me know when you wanna go shopping , I need a new gay hubby my girl wont mind ..,P.S. Im a girl hehe

Hey Trenders, here’s your daily look at what’s trending on Twitter!

Last night Barbara Walters had her TV special of who she considers to be the 10 Most Fascinating People of the year. People are tweeting about their agreement, or disagreement, with who she chose to be on the list.

There are things in life that some people have, while others don’t (#thingssomepeopledonthave). Today tweeps are sharing what kinds of things they feel they need to point out are missing from some people’s lives.

And nearly 40 years after his death, Jim Morrison has been granted a pardon for an indecent exposure conviction he received in Florida. Members of The Doors say they’re happy with the pardon, but claim that Morrison never actually exposed his “magnificent member” as the keyboardist put in.

Now let’s take a look at what people are saying about Top Trending Topics!

Hey Trenders, here’s your daily look at what’s trending on Twitter!

Although I hate to give them any publicity, Westboro Baptist Church is trending today. Today they announced that they’ll be picketing at Elizabeth Edwards funeral, the estranged wife of John Edwards who died of breast cancer on Tuesday.

If you had a super power, what would it be? (#ifihadsuperpowers) People are sharing what kinds of things they’d do if they somehow had their own super powers.

And in England protests continue over student tuition increases, this time with them taking place in Parliament Square. There’s a controversial vote on tuition fees happening in the Houses of Parliament, which is where the protestors are trying to break through the police lines to get to.

Now let’s take a look at what people are saying about today’s Top Trending Topics:

It applies to any YouTuber, or any entertainer for that matter, that you have only have once chance to make a first impression. That’s what Funny or Die Vice President for Marketing Patrick Starzan reminded people about when he talked to WebProNews about the three “deadly mistakes” he feels aspiring YouTubers commit with doing online videos in an interview at BlogWorld 2010.

Starzan pointed out that what amounts to probably the most deadly mistake has to do with the frequency of putting up new content, or rather, lack thereof. According to him, uploading only a couple of videos each month reflects a YouTuber’s lack of video strategy, which basically involves a trial and error method of finding out what the community wants and learning from mistakes. It actually makes sense because if you don’t regularly put up videos, you wouldn’t know which one would click and which won’t. In my case, I switched to uploading comedy videos every Friday on my main YouTube channel and kept that going for a couple of months, and definitely noticed and increase of viewers, but especially with my musical parodies, which tells me I should continue doing more of those.

The next thing Starzan talked about was that YouTubers assume that they understand their market, but truth is, they probably don’t. YouTubers need to always try their best in grabbing the attention of their viewers, value what their video community wants, and them feel that they’ve actually “benefited” from the videos in some way. Doing that will result in viewers sharing your videos with their friends, and potentially becoming loyal followers.

The third major problem according to Starzan is about the distribution of video content. YouTubers often forget about aggressively spreading the word about their videos through social media sites because they’ve been so caught up with the video-making process itself. And I totally agree on this point too.  If you take a look at how I promote my daily show Top Trending Topics. you’d see that it has it’s own Twitter Profile and Facebook Page, and that a link to the video is put on both as soon as it’s uploaded, along with a tweet to each person who was featured in the show, and another link on Facebook later on to the blog post containing the video.  Then of course there’s sharing it on my own Facebook wall, in my tweets, etc.

Here’s the video of Starzan’s interview:

More WebProNews Videos

So I hope those three deadly mistakes serve as a wake-up call for you if you’re wondering why your view count or subscribers aren’t going up as much as you’d like them too. If you have committed the mistakes above (and we all have) don’t fret, because there’s no time like the present to move forward and start creating consistent, quality videos that are worth sharing!

What do you think? What stood out the most to you about what Starzan had to say? Can you think of some other potentially deadly mistakes that YouTubers sometimes make?

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YouTube Comments of the Day – Remembering Dick:

Pundit2k has made a comment:
OH MY F**KING GOD!!!!! I CAN’T STOP FUCKING LAUGHING!!!!!

Dlover15 has made a comment:
That is awful lol but awful in a hilarious way!! You always have the most interesting videos lol I can’t wait to see the next one!

demonguy1234 has made a comment:
HA! classic, the ending was great and i liked the idea of outtakes too keep it up you guys are on your way to fame. i can’t wait till you guys are like a real legit group

Hey Trenders, here’s your daily look at what’s trending on Twitter!

It’s been exactly 30 years since the death of John Lennon. People are paying their respects on Twitter to the former Beatles member who was murdered by a deranged fan at the age of 40.

Ever wondered why so many relationships don’t last (#whyrelationshipsdontlast)? People are sharing their thoughts on reasons why relationships just don’t work out sometimes.

And today marks the birthday of actor Ian Somerhalder (birthday Ian), best known for his roles on LOST and Vampire Diaries. The star who’s become quite the teen heartthrob was born exactly 32 years ago today.

Now let’s take a look at what people are saying about today’s Top Trending Topics:

Thanks to Butch News for putting a link to our show on their website! Have you linked to our show or embedded it on your blog/forum/website too? Let us know so we can thank you too!

Hey Trenders! Here’s your daily look at what’s trending on Twitter!

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been arrested (Assange arrested) in London. The founder of the controversial website that leaked classified information from the U.S. is accused of sexually assaulting two women in Sweden in August.

Let me guess – you’re wondering what today’s hashtag topic is (#lemmeguess). People are asking some rhetorical questions and making some sarcastic statements about things they feel are safe to assume.

And Google Mobile Platform VP Andy Rubin showed the world what the Android Honeycomb tablet will look like at the D: Get Into Mobile Conference today. A lot of people are excited about this future version of Android that will come out after the release of the Gingerbread one, which is next in line.

So watch this video for today’s Top Trending Topics!

Making a big impression on your audience is always a challenge for internet marketers and online personalities. Websites used to rely heavily on textual information and photos to hook their audience, but with the rise of so many interactive online tools and of course video, you now need to do even more to stand out from the crowd and keep your visitors’ attention.

Nowadays stats show that more than ever viewers hop from one website to another with only increased expectations, and what seems to be increased ADD! So how can you really stand out and grab their attention? Well, you can start with embedding a video because the movement and sound will definitely snag them at first, but if you want to be really unique, try a seamless walk-on video right over top of the website.

I’ve recently become part of the talent roster of StRut Studios, which offers the kind of service I mentioned above, allowing me to virtually walk onto anyone’s website to welcome visitors and give them a call to action. It’s kind of like how annotations on YouTube work, only that a real person is actually telling you what to do or giving information about the website. StRut’s talent roster is a diverse one that includes a number of individuals that have achieved some level of success in their respective fields, and are assigned to cater to different companies’ needs. I’m offering my expertise on being a spokesperson for companies trying to reach young audiences (particularly in their teens and 20s) as that’s mainly who watches me on YouTube. You can out my screen test/example for yourself, and I also have one here on this blog on the YouTube Page.

Using “out-of-the-box” videos and short presentations on your website is a cool and different way to engage your audience and get some attention. The spokesperson in an interactive pop-up video adds a face to your website, giving it a personal touch, and allowing the viewer to feel like there’s more of a personal connection. You can also do other things with the video like plugging a new marketing campaign or a contest, or making sure that the visitor takes note of something important on the site. There’s really a lot of creative things you can do with a pop-up video like this and I hope to find myself on other people’s websites soon!

What do you think? Do you like the idea of these types of walk on videos?  Do you think they’re more effective than regular boxed embedded videos?

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YouTube Comment of the Day:

ryukyukempoBjjMMA1 has made a comment on Mean voicemail messages – have a listen!: the first kid who left a message sounded like he had no dick

Hey Trenders! Welcome to Top Trending Topics, where we give you an inside look on what’s being most talked about online!

Ready for some eBook shopping? Then go to the new Google eBookstore to see something you might like because a lot of people are talking about it on Twitter. The eBookstore has been revamped for its growing number of users that will allow them to buy and borrow books from its library. It also offers a partnership program with libraries, authors and publishers that allows them to market their new releases for free!

Next, people are talking about #thingsimiss. Once again, people are digging up memories from their past which they’re fond of or would have liked to experience again in the present. Tweeters are also grabbing the chance to share some memories that they wished to have gone through in their past, or shared with other people.

And finally today, people are talking about the new Facebook Profiles layout. Facebook is slowly rolling out a new look for its 500 million users, allowing them to introduce or re-introduce themselves to new friends or to random people coming across their profiles. The new profile page emphasizes more personal details- it shows a short summary of who you are, where you live and work, newly tagged photos, and categorizes your FB friends and the kind of relationship you have with them.

Let’s see what our Tweeps think of the trending topics today:

And those Trenders are today’s Top Trending Topics! Don’t forget to tune in tomorrow!

I found a video that talked about how people are making money with YouTube during a news segments on Fox and I always think it’s pretty cool whenever fellow YouTubers get on the new in the mainstream media.  Ian Hecox and Anthony Padilla, better known as Smosh, were the ones featured in the video, and they talked about how they quit school and ended up making a career on YouTube, while doing what they love. I’ve known for a long time that people on YouTube can make big bucks, but it looks like the average person still isn’t aware of all of the potential that really is there.

What I found to be pretty funny though was a part when the reporter mentioned how YouTube could be worth a shot for the average person as a way to make some money.  In my mind, that’s like telling people that they should consider trying to be a movie star because they could make some good money doing that too.  You don’t go on YouTube to get rich – or at least you shouldn’t.  There are hundreds of millions of people uploading videos on YouTube so you have to really be passionate and persistent to make it big on YouTube and it’s far from a get rich quick sort of thing.

Less than 1% of all YouTube users are accepted into the Partner program, and to get in requires a lot of regular videos with regular viewers -  which certainly doesn’t come easily or quickly (and even when you do become a Partner, the pay is minimal until you start getting into the millions of views). I was also surprised to hear the Reporter say that YouTubers get 75 cents per click on banner ads because a YouTube employee that I had talked to in VidCon 2010 told me that it was actually based on impressions and not clicks, which translates to cost per thousand views (CPM). The YouTuber who uploaded the Fox video told me that she believed ad earnings could also be based on clicks, but without varying amounts depending on the type of ad that’s appearing on your page or channel, and who’s paying for it.

One of the main reasons YouTubers are cashing in big paychecks with their YouTube channels is because of their own video sponsorship deals that they find themselves outside of YouTube. Some of them, like Michelle Phan, have done that with multi-million dollar companies (Lancome, in Phan’s case). Some of them sell merchandises too, which of course only works if you’ve built a solid following in your niche and I’m sure you know that takes a lot of dedication and hard work.

If you want to make money fast, YouTube is definitely not the way to go.  But if you want to get exposure for yourself, show off your skills, or create your own stuff, then it’s a great place to do that.  And then if you keep at it, it can certainly lead to some big bucks down the road if you really have what it takes to get ahead of the crowd.

What do you think? Are you making any money with YouTube?

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YouTube Comment of the Day:

proudmommy9 has made a comment on David After Dentist spoof — Josh After Boozer: OMGoshhhh ! this was just awesome ! Plain and simple just awesome ! I loved it. You’ve got a new sub !!!

Hey Trenders, here’s your daily look at what’s trending on Twitter!

Remember the band Simply Red? Well, Mick Hucknall who was the lead singer, announced that he slept with thousands of women during his career and issued a public apology to them…

If you still have a cell phone that only makes phone calls, then it might be time for a new phone (#uneedanewphone). People are sharing their frustrations with the population who haven’t updated their mobile phones recently or made the switch over to smartphones yet.

And If you’re Canadian and you like hockey, then you know about Ron Wilson, the head coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Fans are annoyed that Wilson continues to coach the team despite a pretty miserable record lately including an emberrassing loss to the Oilers last night.

So go ahead and check out the video of today’s Top Trending Topics!