• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, January 23, 2012

Revenue generated from companies across the U.S. television ecosystem in 2012 will reach about $165 billion, estimates Needham & Co Analyst Laura Martin. The recently published research points to estimates from PricewaterhouseCoopers suggesting that contributions to subscription and license fees paid to cable, satellite and telephone companies will reach $85 billion, along with approximately $80 billion from TV advertising.

Martin writes that the rollout of "TV Everywhere" technology -- the ability to see live TV on mobile and other devices from companies, such as Time Warner and Disney -- during the next 3 to 5 years could contribute $12 billion of revenue annually to the U.S. television market. Even at billions, the dollars dwarf any near-term revenue streams from aggregated digital platforms such as Hulu and YouTube.

Broaden the view of the traditional definition of TV Everywhere, adding content from preprogrammed channels on video sites like YouTube, and that revenue number continues to expand. 

Interest in video content will continue to grow. We'll see it in display ads and search engine queries. Brands not only want to monetize pre-recorded content for channels on YouTube and other video sites, but to stream live programming effortlessly from their YouTube Channels to mobile devices. It appears this will become Google's unofficial long-term strategy.

While at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) earlier this month, several company execs, including Louisa Shipnuck, director of marketing and strategy at Verizon, mentioned wanting to learn more about Google's TV strategy supporting network partnerships, original content and user-generated content from brands and YouTubers.

Marketers must think of video as social content and understand the types of keywords that will return their videos in Google and Bing results. aimClear founder Marty Weintraub said informational searches, among other intent-type of searches, tend to return videos. "For obvious reasons. buy-intent queries don't return videos as often," he said. "Showing videos could distract from lucrative paid-search ads. With this information, title and tag YouTube videos with keywords are more likely to gain results in Google."

Buying Promoted Videos and other YouTube Ad units also works when it comes to optimizing videos for Google.com search results. Weintraub suggests that marketers overlay ads to drive users to their home Web site, and always think of video as social.

Be aware that the video's title acts similar to an "ad," because it will appear in both YouTube and Google and Bing search results pages, according to Weintraub. He also recommends keeping videos short and staying in touch with analytics in terms of how users behave. If users bail after 20 seconds, this should be a clue to marketers that four minutes of video is way too long. 

Finally, disable the public's ability to view analytics for your videos. There is no reason to give your competition insight into what works and what doesn't. Marketers should also study publicly visible analytics for competitors. Weintraub said there is no need to reinvent the wheel and make mistakes that others have proven.

Search marketers should also avoid viewing social marketing as someone else's responsibility. Last week, during Google's Q4 2011 earnings, Nikesh Arora, chief business officer and SVP at Google, said advertisers like Ford, General Motors, Electronic Arts, L'Oreal and their agencies continue to see the efficiency of online branding in the Google Display Network and YouTube. He gave the example of L'Oreal demonstrating that online advertising is far more efficient than television -- partly by testing YouTube's TrueView in-stream, in-slate and in-search ad. The formats returned "significant reach" for the company's branding campaigns with millions of impressions supporting positive click- through rates.

Susan Wojcicki, VP of advertising at Google, added that TrueView ads in general typically garner between 15% and 45% view rates.