Looking to enhance creativity to design creative video? Then look for simplicity. But take note. Simplicity is hard, not easy.

As digital marketing evolves, we continue to see trends favoring video. Here are some quick and easy stats to use to convince your boss to invest in that video project, YouTube ads, or simply qualify your Snapchat habit.

YouTube has over a billion users, almost one-third of total internet users.

45% of people watch more than an hour of Facebook or YouTube videos a week.

87% of online marketers use video content.

Make the simple complicated is commonplace. Making the complicated simple, awesomely simple … that’s creativity.

Connecting ideas are how new ideas originate … it is the basis for creativity. Most of the time regarding finding more ideas to add to our list of consideration … the more new ideas to connect, the more chances of improving your creativity.

Though it has some competition, YouTube remains the premier video site on the web. With a staggering amount of videos uploaded every day, some people even make a living from the service. Here are ten great alternatives to YouTube, although the “better than” is obviously open to debate.

No matter if you’re a casual YouTube user or go looking for the craziest channels you can find, there are all sorts of ways to tweak YouTube to make it just right for you.

Let’s look at some URL tricks to get more out of the service.

Creative video … make a GIF from a video

Have you found a YouTube video that has a GIF-worthy moment? You can easily create an animated GIF from any part of a video by adding gif before the YouTube link. So, to edit this video into a GIF:

Find The Best GIFs On The Web With Giphy, A Dedicated Search Engine For Animated Images Find The Best GIFs On The Web With Giphy, A Dedicated Search Engine For Animated ImagesGIFs are commonplace across the Web, but it’s sometimes hard to find the right one for the right situation. Thankfully a new dedicated search engine just for GIFs has arrived. Its name is Giphy and…READ MORE

youtube.com/watch?v=gy1B3agGNxw

Change the URL to this:

gifyoutube.com/watch?v=gy1B3agGNxw

You’ll be brought to Gifs.com, where you can add a variety of effects and crop the GIF to your liking. Once done, share the GIF to social networks with an easy link or download it for safekeeping. Note that videos must be under an hour to use this service.

Link to any part of a video

Typically, when you copy a link to a YouTube video, it starts from the beginning. If you want to show someone just a bit of a video or skip a lengthy intro, you can append a time stamp to the URL to start it at that time.

You can do this in a couple of ways. By manually adding &t=YmXXs to the end of a video URL, you’ll set it to start that many minutes/seconds into the video. You can omit minutes, or use only seconds, such as the 90s for a minute and a half. So, this video:

youtube.com/watch?v=7RWI3-8N_-Y

Can be shared 90 seconds in using this URL:

youtube.com/watch?v=7RWI3-8N_-Y&t=1m30s

If you don’t want to use the manual method, pause the video at the time you’d like to share it at, then right-click and choose Copy video URL at current time.

Skip a certain amount of the intro

Similar to the trick that lets you pick the start time, you can also choose to skip a certain amount of seconds at the start of the video.

You can’t specify minutes with this one, so use 90 (seconds) for a minute and a half. And, to skip the first 30 seconds of this video:

youtube.com/watch?v=1F_bG-uJMns

Add start=30 to the URL and get this:

youtube.com/watch?v=1F_bG-uJMns&start=90

This is similar to the timing one, but a bit faster to type and doesn’t require you to remember a certain time stamp.

Grab the thumbnail of any video

It’s common when searching for images to see pictures from YouTube videos, usually titled max res default.21 Quick Browser Tools to Search for Images Online.

What if you want to search for an image similar to the one you see? Or, what if you want to quickly locate an image based on a word or phrase on a page? READ MORE

You can view a high-quality thumbnail for any YouTube video (if it has one) by visiting the following URL:

https://img.youtube.com/vi/[VideoID]/maxresdefault.jpg

Replace the [VideoID] with the text after the v= at the end of a YouTube video. So, to view the thumbnail for this video:

youtube.com/watch?v=YMbm_SFJugQ

Visit this link:

https://img.youtube.com/vi/YMbm_SFJugQ/maxresdefault.jpg

Loop a video infinitely

YouTube is a great place for listening to music, especially video game music. If you’re into a song and want to listen to it over and over, you can add repeater after youtube in the URL. This will open the video at YouTubeRepeater.com, which will loop the video for you.

So, change this URL: How to Listen to Full Music Albums on YouTube for Free Want to listen to full music albums for free? YouTube can do that. READ MORE

youtube.com/watch?v=oeb5LdAyLC8

To this to loop it:

youtuberepeater.com/watch?v=oeb5LdAyLC8

You can tweak the playback using the options below the video if you want to start or end at different points.

Download YouTube videos

If you’d like to download a copy of a YouTube video for your records, there are a couple of URL shortcuts that easily let you do that.

Before the youtube.com in the URL, type either pwn or kick to jump to services that will let you download those videos in a variety of formats. So, this URL:

youtube.com/watch?v=kFIsoq63lwo

Can be downloaded by changing the URL to either of these:

pwnyoutube.com/watch?v=kFIsoq63lwo

kickyoutube.com/watch?v=kFIsoq63lwo

Remember to play fair; don’t download copyrighted YouTube videos, like music. Why Your Favorite Video Just Disappeared From YouTube.

We suspect that you, like us, have found one of your favorite videos suddenly, and inexplicably, removed from YouTube. And it’s extremely annoying. So you might as well understand the reasons behind it. READ MORE

product design videos — Product design videos.

Check out YouTube TV

YouTube TV is an interface designed for smart TVs and apps on consoles. It’s still YouTube, but with less clutter and a few shortcuts that are easier for remotes.

You probably won’t want to make this your main YouTube interface, but it’s worth checking out for a cleaner look.

Just visit this URL to have a look:

youtube.com/tv

Mashup YouTube videos

This one isn’t a URL hack per se as you can’t visit it right from YouTube, but it still uses YouTube URLs, so we include it. Visit YouTubeDoubler, and you can add two YouTube URLs to mix. You can choose to start either video at a certain time to help them sync up.

Whether you see how two songs sound when played at the same time or want to add some funny background music to a clip, see what you can create.

https://digitalsparkmarketing.com/social-media-marketing-wars/

Creative video … fun with YouTube

These tricks will let you get even more out of YouTube! Some of these are built into YouTube itself, while others rely on outside services. It’s possible that any of these could stop working in the future, so your mileage may vary as time passes.

While YouTube remains a staple for viewing video clips, there are some other things you can do with it.

Jump straight to your subscriptions

As hard as it tries, many times the suggestions offered by YouTube aren’t useful.

Whether your recommendations are filled with strange content, or the homepage contains videos you don’t care about, there’s a better YouTube homepage.

Sick Of Irrelevant YouTube Recommendations? Here’s What You Need To Do Sick Of Irrelevant YouTube Recommendations? Here’s What You Need To Do

YouTube’s recommendations can eventually start going wonky, suggesting weird videos that have nothing to do with your interests. When that happens, here’s what you can do to deal with it.

When you’re signed in, try changing your YouTube bookmark from the main site to your subscriber upload page using this URL:

youtube.com/feed/subscriptions

This lets you see the newest videos from channels you subscribe to, so you don’t miss any of their new content. Thus, you’re in control of what you see instead of YouTube deciding for you.

The bottom line

To be effective in this new era, we as marketers need to see our jobs differently. No more just focusing on metrics like clicks, video views or social media shares.

We must successfully integrate our function with other business functions to create entire brand experiences that serve the customer all the way through their experiences throughout the business.

We can do better. Much better. But first, we need to stop seeing ourselves as crafters of clever brand messages and become creators of positive brand experiences.

Need some help in capturing more customers from your social media marketing or advertising? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with your customers?

Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.

Call Mike at 607-725-8240.

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to innovating your social media strategy?

Do you have a lesson about making your advertising better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.

Are You Employing the Smashing Value of Creative Stories

How Small Businesses Win Social Media Marketing Wars

The Ultimate Guide to Creative Social Media Marketing

Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.

Looking to enhance creativity to design creative video? Then look for simplicity. But take note. Simplicity is hard, not easy.

As digital marketing evolves, we continue to see trends favoring video. Here are some quick and easy stats to use to convince your boss to invest in that video project, YouTube ads, or simply qualify your Snapchat habit.

YouTube has over a billion users, almost one-third of total internet users.

45% of people watch more than an hour of Facebook or YouTube videos a week.

More than 500 million hours of videos are watched on YouTube each day.

More video content is uploaded in 30 days than the major U.S. television networks have created in 30 years.

87% of online marketers use video content.

Make the simple complicated is commonplace. Making the complicated simple, awesomely simple … that’s creativity.

Connecting ideas are how new ideas originate … it is the basis for creativity. Most of the time regarding finding more ideas to add to our list of consideration … the more new ideas to connect, the more chances of improving your creativity.

Though it has some competition, YouTube remains the premier video site on the web. With a staggering amount of videos uploaded every day, some people even make a living from the service. Here are ten great alternatives to YouTube, although the “better than” is obviously open to debate.

No matter if you’re a casual YouTube user or go looking for the craziest channels you can find, there are all sorts of ways to tweak YouTube to make it just right for you.

Let’s look at some URL tricks to get more out of the service.

Creative video … make a GIF from a video

Have you found a YouTube video that has a GIF-worthy moment? You can easily create an animated GIF from any part of a video by adding gif before the YouTube link. So, to edit this video into a GIF:

youtube.com/watch?v=gy1B3agGNxw

Change the URL to this:

gifyoutube.com/watch?v=gy1B3agGNxw

You’ll be brought to Gifs.com, where you can add a variety of effects and crop the GIF to your liking. Once done, share the GIF to social networks with an easy link or download it for safekeeping. Note that videos must be under an hour to use this service.

Link to any part of a video

Typically, when you copy a link to a YouTube video, it starts from the beginning. If you want to show someone just a bit of a video or skip a lengthy intro, you can append a time stamp to the URL to start it at that time.

You can do this in a couple of ways. By manually adding &t=YmXXs to the end of a video URL, you’ll set it to start that many minutes/seconds into the video. You can omit minutes, or use only seconds, such as the 90s for a minute and a half. So, this video:

youtube.com/watch?v=7RWI3-8N_-Y

Can be shared 90 seconds in using this URL:

youtube.com/watch?v=7RWI3-8N_-Y&t=1m30s

If you don’t want to use the manual method, pause the video at the time you’d like to share it at, then right-click and choose Copy video URL at current time.

Skip a certain amount of the intro

Similar to the trick that lets you pick the start time, you can also choose to skip a certain amount of seconds at the start of the video.

You can’t specify minutes with this one, so use 90 (seconds) for a minute and a half. And, to skip the first 30 seconds of this video:

youtube.com/watch?v=1F_bG-uJMns

Add start=30 to the URL and get this:

youtube.com/watch?v=1F_bG-uJMns&start=90

This is similar to the timing one, but a bit faster to type and doesn’t require you to remember a certain time stamp.

Grab the thumbnail of any video

It’s common when searching for images to see pictures from YouTube videos, usually titled max res default.21 Quick Browser Tools to Search for Images Online.

What if you want to search for an image similar to the one you see? Or, what if you want to quickly locate an image based on a word or phrase on a page? READ MORE

You can view a high-quality thumbnail for any YouTube video (if it has one) by visiting the following URL:

https://img.youtube.com/vi/[VideoID]/maxresdefault.jpg

Replace the [VideoID] with the text after the v= at the end of a YouTube video. So, to view the thumbnail for this video:

youtube.com/watch?v=YMbm_SFJugQ

Visit this link:

https://img.youtube.com/vi/YMbm_SFJugQ/maxresdefault.jpg

Loop a video infinitely

YouTube is a great place for listening to music, especially video game music. If you’re into a song and want to listen to it over and over, you can add repeater after youtube in the URL. This will open the video at YouTubeRepeater.com, which will loop the video for you.

So, change this URL: How to Listen to Full Music Albums on YouTube for Free Want to listen to full music albums for free? YouTube can do that. READ MORE

youtube.com/watch?v=oeb5LdAyLC8

To this to loop it:

youtuberepeater.com/watch?v=oeb5LdAyLC8

You can tweak the playback using the options below the video if you want to start or end at different points.

Download YouTube videos

If you’d like to download a copy of a YouTube video for your records, there are a couple of URL shortcuts that easily let you do that.

Before the youtube.com in the URL, type either pwn or kick to jump to services that will let you download those videos in a variety of formats. So, this URL:

youtube.com/watch?v=kFIsoq63lwo

Can be downloaded by changing the URL to either of these:

pwnyoutube.com/watch?v=kFIsoq63lwo

kickyoutube.com/watch?v=kFIsoq63lwo

Remember to play fair; don’t download copyrighted YouTube videos, like music. Why Your Favorite Video Just Disappeared From YouTube.

We suspect that you, like us, have found one of your favorite videos suddenly, and inexplicably, removed from YouTube. And it’s extremely annoying. So you might as well understand the reasons behind it. READ MORE

Check out YouTube TV

YouTube TV is an interface designed for smart TVs and apps on consoles. It’s still YouTube, but with less clutter and a few shortcuts that are easier for remotes.

You probably won’t want to make this your main YouTube interface, but it’s worth checking out for a cleaner look.

Just visit this URL to have a look:

youtube.com/tv

Mashup YouTube videos

This one isn’t a URL hack per se as you can’t visit it right from YouTube, but it still uses YouTube URLs, so we include it. Visit YouTubeDoubler, and you can add two YouTube URLs to mix. You can choose to start either video at a certain time to help them sync up.

Whether you see how two songs sound when played at the same time or want to add some funny background music to a clip, see what you can create.

Creative video … fun with YouTube

These tricks will let you get even more out of YouTube! Some of these are built into YouTube itself, while others rely on outside services. It’s possible that any of these could stop working in the future, so your mileage may vary as time passes.

While YouTube remains a staple for viewing video clips, there are some other things you can do with it.

Jump straight to your subscriptions

As hard as it tries, many times the suggestions offered by YouTube aren’t useful.

Whether your recommendations are filled with strange content, or the homepage contains videos you don’t care about, there’s a better YouTube homepage.

Sick Of Irrelevant YouTube Recommendations? Here’s What You Need To Do Sick Of Irrelevant YouTube Recommendations? Here’s What You Need To Do

YouTube’s recommendations can eventually start going wonky, suggesting weird videos that have nothing to do with your interests. When that happens, here’s what you can do to deal with it.

When you’re signed in, try changing your YouTube bookmark from the main site to your subscriber upload page using this URL:

youtube.com/feed/subscriptions

This lets you see the newest videos from channels you subscribe to, so you don’t miss any of their new content. Thus, you’re in control of what you see instead of YouTube deciding for you.

The bottom line

To be effective in this new era, we as marketers need to see our jobs differently. No more just focusing on metrics like clicks, video views or social media shares.

We must successfully integrate our function with other business functions to create entire brand experiences that serve the customer all the way through their experiences throughout the business.

We can do better. Much better. But first, we need to stop seeing ourselves as crafters of clever brand messages and become creators of positive brand experiences.