#huzzaz

Bow down b*tches! Check out this awesome @Beyonce video playlist: http://huzzaz.com/collection/queen-b

Huzzaz WordPress video gallery tutorial

A screencast to show how to easily embed a Huzzaz video gallery in to a WordPress website. Huzzaz video galleries allows you to easily curate videos and embe…

This week’s awesome list is pretty epic. I mean, when I can sit down and watch 100 of the best Indie Sundance Short Films in one place, that makes me pretty happy. I only have one choice, and that is to call Netflix and put my subscription on hold; it might be a while before I return.

Gary (LearnBlog.org) - 100+ Indie Sundance Short Films.

Chloe Brooke - DIY, Fashion, and Makeup.

Annvega - A Librarian with 9 Awesome Education Collections.

Jarebearsall - Stay Fit with Crossfit and the Kelo Diet.

AussieZ - Thanksgiving recipes and dishes!

With 15,000+ videos now on Huzzaz, we're excited to showcase some of the awesome people who have built amazing video collections. This is the first of many blog posts that will highlight 5 people on Huzzaz.

Each of us is inspired by something different. We all seek to learn and explore our passions, and discover new ideas. Below you will find 5 people doing just that. Go on now, explore their story and the videos they love!

Vdejesus - A teacher with 7 awesome education collections.

Stuff Thus Far - A New Zealander creating collections for her blog.

Webselecta - Videos from around the web. A curation master.

Druryandcurry - Around 250 music videos. Whoa!

David Hanley - He doesn't just collect extreme sports videos, he jumps from planes too.

Check them out, follow them, and enjoy their awesome collections!

Whether you are a YouTube superstar or not, there are certain limitations to relying on YouTube to grow your brand, business, and vision. YouTube is great because it provides free, global, HD video hosting, but that does not mean you need to stay in their box and be limited by them. In fact, YouTube gives you the tools break out of their own box! Most people just don’t take advantage of them because it’s cumbersome, requires a bit more work, and probably most common of all, they just don’t realize they can. The first step to breaking out is to recognize the walls that are put in front of you. By doing so, you can pick the right tools to gain your freedom. An iron file won’t help you bust through a concrete wall, but it can give you hope if you’re staring at iron bars.

YouTube owns your subscribers and the relationship with your fans - YouTube knows who they are but you don’t have an easy way to connect with them. Do you have the ability to email your entire fan base? You should.

YouTube controls the advertising and advertising relationships - They control the sponsored videos that appear next to yours and they control the dollars coming in from advertisers.

YouTube controls the look and feel of your channel - It’s difficult to personalize your page, organize your videos to make it easy for viewers to watch, and the commenting system is a mess.

Now what? - Time to bust loose!

Create your own website - Put a flag in the dirt and claim your ground. Set up a home turf where you make the rules. There are many free options out there like tumblr and blogger, each with unique themes to make it your own. There’s also Wordpress and WYSIWYG website builders like Squarespace, Weebly and Wix that make building your own internet home easy.

Get to know your fans! - Set up an email sign up form so you can reach out to them, update them, interact with them, and start to create deeper relationships with them. Mailchimp makes it easy to set up a sign up form on any website and if you have less than 2,000 subscribers, it’s free.

Personalize and control your website - Make it your own. Embedding 10 videos on a single page feels antiquated and is a poor user experience. Huzzaz make it easy to organize and create video galleries to show off all your videos and make it easy for your users to watch them all. If you're not happy with the commenting system of Google+, there are plenty of other options that could server you better. Disqus is integrated with Tumblr and Wordpress has its own commenting system that is easy to manage. You don't need to settle.

The nice part about all of this is that you don’t have to abandon YouTube’s video hosting services. With a little bit of work, you can do all this cheaply and add to the benefits that YouTube provides.

Even if you’re a video content curator, you can use the same tools to build a brand or network around the videos you like or want to promote.