• by P.J. Bednarski , Staff Writer @pjbtweet, April 11, 2016

Donald Trump plays the media like a fiddle, or so I like to think. If he speaks, CNN is there, and if not, then Fox News.  

The Real Donald Trump on Twitter is a staple.  

Trump has taught other politicians something important that he’s learned from having a television series: All politics is episodic. There is always a new Trump show. Keep the content fresh.

So I was pretty interested in the media perspective of Matt Ballek, a veteran video production pro and self-described “SEO strategist and evangelist.” He opines on ReelSEO.com that Donald Trump is not cutting it on YouTube. He is, to use one of his favorite descriptors, very bad. To use another one: You wouldn’t believe how bad he is.

In his short piece on ReelSEO that accompanies a video he made, Ballek is surprised that “Donald Trump Knows How To Promote, But Not On YouTube.’ For one, Trump has not overstuffed his YouTube channel.

On the official Donald Trump for President YouTube channel there are only 39 videos up there--a “tiny handful,” he winks--compared to 147 for Hillary Clinton on her site, 874 for Ted Cruz and 1,077 for Bernie Sanders. No wonder so many feel the Bern. He’s in their face.

What’s more, Trump videos are a little lite and off-point. Some of them are how-to-caucus videos hosted by daughter Ivanka.

There are relatively tame comments after her Ivanka's videos, in my view. One person suggests she’ll make a great president to succeed her father and continue his politics, whatever those might be. Another commenter thinks that succession idea is wrong because” She's not nearly as bat-shit crazy or racist” as Donald Dad.

Ballek is surprised by Trump’s video keywords “There are none,” he points out, about most of the videos.  Donald should know, keywords are huge.

“That’s why you don’t see Donald Trump’s own videos ranking very well, even for his campaign slogan,” Ballek says.

And does he promote his YouTube channel on his Web site? No, not at all. He doesn’t embed links to complementary videos, even when it’s evident there are some.  “It’s almost like he’s built a well and between his YouTube channel and his Web site,”  Ballek points out, punching up the reference to a wall.

That other side of YouTube involvement--viewer comment--is also mighty lame. There are 39,000 comments. That sounds like the engagement a loser like John Kasich would get. (But, Ballek points out, most of the comments that aren’t just lame are, in fact, positive.)

Still, this does not sound like the savvy businessman this country needs right now. This sounds like a pizzeria owner who posted on YouTube once before, in 2013.

There is nothing much to make of Trump’s seeming disregard for his YouTube presence. As noted (by him), he’s still doing very, very well. That’s true. If you type in “Donald Trump videos” in the YouTube search field, it returns with over 4 million matches, and 200 Trump-related videos have gone up there today alone. 

Not all of them are kind. But it’s possible he may not care what you say about him, as long as you don’t spell his name wrong. That’s John Oliver’s job.