Here are a few tips on how to make sure you’re capitalizing on static video, mainly the videos that you continue to see popping up on sites like YouTube and Facebook.
Step 1: Decide what outcome you want to achieve with the videos.
Choosing some topics with your objectives in mind is much easier than picking topics to see whether they can fit. Here are some ideas of what your marketing purposes might be:
- Build general buzz and branding
- Sell products and services
- Boost search-engine rankings
- Educate the marketplace
Step 2: Buy some hardware.
Purchase some video equipment based on the amount of video you plan to shoot and the quality you want to produce for your target audience.
- I keep things simple with a Flip Camera (which I’ll discuss later in this chapter), Sony video camera, and lights.
- Other people have green screens,teleprompters, high-end lighting, microphones, and much more. It comes down to your use. For everyday use,simple equipment is fine.
Step3: Shoot your videos.
I prefer to use settings other than an office. You will find videos of me and my team on airplanes, at parks, on boats, and even at fast-food restaurants. The trick with shooting videos is to make them stick. This is why we shoot in unique landscapes. Talking about marketing can be dull. Relating marketing to Big Macs spices it up a bit!
Step 4: Edit the video,as needed.
I prefer to do very light editing, if any at all. Rougher-cut videos are better perceived by prospects and do a better job of creating relationships with your viewers.
- Intro
- Outro
- Add your unique landing page link at the bottom of the video
- Music
- Adjust lighting and sound if needed
Step 5: Set up video accounts with some of the major players:
- YouTube
- Vimeo
- MySpace
- vSocial
- VideoEgg
- Dailymotion
- Brightcove
Step 6: Sign up for a service like www.TubeMogul.com or www.TrafficGeyser.com.
These tools will allow you to submit your videos to multiple places at the same time. TubeMogul is free, whereas Traffic Geyser is a paid service. Traffic Geyser
continues to add new services and tools to help you take full advantage of your videos.
Step 7:Use video everywhere.
Here are some examples:
- On your home page as a welcome video
- As a press release
- To describe a product and your services
- On thank-you pages
- To gather opt-ins
- For FAQs
- As video walk-ons (a person appearing on the user’s screen)
Step 8: Get your video ranked in the top of the search engines.
Google loves video.It’s one thing to get your Web site ranked in the top of the search engines,but it’s another thing to get a double ranking with your business occupying two spots.To do this,simply do the following:
- Shoot a great video on a controversial topic.
- Upload the video to YouTube.
- Insert keywords into the title,tags,keyword tags,
- and description.
- Write at least 25 articles and blog posts that also contain the keywords and point them back to the YouTube page,not your Web site.When you have a large number of links pointing to the video, Google sees it as a more popular page andranks it higher.
