If you perform a search on YouTube for a specific location you’ll see a map just below the search box on the left. Click on the map and you can find all videos for that local geographic area. Is this a good tool for local businesses?

It may be. I think the YouTube geographic search has some work that needs to be done to it, but you can upload videos of your local community or business and anyone performing a local search of videos for your area will also be given the opportunity to view your video. If you live in a small community then you’ll have an advantage over the folks living in large metro areas. It’s a numbers game.

Video marketing is beginning to pick up speed and YouTube adding this new local geographic search feature will make video marketing even more important for small businesses. I’m looking forward to future improvements.

An article at Inside CRM lists 15 websites that can influence your business for good or bad, but the article is rather flawed. Here are the 15 sites the article lists that are influential enough to make or break your company:

• Google
• YouTube
• Amazon.com
• Wikipedia
• Facebook
• MySpace
• Digg
• TechCrunch
• Colbert Nation
• Valleywag
• Twitter
• The Smoking Gun
• Oprah
• The Consumerist
• The Huffington Post

The problem with this list is that most of these websites don’t give a hoot about your small business enough to pay it one iota of attention, let alone boost it on a pedestal or drag it through the mud. Of this list, most small business owners need only consider 4 of them, maybe 5, as potential websites to concern themselves with in protecting their brand.

Those 5 sites are:

• Google
• YouTube
• Facebook
• MySpace
• Twitter (wild card)

Google, of course, is the most popular search engine today. They really don’t care about your site. An impartial source, Google algorithms do all the work. It’s up to you really how well, or how poorly, you are perceived through Google’s lenses. Google does nothing; you do everything. They catalog information; you present it. But you can build a solid business online without being listed in Google (though I wouldn’t recommend it).

YouTube is a video sharing site. Yes, you can have videos go viral. Many have. But look at the odds. Seriously, millions of videos uploaded, only thousands with a record of success. Possible, but don’t bet money on it. Just build your brand honestly, create and upload videos if they’ll benefit you, and just do good business. To be honest, YouTube isn’t for everyone, but for those that it will benefit it has potential.

Facebook is one of the best ways you can build your brand. Like Google, it does nothing. You do everything. These sites provide the opportunity; it’s up to you to take advantage of it. Network, network, network.

MySpace is for teens. Does your business cater to teens? Use it. If not, forget about it.

Twitter, I’ve never used it. I’ve heard it’s great. It probably is. Many people use it and say sweet things. If you want to give it a go I see no reason why you shouldn’t.

But what about the rest of these sites? Amazon.com is an online book store and product retailer. Do you sell through them? Is it a place that you could sell through? Then by all means it could help you. If you’re not a retailer then Amazon likely won’t be much good for you.

Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia. Most of us don’t need to be listed there. Have you made any significant accomplishments? Maybe they deserve a mention. But don’t expect a flood of business just because your friend Biff went up and told the world that you won the Blue Ribbon Award for Dog Grooming in Nantucket, Illinois (Is there a Nantucket in Illinois?).

TechCrunch, Valleywag, The Smoking Gun, The Consumerist, and The Huffington Post are all news sites. If you aren’t newsworthy then you likely won’t be mentioned on any of these. TechCrunch and Valleywag only deal with technology so if you aren’t a technology company then don’t count on it. The Smoking Gun destroys reputations. Sound inviting? The Huffington Post is a political site. The Consumerist is The Smoking Gun of the marketplace, but if you aren’t a big brand worth talking about then they likely won’t care that you ticked off Bongo the Clown because you didn’t have any red balloons.

That leaves Oprah, Colbert Nation, and Digg. Oprah is very influential. But you have to work your soles off to get on her show and it’s a task. Unless you have something that has a very wide and potentially popular appeal, don’t waste a lot of time chasing Oprah.

Stephen Colbert is a funny guy. Why would he care about your small business? Only Colbert knows.

And Digg, hmmm. Interesting site. Can help you get a lot of traffic. But if you look like you are trying to get publicity through Digg then you’ll get blasted by the in crowd at Digg. They either like you or they don’t and they generally don’t like marketers. But you can get some traffic here. Personally, I think you’re better off with StumbleUpon and a few other social sites. The most popular isn’t always the best.

Honestly, Yahoo and MSN Live can do you better service than some of these sites. As a small business, just stick to the basics and you’ll do fine.

Do you have a small business Internet marketing blueprint?

OK, you may not think of yourself as a little guy and maybe I’m being a little bit condescending, but let’s face it - small business owners need every little edge we can get. Can’t we?

There are a ton of social media tools out there that can help you make the most of your online marketing efforts. Some are worth it and some aren’t. Erica DeWolf has put together a little blog post highlighting a few of the tools that you can find useful. Among them are:

• Facebook
• Blog
• RSS feeds
• Podcasts
• Videocasts
• Twitter

I can vouch for most of these myself. For business social networking I like LinkedIn, but I’ve heard that many marketers have been successful with Facebook (it’s probably a generational thing). But I highly recommend blogs and RSS feeds. What Erica says about RSS feeds, that you can use them for anything, not just blogs, is true.

Two things that work really well with RSS feeds are podcasting and videos. Two very powerful methods of marketing that allow you to communicate with your customers as if they were right in front of you.

I don’t have any personal experience with Twitter, but it is a hot item right now. I highly recommend that you include some form of social media marketing into your mix of marketing strategies. For a consultation on which methods might work for your situation, contact Small Business Mavericks today.

If you have a blog and you are wondering what you can do to increase its effectiveness without breaking your budget then take a look at these five free Internet marketing strategies that compliment blogging well:

• Article Marketing - Article marketing has been around for a long time. You can write an article and distribute it online quickly and easily. Totally free unless you use a ghostwriter or hire someone to do the distribution. Even then it’s relatively inexpensive compared to other forms of marketing. It requires consistency and you can use your author resource box to drive traffic to your blog.
• Social Bookmarking - Social bookmarking is the natural sister to blogging. If you have a blog, promote it through social bookmarking. Very easy and free if you do it yourself.
• Press Release Distribution - Press release distribution is more expensive than any of the others on this list. To be most effective, you’ll have to pay something for the best distribution. But if you do this only when you have a great promotion then you’ll get a good response from your efforts.
• Podcasting - To do podcasting correctly you’ll have to spend some time on it, but you can do it yourself for no money. And it does drive traffic right where you want it to go.
• Video Marketing - Many bloggers use videos on their blogs. It’s called video blogging and it’s very effective. If you can speak into a camera you can do this. YouTube makes it very easy to upload your photos and it has a huge traffic base from which to draw.

These five Internet marketing methods are great compliments to your blog and easy to incorporate into your daily routine.

Greg Sterling of Screenwerk is telling us that local video marketing will be a big thing within two years. I think he’s right.

I think his suggestion to YouTube to open up a local video channel is a good idea. He quotes HitWise as saying that YouTube already has 73% of the market. While Yahoo! and Google Video are both used to some degree, there is a huge margin between the market share enjoyed by these three video marketing channels. Second place running, MySpaceTV, has only a 9.21% market share, down from 17.73% one year ago. It looks like Google acquiring YouTube has paid off.

Making a video is relatively simple. You don’t have to spend a lot of money. You can hire a young college or high school student who knows how to operate a video camera and editing software and pay them to create marketing videos for you and upload them to YouTube and the other video sharing websites. Marketing online through video is a lot less expensive than off line marketing used to be.

Video marketing is huge these days and it´s so easy to do that it´s a real shame if you aren´t using video marketing to help promote your business. You don´t even have to host your own videos on your website, you can simply use a free video host like YouTube. There are plenty of similar video sites available, but none has yet reached the popularity of YouTube, which is what makes it such a great place to start your video marketing campaign.

YouTube Video Marketing Tips

• Create a profile. You definitely need to customize your profile and include links to your website in it. When someone wants to check out what else you have available, they will look at your profile.

• Set up a playlist. Many YouTube users look specifically for playlists, so if you have more than one video, you can set up a playlist and reach more users.

• Make friends. Video marketing works much like social media, so forming a community on video sites is an excellent way to make sure that more people see your videos and visit your website.

• Use people. Using people in your videos will make them more dynamic, not to mention, they will tend to want to show their friends and family and your video will spread that much faster!

Video marketing is still a vastly underrated type of marketing, meaning that not a lot of people are using it and this is an area that is wide open for the taking. Why not try boosting your business with some video marketing? It doesn´t have to take much time or money and you could end up with plenty more traffic to your business site.

Caroline
Small Business Mavericks
Back to the Blog

Video marketing is a very effective medium, since people are so visually oriented. Have you considered integrating video marketing into your email marketing campaign? This can be an excellent method of adding more interest and value to your newsletters and you´ll find that readers respond well to the addition of video links in your email content.

What sort of videos should you include in your emails? Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Video Marketing for Email

• Tutorials - anything to do with your business is perfect
• Tips - for getting the most out of your service or product
• Interviews -with someone big in the industry, this could be via webcam
• Walkthroughs - particularly good if you have a software product that you´re selling
• Testimonials - have happy customers send in a video of themselves talking up your product

Video marketing through your email newsletter will help create a better bond with your readers. It really does help to provide a multimedia experience where people can not only read about your business, but actually see it in action. It´s definitely worthwhile adding this technique to your email marketing repertoire.

Caroline
Small Business Mavericks
Back to the Blog

Video marketing can be a good, visual method of promoting your business, but it will be more effective if you make it more visible. Here are a few ideas on doing just that with your video marketing.

Make it obvious. People are already accustomed to webpages full of graphics so they might not realize that one is actually a video. Make it easy to see with one of those big “Play Video” buttons in the middle of the screen.

Keep it short and let them know. Telling someone that they can learn how to edit a book in just 2.5 minutes will grab their attention. We don´t have much time in our busy schedules nowadays, so it´s necessary to offer people fast solutions.

Start big. Don´t let your video slowly move into the meat . . . you want it to be great right from the start. That way, your video marketing campaign will keep more people watching, and it´s more likely to get linked to, as well.

Use your business logo. Using a logo in video marketing is important. It should appear at the beginning and at the end of your video, just to burn itself into the brain of anyone watching the video. That way, they´ll remember you next time they think of your product or service.

Turn up the heat on your video marketing and make it worthwhile. Use your logo and make your video short and sweet. Think about ads . . . they rarely go over 30-60 seconds and it´s not just because of the cost. Short and exciting keeps your viewers interested.

Caroline
Small Business Mavericks
Back to the Blog

The other day, I wrote a post on video marketing that drew a little attention. It was pointed out that perhaps it´s not possible for a start-up business to do high quality videos. I beg to differ.

First of all, high quality is not the same as high priced. It is very doable for a small business to make their own, quality video for video marketing. Even if you have to do it yourself, with a HandyCam, you can do a good job of it, it´s all in the technique. So, if you are one of those who believes that small business video marketing equals garbage videos . . . think again.

How to Create Quality Videos on a Budget

1. Have a script. Doing a good job means knowing what you are doing. You don´t necessarily need a super detailed script, but blocking out the basics will help you do a better job.
2. Practice speaking. Don´t expect to make it through the speaking part of the video without rehearsing. Make sure you eliminate all those “ums” and “ers” that can make your video marketing look very unprofessional.
3. Set up a background. This is super easy. Drape a sheet over a clothesline or stand in front of something nice, like a forest. The idea is that you or your main subject stand out.
4. Light well. Outdoors is actually the best light you can get and it´s perfectly free. Try to shoot on an overcast day, since bright sunshine can cause dark shadows.
5. Use a tripod. Low quality videos tend to be shaky. Make sure yours isn´t by borrowing or buying a tripod, or, set the camera on a table on a bag of rice to keep it steady.
6. Keep editing simple. Avoid cheesy wipes and transitions and stick to simple cuts or short fades. Microsoft MovieMaker comes with new PCs and is very easy to use.
7. Make any titles easy to read. Use black if you have a light background or yellow for dark backgrounds (it stands out better than white).
8. Use simple fonts. Times New Roman and Verdana or Arial are best suited for video marketing use. Simple equals professional.

Video marketing is so effective, you don´t want to miss the bus just because it sounds like something only big businesses can use. No matter what size your business is, video marketing is a possibility and a good idea.

Caroline Melberg
Small Business Mavericks
Small Business Mavericks Blog

Video marketing is one method of catching people´s eye when they pause on your site. With just seconds to get their attention, you want something interesting and useful. Video tutorials fit the bill perfectly.

You can create a video tutorial on just about anything, making video marketing ideal for connecting with readers and building up your popularity, drawing more traffic to your website. Pretty much any niche website could use a video to add some interest.

When planning your video marketing campaign, don´t forget to add social media into the mix. You´ll want to bookmark your tutorial on the major social media sites like Digg, StumbleUpon and the like. This will help you gain traffic from these sites and if your tutorial is done well, you´ll end up with plenty more bookmarks and even more traffic.

The trick to doing video marketing in a manner that will boost traffic is to create a video that is of high quality and that offers some real information. Don´t make it an ad, make it something that helps your visitors and they will be happy to tell their friends about it. Adding some humor can help your video tutorial go viral, but if you aren´t a funny person by nature, it´s best not to try. Just focus on making the video interesting and useful.

Caroline Melberg
Small Business Mavericks
Small Business Mavericks Blog