Posts Tagged ‘Video Marketing’

YouTube Live Streaming For The Masses

Thursday, May 16th, 2013

The next phase of video marketing has begun. Not too long ago, YouTube rolled out live streaming videos for specific channels. This past week, however, they opened up live streaming to anyone with a channel of more than 1,000 subscribers. That’s almost everybody.

If you are just getting started in video marketing or you are well on your way to reaching 1,000 subscribers, then you have a measurable goal to strive for.

Once you hit 1,000 YouTube subscribers, then you can enjoy some of the great benefits of live streaming. Features of the service include:

  • Real-time transcoding into every conceivable format
  • Showing multiple camera angles
  • Closed captions
  • Ads and slates
  • Any device supported

Here’s how you can know if you are eligible for live streaming on your YouTube channel:

If you want to know if you are eligible, simply check your account features page. If you’re eligible, you’ll see an “enable” button and there you’ll be able to sign up. YouTube says that live streaming capabilities will officially come to these channels in the following weeks.

With live streaming, you can reach audiences right now. You don’t have to wait for your video to parse and go live. You can record it online and make offers, take orders, receive call-ins, etc. Anything you can do on a live TV show can be done on YouTube. Welcome to the 21st century!

Video marketing just got tons better.

Why YouTube And Branding Go Hand In Hand

Wednesday, April 3rd, 2013

One of the biggest mistakes YouTube marketers make is thinking they’ll get a rush of traffic from their uploaded videos. More often than not, the referrals from YouTube are pretty low. That’s because people go to YouTube to watch videos. They are not looking for websites to visit. They want to be entertained or informed.

That doesn’t mean, however, that marketing through YouTube has little or no value. It actually has a lot of value.

But what about rankings?

If you think that uploading vidoes to YouTube and then embedding them on your website is going to improve your website’s rankings, then you’ll be disappointed by that too. More than likely, those embeds will help YouTube rank better. If you own the channel those videos are uploaded to, then your YouTube channel could see a rise in rankings based on number of video embeds and social shares. That’s not a bad thing as it means your brand will have one more ranking than it did before. That’s great for reputation management.

The real benefit to marketing through YouTube, however, is in branding. YouTube is one of the top 5 most trafficked websites online and the second biggest search engine. That means you have a powerful marketing medium.

If you can get your YouTube videos in front of a lot of eyeballs, that’s powerful branding. And it’s the true value of marketing through YouTube. Forget about rankings and traffic.

YouTube Improves Video Channels With One Channel

Friday, March 8th, 2013

Video marketing just keeps getting better and better. YouTube recently introduced One Channel, which is a new platform that allows you to redesign your YouTube channel to appeal to a larger audience. In essence, One Channel makes your YouTube channel more accessible to more devices.

For instance, your YouTube video channel will look the same on a desktop as it does on a laptop or a TV. Even smartphone users and tablet users can see your YouTube videos the way you intended for them to be seen.

You want to see some examples of YouTube One Channel in action? Try these:

As you can see, viewers of your YouTube channel will get an introductory video that will give them insight into your show and what it’s about.

The great thing about marketing on the World Wide Web is that it just keeps getting better. Whether you are into video marketing, e-mail marketing, social media, something else, or a combination of the above, technology, and the Web in general, keeps improving. But if you want to take advantage of it, then you have to get on board.

YouTube is just one option for marketing your business. It’s a powerful option. And if you use it, you can now reach more people on more devices.

Why Google+ Hangouts Is A Great Promo Tool

Friday, November 23rd, 2012

Google+ Hangouts is more than just a promotional tool, but it is a great tool to use for any business, partly because it’s free. But you have to have a Google+ account to take advantage of it. So, once you do have a Google+ account, what can you do with hangouts? Here are just a few of the powerful ways you can use Google+ Hangouts:

  1. To introduce new products or services
  2. Make an important business announcement in the same way you’d use a press release
  3. Invite customer feedback
  4. Deal with customer service issues in real time
  5. Hold a webinar
  6. Host a series of teaching classes
  7. Meet with clients, partners, and others in private or public
  8. Announce winners of a contest, or host a contest in real time
  9. Demo a product or service
  10. Conduct customer interviews or interviews with executives in your company

These are just a few of the ways you can use Google+ Hangouts. There are a lot more uses for this online realtime video technology. You can host meetings in public or private, and you can live stream them through YouTube or your website. That alone makes them valuable business tools.

Why not explore Google+ Hangouts for your business? Figure out a strategy for using this powerful free technology for your business, then turn on the promotional charm.

6 Ways To Use Personas In Marketing

Tuesday, November 6th, 2012

Online marketing can be made more effective if you use a persona. A persona is the voice that is unique to you or a character you create for marketing purposes. One of the most original and most well known personas on the Internet is Jeeves. Remember Ask Jeeves? It was the search engine that later became Ask, but when Jeeves was first introduced to the online world, everyone loved him. Now he’s retired.

Your persona can be your natural voice or it can be a character you create, but it must be unique. It should be a voice that people can relate to. It should also be a voice that people will listen to.

When you create a persona for marketing purposes, if it is effective, then you’ll see your traffic and your conversions go up. Here are 6 ways you can use personas in your marketing:

  1. Your online content. Someone has to write your website. Create a persona for your online website content and keep it consistent.
  2. Your e-mail newsletter. Your newsletter and e-mail marketing is the perfect place for your persona to shine. Your audience is opt-in and ready to listen.
  3. Video marketing. Make a big impression with your videos by using a persona.
  4. Articles. Write articles and distribute them around the Internet. Don’t overdo the persona thing on your off-site content. Make it light to draw in new fans, then drive them back to your website.
  5. Guest blogs. The same thing applies as with articles.
  6. Social media. Social media is the perfect place for your persona. If you attract an audience with your persona, you can drive that traffic back to your landing pages on your own site and close the sale.

When it comes to online marketing, you can be very effective with a unique, original persona.

4 Ways To Increase Your On-Page Video SEO

Wednesday, September 26th, 2012

Forget video marketing as inbound link building. Let’s talk about ways you can increase your on-page optimization using videos. These are simple, easy-to-implement ways you can use videos to increase the on-page optimization of your website and your YouTube channel, but mostly your website.

  1. Design a niche-related video section – Why not encourage other people in your niche to upload their videos to your website? You can do that easily by adding a niche-related video section to your website. It can be a subdomain of your website or a section/folder on your server. Either way and you’ll get the benefit.
  2. Create a sitemap - This alone has a ton of SEO potential. Search engines love sitemaps because they make it easier to crawl your website and find the information they are looking for. A video sitemap specifically lists the videos on your site.
  3. Embed videos on your website - Google indexes embedded videos and sends traffic directly to those embedded videos. Upload the video first to YouTube, then embed it on your website. This works really well if you have good text before and/or after the video to give the search engines great optimized content to crawl.
  4. Include a video transcription along with the video – You can do this on your own website and on YouTube where you upload the video for sharing. The text of the video tells the search engines what your video is about. It’s one of the most powerful optimization tools you can employ.

This is just the tip of the iceberg on video optimization. There is much more you can do, but this is a great start.

3 Ways To Convert Video Viewers

Wednesday, September 12th, 2012

Converting video viewers to customers is getting more difficult all the time. One reason is because there are a lot more videos being produced and shared online today, so people who watch videos have a lot more to choose from. That means you have to give them something to offer that they can’t get anywhere else. Another reason is because people are watching videos on a lot of different devices and at a lot of different venues. They’re not necessarily watching them on your website. That means you have new challenges to conversion.

While it is more difficult to convert video viewers, it’s not impossible. Here are 3 ways to ensure you convert more video viewers:

  1. Keep it short – Instead of producing ten minute epics, keep your videos to under two minutes, three minutes tops. Your video should be short to match the attention spans of your audience, and be sure to grab their attention fast. You have just a few seconds. Don’t squander it.
  2. Be entertaining – People want to be informed, but they want to be entertained even more. Don’t bore your audience. Keep them entertained and they will watch your videos.
  3. Include a call to action - If you want your viewers to take action, you have to tell them what to do. Include a call to action in your videos.

Converting video viewers is difficult, but not impossible. Keep your viewers entertained and give them a call to action.

Learning Video Marketing From The Fortune 100

Thursday, July 19th, 2012

I never thought I’d say this, but the Fortune 100 are learning how to market themselves online – and they’re doing it in rather unexpected ways. Of course, we’re talking about companies that are accustomed to interrupting our regular programming to blast us with marketing messages on our televisions and radios. Now, they’re doing it on YouTube.

Except that they have 2 million subscribers each and those subscribers are engaged with the companies on a level like never before. What’s up with that?

79% of the Fortune 100 companies have YouTube channels, up from 50% two years ago. How are they doing it? By entertaining their subscribers. Here’s an example.

If that looks like a commercial you might see on TV, it’s because the Fortune 100 companies are using the same entertainment-focused approach for YouTube that they’ve learned to cultivate for the TV. And it’s working.

So what can small businesses learn from this approach? You can make videos just like this. Maybe not on the same scale, but you can do it. The key is to entertain your audience while you enlighten them on the benefits of your product or service. Be an entertainer, not a salesman.

With a little creativity, you can produce great videos for your YouTube channel, and you can do it on a modest budget.

Why Not Blog Marketing?

Wednesday, July 11th, 2012

I was taken aback after seeing how marketers and ad agencies differ in their use of specific online marketing tactics. It seems that neither marketers no ad agencies have increased their value on blog content since 2009. Yet, both marketers and ad agencies see more value in online advertising, mobile marketing, and video marketing.

Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against any of those marketing tactics. I think blogging can be more effective than online advertising at a much less expensive cost, but that’s just me.

The big question is, Why is it that after 3 years there was a 1% drop in interest among both marketers and ad agencies in blog content production?

Here’s a marketing tactic that provides real SEO benefits with every blog post, not to mention the value in branding and reputation management that you get with a blog. Plus, if your company has a blog, then you also have an asset that you can use to make social connections. In my mind, a blog is one of the most important marketing tools you can have. So don’t marketers and ad agencies see it that way?

Could it be because writing a blog has such a big commitment to consistent attention? Is it because writing a blog requires at least daily attention?

If this is the reason that marketers and ad agencies aren’t blogging more, then I have a suggestion. Why not hire a blog ghostwriter? It’s an expense, but it’s an expense that has a lot of potential to drive returns.

Can You Market Videos On Pinterest?

Friday, July 6th, 2012

The mark of a good social media website is how serious its owners are about improving it. If the ownership team is serious about creating a useful and rewarding user experience and trying to keep up with the rapid changes of the web, then you have a good social media website. There are a few good ones out there, Pinterest now being one of them.

Pinterest started out as a way for marketers to share images with their friends. Now you can share videos too.

In fact, video sharing on Pinterest is a powerful feature because you can mix your videos in with your regular images, unlike YouTube where people go specifically to watch videos.

Of course I’m not knocking YouTube. It’s a great site for sharing videos and you should use it. But Pinterest isn’t YouTube. People aren’t going to go there just to see what videos they can find, which is what makes it a great place for pinning and sharing videos. You can catch people off guard – in a good way.

But, if you share the same video on Pinterest that you share on YouTube, be sure to give it a new title and description. You don’t want the duplicate content to disappear from the search engine results. If you give your video a new title and a new description on Pinterest, then you have the potential to rank that video on the search engines on both websites. Increase your opportunities with effective Pinterest video SEO.