Couldn’t make it to the YouTube Marketing presentation at Social Media FTW? Here are the slides from that workshop.
YouTube and online video are powerful tools to increase your online visibility, drive more qualified traffic to your website, and convert that traffic into leads and business.
In the YouTube marketing presentation I gave at the Social Media FTW conference I talked about what types of videos businesses should make, how to make videos that get found, and some advanced YouTube tactics to get people to take action while watching your videos.
I showed how to make a CTA (call-to-action) overlay ad and how to use annotations to link one video to another video, playlist, channel and more.
Finally, we talked about how to go beyond YouTube and took a quick look at other video hosting platforms like Vimeo and Howcast, as well as how to use your videos on your blog, Facebook page, and email marketing.
Below you’ll find the slides to the presentation. Since I tend to use a lot of imagery and few words in my slides, not everything may be clear. If you’ve got any questions on the presentation or using video to help market your business, non-profit or cause, please post your question below or send us a message. Thanks!
If you’ve been looking for new ways to increase your online visibility, drive more qualified traffic to your website, and build your business, then be sure to check out the Online Video and YouTube Marketing workshop at Social Media FTW 2011.
We’ll talk about how to find out what type of videos your ideal customers are searching for, what types of videos work best, and how to create them.
We’ll also spend time focusing on YouTube, the world’s most popular video sharing platform. We’ll see how to create a channel, how to get people to watch and share your videos, and to subscribe to your channel. We’ll also look at advanced techniques like adding annotations and linking one video to the next.
If you haven’t bought your ticket yet, go to http://www.socialmediaftw.com and use the discount code “flyte“. That will save you $25 off the ticket price. (You’re welcome.)
See you on 9.22.2011 at the Abromson Center on the USM Campus in Portland, Maine!
You know you need to create online video for increased visibility, but you have no idea what your video should be about.
Just like blogging before it, I’m a big proponent of using online video to increase your online visibility, drive more qualified traffic to your site and build your business.
And just like blogging before it, people are still not sure what they should be creating videos about.
The short answer is, that if you’re creating videos to generate online leads, you should be answering your prospects’ most pressing questions.
A few weeks ago I was on vacation at a lake house we rent. I had never been able to get up on water skis before (only tried a handful of times) but I was determined that this was the week. I went to YouTube, searched for “how to get up on water skis” and found a number of videos. After watching one particularly instructive one I took to the lake. Three attempts later I was up.
Keep in mind that YouTube is the #2 search engine in the world, AND its videos often appear on the first page of Google, the world’s most popular search engine. The right video, with the right title and description, addressing the issues that your prospects and customers face on a daily basis can greatly increase the number of inbound leads you can generate.
So what should my online videos be about?
That’s obviously going to be specific to your business and industry, but here’s a trick to finding out what people are looking for when it comes to videos. Go to YouTube and start typing in your industry or the type of questions customers usually ask you…YouTube’s auto-complete feature will provide suggestions based on previous searches and results. Here are a couple of examples:
And don’t forget that the same trick can work at the search engines:
Grow your online visibility and build your business with online video. Rich Brooks leads a workshop in YouTube marketing techniques at this year’s Social Media FTW Fall Conference.
YouTube is the 2nd most popular search engine in the world. Videos from YouTube (and other video sharing sites) appear in the first page of search results. Videos entertain, educate and engage your audience. They attract prospects on YouTube, on your blog, and on your website.
So why aren’t you making more of them?!?
In my session at this year’s Social Media “For The Win” conference I’ll be talking all about making and marketing online videos to grow your business. Here’s a little promotional video I made about it:
My online video workshop is only one of many great sessions we’ve got planned. Mike Volpe of Hubspot and Saul Colt of Freshbooks will be our two keynotes, and you can see a full list of speakers at the site.
Here’s the 411 on the social media conference:
Date: Thursday, 9.22.2011 Time: 9a – 5p (registration begins at 8a, networking bar at 5p) Place: Abromson Center, USM Campus, Portland, Maine (map & directions) Cost: $149 (save $25 w/discount code flyte)
Rich: Hi, this is Rich Brooks, and I have on the phone with me today Julie Perry. She is the social media director at BLASTmedia, which is a PR and social media firm.
I was lucky enough to see her present at BlogWorld in New York on “Killer YouTube Tactics,” and it was a packed room with standing room only. It was an amazing, phenomenal amount of information – so much information that my hands cramped up. I couldn’t finish taking notes, so I asked Julie if she would get on the line with me today and we could talk a little bit about some of the YouTube tactics that she talked about at the show.
Julie, thank you very much for your time today.
Julie: Thank you for interviewing me. I’m excited.
Rich: You’re a huge fan of YouTube. Tell us, why should businesses and organizations be paying attention to YouTube?
Julie: Well, it’s interesting being in social media, and when I start talking to a potential client, the first words out of their mouth are always “Twitter” and “Facebook.” They’ll say, “We’ve heard we need to be there. We heard this is a place where we need to be.”
I’ll end up bringing YouTube into the conversation, and the first thing I hear back is, “Well, you know, my kid is on there all the time. I know the kind of content on there. We don’t really want to be associated with that. It’s not really a professional site.” They worry about the image that it’s going to portray. So I will begin to list for them a lot of the benefits that I see—really what I call “the power of YouTube” for marketing purposes—and their eyes pop out of their head. They just can’t believe it.
Whether you’re just getting started with social media marketing or looking to take your social media to the next level, we’ve got a great half-day workshop that’s just right for you, and right here in Maine.
This 1/2 day workshop is for businesses, non-profits and individuals who don’t have a social media presence, or are just getting started with social media, or just don’t know what to do with the social media they already have in place. A good portion of the seminar will be in how to set up your accounts the right way, how to find and network with people online, and how to avoid classic mistakes in social media.
Who Should Attend?
Any business owners, marketers, PR professionals or non-profiteers who feel like their being left behind when it comes to social media.
What Will You Learn?
How to setup your Facebook profile and business page and get people to “like” you
How to manage your privacy on Facebook and other platforms
How to get started with Twitter and use it to drive traffic to your website or business
How to build your LinkedIn network so that you can build your business
How to blog for search engine visibility
How to use videos to increase your online visibility
Time management and social media
Is It Worth It?
Oh, yes. In fact, we’re so sure it will help your business we offer a 100% money back guarantee for all attendees.
This 1/2 day presentation is for businesses, non-profits and individuals who are active in social media (you blog, or tweet, or have a Facebook business page) but are looking to take things to the next level. You’re looking for advanced tools, tips and techniques to make your investment in social media pay off.
Who Should Attend?
Any business owners, marketers, PR professionals or non-profiteers who realize that social media is going to continue to be a big part of their marketing and communications.
What Will You Learn?
How to get more people to “like” your Facebook business page
How to maximize your Facebook experience with events, ads and networking
How to create an irresistable profile on LinkedIn with video, blogs and more
How to use Twitter to find and follow local people, industry leaders and anyone else you need to network with
How to use a blog to dominate Google and other search engines
How to encourage comments and shares on your blog
How to measure your social media activity and improve your ROI
Is It Worth It?
Oh, yes. In fact, we’re so sure it will help your business we offer a 100% money back guarantee for all attendees.
Online videos are a powerful tool for search engine optimization (SEO). For some people this doesn’t compute: search engines can’t watch videos the way they can read and understand text, so how does an online video increase your search engine visibility?
Search engines like Google or Bing want to deliver the most relevant content to their users, regardless of the form or medium of that content. To that end, they look at the words in the titles of videos on websites like YouTube or Vimeo, as well as the description and the tags.
There’s also some evidence that they look at other factors, such as the number of views, the number of comments, viewer ratings, whether people watched the video to the end, number of incoming links, the number of times shared, etc. Search engines may even be converting the audio to text and using that to better determine if the video content is relevant to a given search.
It’s also been my experience that search engines want to present searchers with a mix of media in the results: web pages, images, video, local results, news, tweets and more. Each one may be another opportunity for you or your business to rank higher and get in front of your best prospects.
So, if you’re looking to leapfrog your competitors in search, you should add video to the mix.
For example, we wanted more visibility for the search term “maine web design.” (If you’re a Maine web designer you can stop reading now. This doesn’t concern you.) So we created a video slideshow called “Maine Web Design – Maine Business Websites” and posted it to YouTube and a dozen other video sharing websites. (I recommend TubeMogul for posting to multiple video sharing sites at once.)
Within a day that slideshow made up half of the top 10 results in Google’s video search for “Maine web design.” That was nice, but there were no video results displayed on the first page and I don’t know how many people click over to video results for that type of search. Still, it showed the potential of video.
Then, about two weeks ago I happened to perform that same search again and, lo and behold, the video was the sixth result on Google in the regular, organic search results. I logged out of Google to confirm my results, and the video was still number six. (When you’re logged in your results are skewed/tailored based on your previous search history.) Although the sixth position isn’t as good as the first slot, many people are more drawn to video than text links, so it has that added benefit.
I’m not sure when the video started appearing in the regular search results, but it is still hanging tough at the time of this post.
Something to note about this video: it’s just a slideshow of screen captures from websites we’ve designed for Maine-based businesses; there’s no audio, just imagery. However, we did feature this video on a previous blog post, which may have helped its visibility and views, which in turn may have improved its ranking. Blogging about it again should give it an additional boost.
What’s the takeaway? If you’re looking to leapfrog your competition for popular keyword phrases, you should experiment with video. Just don’t expect overnight success; be patient, and keep on uploading new videos targeting different keyword phrases you want to rank well for.
Are you still waiting to create your first YouTube video? Well, there’s no better time than now to get started. YouTube has a new program called SearchStories that allows you to create a quick video about anything you like with a search twist to it.
The other day a friend asked me how to add photos and videos into a tweet on Twitter.
Right now, there’s no way to include anything but 140 characters of plain text in Twitter, but using URL shortening tools like bit.ly or tinyurl.com you can do the next best thing; embed a link to a photo, video, or anything else on the Internet.
Desktop tools like TweetDeck can simplify the process with drag and drop simplicity, but even without TweetDeck there are some quick and easy ways to do it.
If you’ve got any questions on Twitter, social media, or anything related to Web marketing, feel free to ask me on Twitter. I’ll do my best to answer it and create a helpful little video to boot.
Couldn’t make it to the YouTube Marketing presentation at Social Media FTW? Here are the slides from that workshop.
The other day a friend asked me how to add photos and videos into a tweet on Twitter.
