In breaking news, Prince Harry took a trip to Las Vegas and had photos taken of him while he paraded around a room naked.
Apparently, Prince Harry believed that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
Not so much.
TMZ got their hands on the photos and uploaded them to their website. Buckingham Palace did the appropriate thing and refused to comment. (Rest assured, Prince Harry got plenty of comments directed at him from the Queen.)
The truth is, most of us would hate to have naked photos of ourselves shared on the internet, but we’d love to have something we wrote or produced go viral. After all, when something goes viral, people start talking about you. And when people start talking about you, the visit your website. And when they visit your website, they buy your stuff.
With all that in mind, what follows is a terrific Infographic from our friends at ProBlogger. It’s packed with great tips and tricks on how to turn ordinary content into viral content.
Author of Camera Ready: How to Present Your Best Self and Ideas On Air or Online
“It’s too expensive,” or “It’s takes too much time!” These are the reasons I usually get from people as to why they haven’t made a video about their business. And I agree — producing a video never goes as quickly as writing a blog post or a tweet. For some, just uploading a video will require a whole new set of skills.
But with high investment comes great reward. A video will set you apart from your competitors not just because you are better but because the audience will feel they know you. And when they know you, they’ll like you, right? As long as you take the following steps:
Use a good microphone. Even more important than good quality video is good quality audio. If the viewer can’t understand what you are saying, they certainly aren’t going to stick around to watch. Amateur video can be forgiven, amateur sound can’t.
Explain something. Give the viewer a reason to watch your video, whether it’s instructive, gives an “insider look”, or is just funny. Don’t just make video so you can say you make video.
Go for quality. One well-written and produced video will go much farther than 10 lame ones. Some people disagree with my quality over quantity stance but with the masses of content out there, I think quality is the only way to cut through and catch a potential client’s eye.
So here are some ideas for small business videos . . .
The Wedding Florist: hire a small production crew for a half-day to come to your workspace. With some pre-production planning, 5 simple videos could be filmed to demonstrate how you create 5 different kinds of bouquets. Don’t worry about people stealing your techniques . . . by establishing yourself as an expert AND accessible, your brand will grow.
The Local Restaurant: show how kid-friendly you are by interviewing a cross-section of young patrons about their favorite meal on the menu. Just be sure to ask them, “What do you like to eat here and why is it so yummy?” not, “Do you like the food here?” so you don’t get “yes” or “no” (God forbid) for an answer. Edit them together and you’ve got adorable video gold.
The Web Designer: get a friend to interview you about your influences and the aesthetics you feel set your website designs apart from other designers. Over the edited interview, lay in screen-shots of the sites you’ve designed to show potential clients just what you mean and are capable of.
Every video is about telling your story with pictures. So remember to let the visuals do the talking when you can.
Author Bio: Manoush Zomorodi is the author of Camera Ready: How to Present Your Best Self and Ideas On Air or Online. Her on-camera expertise comes from years of producing and reporting for BBC News, Reuters Television, and other media outlets. For more information please visit www.manoushz.com.
By Meghan Grosso, Brand & Communications Manager for vzaar
What’s almost as good as being the first result in a Google search? Standing out from all the other results on the page. The easiest way to do that is by including video content on your website.
Why? Because Google displays video results with a representative thumbnail image, drawing eyes significantly more than a simple text link would, and increasing the likelihood that your link gets clicked.
How big of an increase are we talking about? According to ReelSEO, videos have a 41% higher click through rate than their plain text counterparts. What is even more exciting than how well sites with video content perform is how uncommon they are. Video is still often under or improperly used by businesses online, so there is far less competition among the video results. In other words, if you take the right approach you can dominate for search terms that are relevant to your business far more easily than you might be able to relying on text alone.
How do you take advantage of video SEO? First, you need to create some video content. The more, the better. Work with a production company, or take a DIY approach and invest in a decent in-house video setup and start creating some content. Depending on your business, you should consider creating promotional videos, explainer videos, company culture videos, customer testimonials, product videos, tutorials…the list really goes on and on.
The different ways online video content can help your marketing, sales, and support efforts is a subject that deserves its own post, but we’re discussing video SEO specifically today, and for the purposes of this article, the important thing is that you create a video, any video.
Secondly, you should submit a video sitemap to Google. The truth is video still presents some challenges for search engines. Videos can be embedded in many different formats and search engines can struggle deciding how to index them. A sitemap will ensure your video content is indexed with the appropriate thumbnail and description.
Code for typical video sitemap
A video sitemap is a text file filled with useful information about your video. By submitting a sitemap to Google, you are informing the search engine of your video’s title, subject matter, run time, who the intended audience is, and many more details that will influence how and when it gets indexed.
This information is pretty valuable when put into Google’s hands. The more Google knows about your video, the better job they can do of putting it in front of the right audience. If indexed properly, whenever potential customers perform a search relevant to your content, Google will display the information and thumbnail image from your video sitemap on their results page.
What are the steps to make this happen? In order to setup a new sitemap, you’ll need to create a new word document, save it as an xml file, and upload it to your server. When creating the sitemap document, there is a sitemap protocol that you must follow, which you can find outlined in depth by Sitemaps.org.
Lastly, control where your video content appears. In other words – not on YouTube. You might be taken aback by this suggestion. Many “experts” recommend integrating YouTube into online marketing efforts.
If you’re creating video content with the aim of generating buzz and awareness, YouTube is a great tool. However, if you’re creating videos to improve your site’s SEO, which is what we’re talking about here, you’re better off skipping it. When you embed a YouTube video on your own site, which page do you think is likely to rank higher in search results? The YouTube page will. When people watch your video on YouTube, it’s possible that the most engaged viewers will then click on the link to your site, but a lot of them won’t. Many of them will be sucked in by YouTube’s recommended videos or, even worse, by a competitor’s ad and quickly forget all about your original message.
The purpose of SEO is to drive traffic to your own site, not YouTube. You should keep that in mind when deciding how and where you host your videos.
YouTube offers many opportunities for potential customers to go elsewhere
Videos can be a tremendously effective SEO tool. Just make sure you’re not missing out on the opportunity! If you take the time to create compelling video content for your site, there is no reason not to take the steps to ensure search engines index it properly.
About the author: Meghan Grosso is the Brand & Communications Manager for vzaar, the video hosting service for businesses. vzaar exists to serve up your video content however and wherever necessary, on any device your audience can get their hands on. Built expressly for professionals with a service or product to grow and promote, vzaar is preloaded with all the customization, security and analytical tools your videos need to get the job done.
Online video marketing is on the rise for many reasons. Besides being a simple and inexpensive process, businesses are finding that web videos generate more and more intended traffic due to the “sharing” ability on social networking sites. Consider our list of strategies to maximize the effectiveness of your own online videos.
Five Quick Tips for Creating a Video
First, I’ve gathered a short list of suggestions to keep in mind throughout the planning and production stages of your video. Follow these tips to keep your viewers interested and more likely to share your video.
Pinpoint your target audience. This will help you cater your message more effectively and make your video more interesting to potential viewers.
Create a visual scheme. Once your target audience is determined, decide which additional features they would find most appealing and incorporate them into your video. This typically includes color, font, screen transitions, images, and background music. Utilizing these tools is an excellent way to instantly make your video more engaging.
Side note: Be careful when choosing music to play in your video as most songs are copyrighted. Check out http://dig.ccmixter.org/ which is an easy to use site that offers liberally licensed tracks at no cost to you.
Keep your video short. Be direct and give a fast paced delivery. I recommend having a poster behind the camera with bullet points to guide you through your dialogue and keep you on the intended track. (In August 2011, ComScore reported the duration of the average online content video was 5.3 minutes.)
Be personable. If you are featuring yourself in the video; give a self-introduction, look directly into the camera when speaking, and be animated (i.e. hand motions, facial expressions, etc.).
Don’t try to be perfect. The homemade feel associated with a personal camera and mediocre editing makes your video genuine, something viewers appreciate and understand.
Seven Tips to Optimize Your Videos
After recording your video, use the following tips to help ensure your video reaches its intended audience. Considering that video optimization is a relatively new idea, most videos on Google’s index are not utilizing these tools; this gives your video an even higher chance for success when optimized to its full potential.
Use keywords into your video’s title, tags, filename, and descriptions. When linking specific keywords with your video, it becomes more likely to show up in search engines when people search for that topic. Forrester Research found that “on the keywords for which Google offers video results, any given video in the index stands about a 50 times better chance of appearing on the first page of results than any given text page in the index.” This impressive statistic proves that videos are effective when strategy is implemented.
Provide an HTML link in your video’s description. Before writing a description of your video (which should be filled with keywords!) you will want to first include a direct link to your website. Generating traffic to your website is your main goal.
Display your URL in your video. An easy way to increase exposure is by making the url to your website, facebook page, twitter account, etc. visible on your video. This can be done via text box which is available with any basic editing program.
Here’s a screen shot of Paula Deen’s YouTube channel, notice how she refers her viewers to her website at the end of the video.
Show your logo. Like any television channel, displaying your company’s logo throughout your video is a simple way to associate the content with your business. By doing so you are increasing brand recognition among your viewers.
Create a YouTube channel. Making a personal channel is not difficult as you are automatically given one when signing up for a YouTube account. You will be able to arrange personal videos, as well as others, under your own YouTube URL.Use your profile box to list personal information and provide links to your business and social websites, as well as give a brief bio about yourself and your company. Utilizing this tool will create a personal identity for you on YouTube.
Post frequently. Create a series of videos and publish regularly. Some general ideas for videos include product reviews, frequently asked questions, how-to’s, and educating people on your products or services. Keep your YouTube channel active to build your brand identity with each new posting.
Embed the video on your website. This ensures your video is seen by a wider audience while also increasing the time spent on your website. You will want to embed them into relevant text pages which will give search engines a boost when figuring out what your article is related to. Google’s algorithms keep in mind how many times a video is viewed, and videos embedded on your website are included in the ‘views’ tally on YouTube.
Whether you are new to online video marketing or just looking for some strategies to give your videos an extra boost, we believe these suggestions will help you reach your marketing goals.
Did you find these tips helpful? Have any of your own? Share your video experiences with us in the comment box below. We’d love to hear your feedback.
In the age of new media, video has become a vital method of communication for marketers. In fact, according to Forrester, 60 percent of online consumers in the U.S. now regularly watch some form of video online, up from 41 percent in 2007. Consumers expect to watch videos on whatever device is most convenient to them at any point in time. In order to effectively communicate with their customers and differentiate themselves from competitors, marketers must provide relevant content on multiple channels and media for around the clock accessibility.
A rule of thumb for good storytelling is “show – don’t tell.” This same rule applies when thinking about good marketing. Everyone loves a good story; how better to tell it than through video?
While adapting to new technologies can be challenging and costly, marketers should embrace the opportunities video offers, such as dynamic content, emotional connection and increased creativity. Through video, companies can connect with their customers in ways prohibited by other media. Unlike text, a video can evoke emotion and create a connection with the viewer through the combination of words, voice, image, music and movement. Unlike still photographs, video captures the viewer and holds their attention as they wait for the next scene.
Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, video is as easy to target toward multiple audiences as traditional text or still images. When distributed across multiple platforms and channels, video can reach various target audiences at once. Adding in social tools, such as allowing viewers to share the video, increases the breadth of any campaign and ensures the reach to a widespread audience.
Incorporating video into the overall marketing strategy is relatively easy when utilizing the right technology. Today there is a multitude of exciting new platforms and tools marketers can use to tie their marketing efforts together. For example, upcoming trends such as QR-codes in advertisements and commercials mean your mobile audience is only a scan away from your mobile website. This adds true value to your customers and gives you insight into response and conversion rates to see what really works.
Given all this, you may wonder how one can implement a successful and dynamic video campaign. The five key points to remember when creating a video marketing strategy are:
Understand your audience.The same basics you ask yourself before starting any campaign still apply to video – what are their likes and dislikes? What language do they speak? What device will they access it on.
Define. What are you trying to accomplish with the video and who are you trying to reach
Base it on your strategy. Video should not stand alone from your other marketing efforts; it should complement them and create synergy with them.
Start small. Dip your toe in the water before you jump in and make a splash.
Refine and scale. Take a look at what worked and what didn’t work. Not every campaign will be flawless.
Successfully integrating video into your communication strategy requires a blend of old wisdom and embracing new technology. Creating and publishing a video is one thing, but communicating your message effectively and maximizing it to its full potential on different devices and in different channels, is another. Make the most of the tools available to ensure success in a cost-efficient and timely manner. Check out this video to hear more from Robert Carroll on video marketing.
Uploaded by Robert Carroll, CMO of Web Content Management Solutions, SDL
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