Most of us are aware that visuals are entertaining, engaging, easy to digest, and highly shareable. In fact, you only have a few seconds to grab an Internet user’s attention. No marketing tool does this more than video! Video brings your story to life, allows your business to reach a broader audience, and increases your marketing impact. If your video is short and to the point, with clear takeaways, it will be a great addition to your overall promotional strategy.
Each day, more than 100 million Americans watch online videos, an increase of 43
percent since 2010. And, by 2016, online video could account for over 54 percent of all
Internet traffic (VideoMind). Those are some powerful stats that show the impact videos can have in connecting a brand with its audience. How do you get your video in front of people’s eyes? YouTube, Vimeo and other social media outlets are great ways to get your videos noticed and watched but you must use a mixture of content amplification networks, social sharing and good old SEO to make your videos work for you.
If you’re interested in adding video to your marketing mix please give us a call and see our corresponding video production and marketing page to get started.
By Peter Marino, the owner and SEO Expert at reelWebDesign.com
The future of marketing is helping. Helping will bring you new customers, and forge trust in you and your brand for future customers. Jay Baer explains how and why the help marketing concept works here:
Transcript:
0:01 I’m going to try and make this
0:10 is entertaining as possible to start a full video watch this for me
0:16 in the right and yet he’s up
0:19 today we’re gonna show you how to remove viruses and spyware
0:22 your computer all home
0:27 the best way to remove viruses and spyware Caldwell where
0:30 video is awesome and you can see if amis it’s a guy
0:35 talking about mall so Geek Squad in addition to that sort of weird video
0:41 about viruses and spyware has YouTube channel the couple have 100
0:46 other videos on it all can you how to install Windows 8 not kinda crazy stuff
0:51 and I was at a conference
0:52 a few years ago and Robert Stevens who is the founder and Geek Squad was the
0:57 keynote and some in the audience
0:59ask him a question he was talking about the series videos
1:02 it’s Robert now let me see if I can get this straight
1:05 Geek Squad is in the business
1:09 fixing stuff for money it’s a kid that’s
1:14 that’s more or less what we do physical but you’ve got all these videos that
1:19 show people how to fix stuff themselves
1:22 how does that make any business sense at all in Stephen civil
1:27 you know first of all you gotta understand our best customers are the
1:32 people who think
1:33 they can fix it themselves
1:36 which is absolutely true right that is me I am I K
1:41 hot water heater repair in like four thousand dollars into trip to the
1:44 emergency room later we’re good to go
1:45 told effect and he said second of all eventually
1:49 everybody gets out of their depth right eventually you can’t do it yourself and
1:53 at that point who are you gonna call
1:55 but even a randomly dialed up the yellow pages or are you going to call Geek
1:59 Squad
1:59whose videos you’ve been looking at for 46
2:038 10 12 minutes because robert stevens a Geek Squad
2:09 understand a very important business principle
2:13 which is that the difference between helping
2:17 and Celine is just two letters
2:21 but those two letters make all
2:24 the difference in modern business
2:28 because if you sell something
2:32 you can create a customer today but if you help someone
2:37 you can create a customer
2:41 for life now so we’re going to talk about this evening
2:47 we are at a conference we’re talking a lot
2:50 about content and content creation and marketing automation
2:55 in feeding information to customers but the reality is
3:00 the content that will be effective is content that is truly
3:05 and inherently useful and I call that information
3:10 a utility yooo utility
3:14 and the definition of utility is simple it’s just this its market team that is
3:19 so useful
3:20 people would pay for it
3:24 now you’re not going to actually make them pay for that would be bold
3:28 but it’s so useful that if you ask them to you they actually work
3:33 me give you an example Hilton Hotels has a program
3:39 on Twitter called act Hilton suggests
3:43 they started as a couple years ago as a trial program they
3:47 they took 25 hotels across the United States took a volunteer from each ot
3:51 else was on a full-time job it was in addition to the regular duties
3:54 is that who’s we want you to do we want to listen on Twitter
3:57 pay attention to what’s been said on Twitter and if you can find a way to
4:01 help
4:02 just help so that’s what they did
4:07 here’s an example at Lt Houston
4:12 says on Twitter good places to eat your the Magnolia Hotel
4:17 downtown Dallas on Saturday Hilton suggest
4:21 jumps into this conversation note that this was an address templeton
4:25 they just thought they were strategically eavesdropping
4:28 if you will they saw this they leaped into the conversation said hey at LT
4:32 Houston
4:33 wild salsa on major camp easy’s on elmer awesome
4:36 both within walking distance of your hotel in Dallas enjoy
4:42 but here’s the fat the Magnolia Hotel
4:47 is not a Hilton property so now you have Hilton Hotels using staff time and staff
4:53 resources
4:54 to assist somebody that they know for a fact is not
4:57 a customer but eventually this guy’s gonna be in a different city and your
5:02 hotel recommendation
5:03 and at that point who’s it gonna think I’m first
5:06 Hilton because they helped him when
5:10 he needed it it’s a utility
5:15 a couple days later Melanie J who was at Rockstar
5:18 extreme on Twitter tweeted out
5:21 anybody know who’s hiring in Orlando for professional positions at this time
5:25 seems like it’s at a standstill
5:29 Hilton suggest jumps into that and says at Rockstar extreme check out Orlando
5:33 jobs dot com for a comprehensive list now
5:36 no I think what I would have said is Haley Melanie maybe if your Twitter
5:39 handle wasn’t at Rockstar extreme
5:42 you would have some additional interviewed maybe this is sending the
5:45 wrong message
5:48 it’s just one of many reasons I’m not in customer service
5:51 but now they’re trying to help her find a job and eventually maybe she’s gonna
5:55 get a job and he’s gonna have disposable income
5:57 and she’s going to want to travel and he’s going to need a hotel and at that
6:00 point
6:01 who is she gonna pinko first
6:04 Hilton because they helped her when she needed help.
Camtasia is a very popular screen capture program. It allows the person to capture the video screen elements, while narrating the whole process. Than the person can edit them to his or her liking. And if the person has a really good microphone, these videos can be done in a very professional way.
One tip I use is I use my iPhone for audio and then import it into Camptasia.
So How Do You Go About Doing This?
1) The first thing you need to do is to understand the screen. When you look below the toolbar you will see four sections. Each of these sections show ways to edit your creation and have it produced. On your screen there is a clip bin. This clip bin will include all of your files that you have created so far. This clip bins gives you the ability to use the files you have already uploaded or to import new ones. On the screen there is a video preview screen. This preview screen allows you to see your video project in motion and how it is progressing thus far. The timeline feature allows you to drag your existing videos and place them in the order that you would like to see them appear in your project.
2)An essential part of this is learning to record. To do this, all you need to do is press on the “record the screen” There is something called the “new recording wizard”.
By using the wizard you can control how and at what speed your project and information gets recorded.
Once you choose the range and the speed your recording will start. The wizard will keep going until you tell it otherwise. If you tell it to stop, it will do so.
3) The editing process is something that is very critical to the camtasia program. If you are not familiar with the editing process, you will need to learn. Once you have created your files and imported whatever media data that you may need, you will than drag the items from the clip bin to the timeline. Once they are there you can edit them further. You can add sound affect and other visual imaging that you desire. The more you know about operating the program, the crazier you can go.
4) As the video editing is finished, all you need to do is click on the file button. Click file icon produce file as is. Once that happens the production wizard will pop up with some more options. Some of the options that pop up will also include the file format. Now it depends on where you want to have the video project seen and how, as to what type of file system you use.
Some of the popular formats are WAV and MOV. These can be used for the real-time player functions. Pick the right format and send it off. That way it can be seen by those who you wish to see it. Many times these projects are created for business, to entice new clients. Other times videos such as these are created to help create a more positive and enticing work environment. The way you create and edit these video projects are important. With the video wizard you can dress them up or dress them down,as much or as little as you like.
This article was written by www.flv2mp3.com which is a cutting edge site that allows you to convert your YouTube videos into MP3 format.
As the SEO world has recently been turned on its head by the new Penguin 2.1 and Hummingbird algorithm we at reelWebDesign.com are compelled to focus more on two areas:
Helping small businesses with local SEO (getting you found locally on the web with geographically driven keywords and intentions in mind).
Helping you with social media marketing and content production.
Our focus will be in these two areas more than ever and it will benefit your business and ours in many ways. How? Google’s new algorithm is centered around people and helping them find what they are looking for. In essence they have bcome the new ASK.com (even though they’d never admit it), but where ASK had failed to deliver good results Google claims that they will deliver excellent results, and who am I to argue with them as they do own the worlds largest search engine! So content is what we are going to focus on for our clients. However, many local businesses like pizza parlors and locksmiths don’t need to answer a lot of questions for their consumers and others just don’t have time or money to create fresh content, for these businesses they just need to be found! That’s the second part of Google’s algorithm: where having citations is more important than ever (a citation is basically a listing on any of the major local directories and social networks on the web i.e. Foursquare, Yelp, zagat, 8Coupons, Citysearch etc.). So we have partnered with Yext to make it inexpensive, consistent and easy to implement. Note: Consistency is extremely important as the search engines will see the same business as a separate entity if listed with different names, phone numbers or addresses. This inconsistency will water down your search or ‘Google juice’, thereby lowering your ranking.
In addition to teaming up with Yext® we are offering a free Google plus/places listing optimization as part of our local SEO plan. Google, as no surprise, values it’s own social networks, Google Plus and Google Places over all others. We believe this focus on providing relevant content, social media management and marketing and local SEO with Yext® as our partner will provide excellent results for all new and current customers. Please watch the video below about the Yext® service.
Our focus will also be to deliver responsive or mobile ready web design (responsive web design is developing a website that changes or responds to diferent sized screens for a better user experience. Example: Our website is responsive and will appear differently on your laptop, tablet and phone).
Why responsive/mobile ready?
Analytics firm BIA/Kelsey has predicted that mobile search queries will overtake desktop queries by 2015. If your website isn’t mobile ready then you’ll be missing out on the larger piece of search. Compound this with the push in the SEO world to focus more on local search and you’ll understand that mobile search is the area of largest growth and the best bet for acquiring new customers from this point forward.
Social Media
So where does social media fit into the equation? Social media is similar to the old word of mouth marketing… on steroids! It allows for your message to be broadcast to countless people in an extremely fast fashion. It also helps with search engine rankings. The more a post is shared the more the search engines see it as valuable. Google+, although an underused social network by most, is extremely important as Google values it above all other social networks. For this reason we post your message to the main 4 driving forces on the social web: Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. If you have a blog we’ll also post your article/blog post to various other networks as well including: Delicious, StumbleUpon, Plurk, Newsvine, Scoopit, Diigo, Folk and Hubpages to name a few. This will not only boost your viewership but also your Alexa rating which influences search engine ranking as well. It is from the social networks that search engines are able to personalize your user expereince and give you results that are customized for your personal liking’s. So as you can see social media is an extremely important factor in online marketing and its value to both people and search engines is growing more important every year.
Conclusion
It’s been a tumultuous year in search marketing but I believe I know where it is all headed and I see why Google is doing this great transition. With Google watches, glasses and more voice search integration on the horizon the way we perform and undertake search is going to change dramatically. Search will move more towards speech and visual cues with geographical underpinnings wrapped around your personal likes and dislikes i.e. personalized mobile search. People will be asking more questions about: ‘what’s in the area’, ‘how to do things’, ‘what do you know about this’ and ‘what’s going on now that I would like’. From this information, surprisingly, we can see that small businesses do have a future as there will be more of a need to discover and cater to micro-niches. So as long as we, small businesses, focus on a niche and excel at it we can have a successful life as Google and other social networks will actually be driving people towards us.
The future brings more focus to everything, the question is what will your business focus on, and our job at reelWebDesign.com will be to find you your appropriate crowd through all of our partner networks including our latest, Yext®.
Most of us are aware that visuals are entertaining, engaging, easy to digest, and highly shareable. In fact, you only have a few seconds to grab an Internet user’s attention. No marketing tool does this more than video! Video brings your story to life, allows your business to reach a broader audience, and increases your marketing impact. If your video is short and to the point, with clear takeaways, it will be a great addition to your overall promotional strategy.
Camtasia is a very popular screen capture program. It allows the person to capture the video screen elements, while narrating the whole process. Than the person can edit them to his or her liking. And if the person has a really good microphone, these videos can be done in a very professional way.
