YouTube has over 1 billion unique visitors to the site every month. In addition, last month YouTube announced that are over 100 hours of video uploaded to their site every minute. YouTube is also the 2nd most used search engine, just behind Google. So, how is your business taking advantage of the power of YouTube?
This information is available in 2 forms. Text and Video (with supporting slides and video samples). For the text version, please keep reading. For the video version, click here.
There’s a simple 3 step process.
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Step 1 is not only create content, but create compelling content.
People are bombarded by approximately 3000 messages a day. And we’ve learned to tune those out. You go onto search engines. You see the ads along the top, you see the ads along the side. You pick up your newspaper, you see the ads in there. If it doesn’t have immediate interest, you ignore it. But the second you care about the message, that’s when you start looking for it. If you’re not looking for a car, are you looking for car commercials? No. But when you start looking for a car, then all of sudden you notice, wow, there’s a lot of car commercials on TV.
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Tell your story. If you just throw facts at people, maybe they’ll watch it for a few seconds, if they’re really intent. If it’s an education program, they will watch it. But to really draw a person into your product. Give some background, give a story.
For effective target marketing, address that one person, in your mind, who can benefit from your product.
Create a message that addresses a single product. It’s better to have multiple short videos that addresses 1 key message each than a long video that crams multiple messages into it.
If your message is fun and entertaining and it gets shared, but does it sell? A testimonial is another great resource to use. Here’s an example.
“Hi, I’m Nancy from European Jewelry. And we had to do this video and I was very nervous about it. But thank you, Bruce, from Blue Sky Video. You made us look good, you made us sound good and you made it easy.”
How many people have a mobile phone with a camera?
This is a great way to pick up a testimonial from a client. After you deliver your product or service to your client, and they say that they love your product. Capture it with your phone. Post it on your Facebook page or your YouTube channel. It’s super easy and super quick. You don’t always have to go with the highest quality or hire a professional to do it. If it’s on the spot, if it’s spontaneous, those usually make the best YouTube videos.
Zappos.com is another company that’s taking advantage of video. They’re making over 100 video a day. And the reason why they’re making over 100 videos a day is because, the videos that they have on their shoes showed an increase in sales of 6 to 30% on that specific shoe. So when the CEO, Tony Hsieh, saw that, he said that “We need to put a video on every single product we have”. And they have over 60,000 products.
In the film industry we have a term called “Production Value”. Getting back to the idea of shooting with your iPhone, shooting with your smartphone. You can do that, but it also reflects who your company is. If your videos are low quality, your perspective customer may perceive your business as low quality. So, it is important to have good production values. As far as framing goes, don’t have too much head room. Make sure you have good audio, good lighting. Don’t shoot in front of a mirror or in front of a window. Many people take pictures in front of a window and all of a sudden they are all silhouetted. If that was your intent, if you want to change their voice and put them under witness protection, then that’s a great idea. Now if you want your audience to see your eyes, then that’s not such a good plan. And that’s a lot of the appeal of video. Is that one on one. You feel connected with that person while watching the video. More so than reading a paper or even looking at a picture.
So here is an example of how editing can help create a better video. This is unedited:
“To dominate you do need to have multiple ways of being found. Social media, uh, authority sites like YouTube using, utilizing video. Using ah some of the class, uh online classified ads are great ah, authority sources online. As well as uh, a website or a lead generation website that gears them towards taking action.”
So that was the Before. And editing can save a lot of videos. Here’s the After.
“So if a customer want to dominate their market online, first thing they need to do is they need to understand who their target audience is and how are they searching for them. To dominate you do need to have multiple ways of being found. Social media, authority sites like YouTube utilizing video. Using online classified ads are great authority sources as well as lead generation websites that gears them towards taking action.”
We cut out a lot of the “uhs” we tightened up the message we added what we call “b-roll” or cut-away shots to show what he’s talking about.
Step 2: Sharing Your Content
If the people who view your video, share it, that goes back to the old adage. “You tell 2 friends and they tell 2 friends and they tell 2 friends.” And that what builds up viral videos. I’m not saying that everyone whats to make a viral video because most viral videos don’t lead to sales. But the videos that you do make get shared and they get shared among people who care about your message.
Bruce Himmelblau has a background in documentary filmmaking and marketing. As a full service video production company and YouTube Strategists, Blue Sky Video Productions helps businesses grow.
