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Above and Beyond YouTube: Using Video To Promote Your Business

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A Guest Post by Maureen Page

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Many are now turning to video to help promote their company. Many others are “dabbling” with video or thinking about it. With the advent and popularity of YouTube and other web-based video services, it has become amazingly easy to get videos published for the masses to see.

Stop and Think About What You are Trying to Accomplish

Before you get into video in a big way it is important for you to establish what you want to accomplish with video. If all you want to do is make people aware of your company and your products or services, then simply posting videos to YouTube may suffice. Most companies, however, aspire to more than simply being known. Most want to sell something. If you have more lofty goals of bringing people to your website and generating prospects for your products and services, then your video efforts will need to move beyond YouTube. Make no mistake about it. YouTube will still be a component of your strategy; it simply will not be the major component of your strategy.

Using Video to Get Traffic and Prospects

So you want traffic to your website and prospects for your products or services. The challenge is that in order to get traffic, videos need to be on your website. In order for the videos to be more easily discovered they need to be on YouTube. So what is one to do? The answer is simple – you need to put the videos both places. But you should not put all of the videos both places. Some of the videos need to go on YouTube to be “discovered.” Others need to be on your site to generate traffic. The best way to accomplish this is to create a video series. The first couple of videos in the series should be posted to YouTube. They should promote that they are part of a series and that the rest are on your site. The remaining videos should be posted to your own site.

Some things that help this to be particularly effective:

  • The video series should be on a topic of general interest, not simply a commercial for your
    company, products, or services.

  • Each video should advertise that it is part of a series and advertise where to get the next video
    in the series.

  • Put your branding and website URL in the lead-in and trailing parts of the video. Also, in the
    trailer advertise where the next video can be seen along with the URL to access that video.

  • It is all right, and important for completeness of the video series on your own site, to put the
    code from YouTube for the first couple of videos onto your own site. PLEASE NOTE: You should
    not simply put all of the videos on YouTube and then put them on your site using the YouTube
    code. If you do this the vast majority of people will simply view the videos on YouTube and very
    few people will actually come to your site. You need to purposely split the videos as mentioned
    above to force people to your site if they want to see the rest in order to get traffic to your site.

Following this strategy should:

  1. Help to get exposure for your videos by placing some of them on YouTube.

  2. Funnel traffic and potential customers to your site because the rest of the videos are there.

Maureen Page is VP of Discount Security Cameras. To learn more about security camera systems and video surveillance visit the Discount Security Cameras Interactive Security Camera Learning Center.

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–ME “Liz” Strauss
 Work with Liz on your business!!

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Cool Tool Review: Zamzar

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Todd Hoskins chooses and uses tools and products that could belong in an entrepreneurial business toolkit. He’ll be checking out how useful they are to folks who would be their customers in a form that’s consistent and relevant.

Cool Tool Review: Zamzar
A Review by Todd Hoskins

kafka

“When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous insect.”

This is the opening line of The Metamorphosis, a short novel by the German author Franz Kafka. It is a mind-bending book. The web service, Zamzar, which was named after the transformed character in The Metamorphosis, is equally mind-bending.

Zamzar converts files, hundreds of different file types, without an installation. It’s fast, easy, and free.

So, let’s say you want to take a portion of a PDF and include it in a presentation (a Prezi, I hope). Or you want to take a YouTube video with you to illustrate a point in a meeting, but you’re not sure you will have an internet connection. In either case, you need to be able to convert the file to make it usable in a new format.

Through Zamzar, you either upload a file, or direct the service to a URL. Zamzar will convert the file to your desired format, then send you access to the new file. Conversions typically take minutes, depending on the size (up to 100MB). You can convert up to five files simultaneously. There are some annoying ads, but I will gladly deal with the annoyance for a service this spectacular.

If you want faster service, file storage, and higher size limits, you can pay. For businesses, this is a good idea. For the individual user, the free service will likely suffice.

Summing Up – Is it worth it?

Enterprise Value: 5/5 – Design, Marketing, IT, and even Finance will benefit

Entrepreneur Value: 5/5 – Don’t spend time looking for image conversion and document conversion utilities – Zamzar takes care of it

Personal Value: 5/5 – Pictures and Video. You will use it, trust me.

Let me know what you think!

Image courtesy of mrc1028 at Glogster

Todd Hoskins helps small and medium sized businesses plan for the future, and execute in the present. With a background in sales, marketing, and technology, he works with executives to help create thriving organizations through developing and clarifying values, strategies, and tactics. You can learn more at VisualCV, or contact him on Twitter.

Net Neutrality 10-30-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

Don’t nix net neutrality

. . . Last year, a Supreme Court ruling and Federal Communications Commission decision declared that the Internet does not fall under existing communication service laws, putting Internet regulation in legal limbo. Since then, cable and telephone companies have been discussing how to profit from this decision. One of their ideas is to create a “multitiered” Internet.
That sound you’re hearing is the death knell of equality, or net neutrality, on the Web. Net neutrality means that after paying for service, everyone can access the Internet as fast as their connection will allow, without artificial handicaps from the Internet provider. . . .

This would give a huge advantage to content providers with deep financial resources, and make it unlikely for upstart ones like Youtube.com to succeed.

Want to know what you can do?
MA Bell Monopoly Versus the Free Internet — Tell the FCC Net Neutrality Is Not Negotiable

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Great Find: SlideShare

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PowerPoint Without the Hassle

Thank you to Ann Michael who sent me the tip on this new little beauty. The Boston Globe called it YouTube for PowerPoint. Take a look here.

Great Find: SlideShare
Permalink: http://slideshare.net/
Target Audience: Anyone who gives presentations
Content: What do you get when you cross the sociability of YouTube with the slide function of PowerPoint and then mix in a large dose of individuality? They’re calling it SlideShare, and it’s pretty exciting. You can build and upload your own slide shows OR you can go there to watch shows that other folks made.

SlideShare lets you upload PowerPoint or Open Office presentation files. Then you can share them through a online interface much like YouTube. The joy is that now PowerPoint documents can be stored on the Internet. No sending, copying, or moving them to a new machine. You can even embed them in your blog. People are already finding creative ways to make use of this new mashup. Here’s what they say at their main site.

How people are using SlideShare?

  • Teachers are uploading their own slideshows and also asking students to upload their assignments to SlideShare so that parents can see their work.
  • Conference organizers are uploading presentations from their conferences.
  • People are uploading photo slideshows to memorialize a wedding or other special event.

If you are bored, check out the humour on SlideShare. There’s tons of it there!

It’s so easy; it seems everyone is using it. I’ve embedded on here.

There are many beautiful ones at the site that the type more effectively. I chose this because it shows how things still look when not perfectly designed. (I’m sure you’ll use type more effectively.)

To learn more about SlideShare and to see many more shows go the main site or visit their blog.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
Great Find: Library Thing
Great Find: Gotoit Media Portal for Videophiles
Great Find: Notebook UP

Net Neutrality 10-17-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

A Merger of Mixed Blessings

America is at a time where it needs change from the status quo.

Meanwhile, in terms of YouTube, not much has changed since the merger with Google despite the woe and dispair we’ve been told about this merger but Mergers between AT&T and BellSouth get good press despite being a very bad thing.

I’m come to realize that everything that we are told by the media is wrong. The Media can tell us the sky is green because you don’t send Jesus money when we all know that the sky is blue because of the refraction of light particles in the atmosphere.

And since this is not the first time that AT&T has tried to merge with Bellsouth (anyone remember the break up of AT&T in 1984 should know why AT&T is a malevolent entity) this is deja vu all over again. Yet the YouTube/Google merger is consider a bad thing? This coming from a failing mass media regime that tells us “Net Neutrality is bad”, “Net Neutrality is a bunch of mumbo jumbo”, “The Internet is a series of tubes”, and “If you support Net Neutrality, we’ll slow down your internet access and block pro-Net Neutrality websites” (that one wasn’t written down, but Comcast subscribers know exactly what I’m talking about conisering they couldn’t access Google).

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Interview 10.1: Sebastian Prooth, Blogger, Podcaster, Film-maker

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Seb Talks about What He’s Been Doing

Seb Prooth

When Seb Prooth of Seb’s Random Thoughts and I first met, we had a comment conversation about a piece he wrote called, Blogger or Writer? Or Both? I enjoyed that chance to get to know a then new SOB in his “natural habitat.”

It’s been fun for this interview to check back with Seb to see how he’s been spending his time. The article that we discussed was posted last May 9th. It sure seems he’s done a lot since then.

Hi Seb! Tell everyone a bit about the guy called Sebastian.

Well that’s a complicated question! I was just talking about this very subject the other day when I was asked what I do, and I had to give a list of “occupations.” What do I do? Well I am a blogger, obviously. I’m also a writer, technology enthusiast and until recently a podcaster.

For my “real” work I am a student of media, and consider myself a film-maker. I am in pre-production on my first short film with real actors. You can see some of my current work on YouTube at www.youtube.com/meltingclock.

Other than what I do, I can say that I am an American residing in the UK. The reason for that is complicated. I am an old 20 next month . . . read into that what you will! There is a full bio of me on my website at www.sebrt.com/about.

My interests include all those things I do plus a crazy list of other things. I have this strange penchant for interviewing people on my blog. That started back on my first podcast “From the Director’s Chair.”

A little about my podcasting “career.”
I started podcasting back in December 2005 — I know that’s ancient history on the Internet — To make a long story short, my first podcast ran for 17 episodes, and I interviewed some of the movers and shakers in podcasting. In May I merged that podcast with another podcast I was creating with my friend Dave Gray.

Together Dave and I created and hosted what became the weekly “Global Geek Podcast” on which the co-hosts report tech news, web 2.0 happenings and rumblings in the podosphere. The show is light hearted and always includes a wacky news segment. Global Geek Podcast was nominated number 2 podcast to have on your iPod by .Net Magazine in their October 2006 issue.

I left Global Geek Podcast mid September to pursue other projects, however the show is still going strong with a new co-host. I hope that it will continue to grow and gain popularity as long as the hosts are hosting it! You can reach the Global Geek Podcast at www.globalgeekpodcast.com.

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