Recent estimates show that over 2 billion videos are viewed every day on YouTube. That’s right: 2 billion every single day. Over 2 billion videos are watched on Facebook every month. Nielsen research estimates that 90% of all Internet traffic will be video by 2012.
While many of these videos are simply for fun, more and more businesses are using video to promote the products and services they sell. Is your business? However, if the thought of creating your own videos causes you to break out in hives, relax. It’s not that complicated. If I can do it, you can.
It’s easy—and free—to create your own “channel” on YouTube. I have my own channel: Dkrier, TheSociaLight and I post video versions of my blog on it. There are other online video websites and you can also host the videos directly on your own website, if you have the capability to do so.
You can film videos using an inexpensive camera (I use a Flip on a tripod) or even your smart phone. I use Window’s Live™ Movie Maker to edit my videos. It’s a free program, but there are quite a few other programs—free or inexpensive—that you can use. Once you get the hang of it, editing and producing your own videos is fairly simple.
None of my videos will ever win an Oscar®, but I do this because some people prefer “watching” to “reading,” so I’m expanding the reach of my messages.
For many products and services, video is the best way to show what you do. If you’re a realtor, you can produce videos on the properties you’re selling. If you’re a dog trainer, you can tape training sessions. If you have a “brick and mortar” business, you can give viewers a tour of your store. If you’re a professional speaker like me, you can show examples of your presentations. If you’re a nonprofit, it’s a great way to highlight the services that you provide. If you’re a…well, you get the idea. The possibilities are endless!
Videos are also a great way to showcase testimonials from satisfied clients. Take just a couple of minutes and ask people to say what it’s like working with you. It’s not necessary to rehearse; in fact, unscripted comments are best.
It’s key to remember to keep your videos short. There’s a reason that television doesn’t go very long between commercials. YouTube now allows 10 minute videos, but unless you’re showing something like an interview or detailed product tour, it’s best to keep to under four minutes. You can always have multiple parts if your subject is longer.
Posting videos online is a great way to increase your search engine optimization. Make sure that you are using great tags so people can find your videos when they search. Google LOVES YouTube videos. It’s probably because Google owns the site, but having your videos on YouTube will definitely help with SEO.
Finally, remember to cross post. Every time you post a video, post a link on all of the social networking sites you use—and encourage your followers to share the information with their followers.
Have you used video to promote your business? What were the results? If you have your own YouTube channel, friend me so I can watch your videos!
Great tips, Deb. I heard that keeping a video under 2.5 minutes means you show up in the first level of Google search, and YouTube’s internal search engine. Have you found that to be true as well?
It was that way in the past, but doesn’t seem to be any more. To test this, I searched for “social media” in the videos portion of Google and the first 3 were over 4 minutes long, with the fourth running 25 minutes. Google does allow you to search by video length. I also tried searching for “social media” in YouTube and the videos it found were the same that Google found. At first, I thought it was sorted by popularity, as the first three were viewed 2 million times, 1.1 million and 658, 000 respectively. However, the fourth has been viewed just 237 times. I couldn’t determine a pattern to what it found or why it listed them. Curious!
Superb blog post, I have book marked this internet site so ideally I’ll see much more on this subject in the foreseeable future!
Thank you! I hope you’ll comment on other posts in the future.
I think the concept of social media working for b2b is interesting. What’s great about it, is it gives you the chance to connect–and better yet engage in a dialogue with potential clients and/or customers. We’re exploring that theme in a project and would appreciate any comments on a video we’ve created designed for the b2b social media niche.
http://www.youtube.com/user/PostStoneCorp#p/a/u/0/3tKMQiaK9yE
Great post! My company recently branched out into video production for this very purpose and it’s been fascinating the way different people are using video – from testimonials, product information, company history…the possibilities are endless! We even entered the GoDaddy.com commercial contest as a company using our own resources! We’re finding that a combination of self-made videos, like with a Flip and a tripod, with higher production value videos create a great variety of content that’s utilized and shared, which is the point really 🙂
Nicole – thanks for your comment! How did you do in the GoDaddy contest? I’ve also found that a combination of videos is good. We don’t expect a small business person to spend thousands of dollars on every video, but having one or two professionally produced ones, along with self-made videos, is great.
The information gives perfect and clear understanding about the using Video to promote the business and the benefits of using video to move the business to the next level. Posting videos online is a great way to increase the search engine optimization.
Thanks!