Video Marketing

Video directories such as YouTube provide an excellent opportunity to promote your brand online and marketing your services. It provides one of the best, fastest and least expensive ways to drive targeted traffic to your website and generate leads.

As you may have noticed, the way people consume content is evolving. What once was the world of Radio, TV and Print, now is being consumed in some type of digital format. With the constant advances of mobile devices, you’re seeing content that ranges from a few minute videos to full-length movies being watched in someone’s hand.
Active mobile video users grew by 57% from the end of 2008 to end of 2009, from 11.2 million to 17.6 million. Much of this increase can be linked to the strong growth of Smartphones and PDA’s in the marketplace. So why not market your brand and services online, and on video sites such as YouTube.

YouTube is the largest video sharing site to date, with the most traffic and the highest amount of users. It is definitive the place for getting your videos published and marketed. Currently YouTube is second highest trafficked site globally, and estimates show 60 million unique viewers per month.

If you are already sold on this concept, what you must also know is that there is a right way and a wrong way to use video marketing. Here are a few tips for you:

• Be relevant and provide valuable content. While some of the videos you post should be commercial and related to your services, it is important to understand that you will need to also post videos that provide solutions, answers and help for the issues your clients are experiencing. Videos that are humorous, edgy, share a testimonial, inform and educate, often get better responses than videos that simply push your service.
• Get endorsed by viewers. When filming your video, don’t forget to ask the viewer to rate your video or leave a comment. The more comments and ratings your video accumulates, the higher it will be ranked by YouTube for the purpose of their search results.
• Optimize your video description. Before posting your videos online it is essential that you first plan your strategy for using them to get additional exposure. There are several key areas you need to pay attention to in order to make the most of your video marketing efforts. They are:

1. a.    The name of your video file. Be sure to include your keywords in the name of your video file. For example: “John_Doe_Thornhill_Home_Selling estimonial_01_29_2010.mp4″.
2. b.    The title of your video. When deciding on a title for your video, be sure to also include your keywords to help with search engine optimization. You can use the same title as the name of the file but this time you can include spaces.
3. c.    The description of your video. Your primary keyword should appear near the beginning of the first sentence in your description. It is wise to also try to include the primary keyword a couple of times in your description if it is possible.
4. d.    The tags for your video. Using your keywords in the tags for your video will also boost your chances of ranking well in search results.

• Promote your video on Social Bookmarking sites. Another way to gain additional visibility is by submitting your videos to social bookmarking sites. Sites like Digg and StumbleUpon will help you gain additional visibility and exposure for your work. If you have a Facebook page, don’t leave it out either. Users see your content on these sites and if they like it they can vote it up the charts which bring you even greater visibility and traffic to your sites.

It costs almost nothing to use video marketing to promote your brand, your services, or your listings,  and if you apply these simple strategies and consistently upload a few videos per week you’ll quickly begin to generate new leads around the clock, even when you are sleeping. Isn’t that grand?  Enjoy.

Published in REM. May 2010.

Tags: Branding, Marketing

Category: Articles, Technology