Intro to Online Video: 6 Tips for Creating Engaging Video
Last updated 22 hours ago
Creating entertaining, interesting videos can be a great asset to your online marketing plan. Videos are a quick and easy way to reinforce your brand, increase organic discovery on search engines, and connect with consumers on social media. To start creating and sharing engaging videos, follow these simple tips.
Get real.
Online video is a great way to provide consumers with a realistic look into your business. Showcase your business’ personality, but being too goofy can turn consumers off and decrease your credibility. Before you film your video, write out a few key points that you want your viewers to take away from your video, and practice what you want to say before filming. But make sure to shy away from sales and marketing messages – you want your video to feel like a conversation, not a commercial.
Pick interesting topics.
Choose video topics that are entertaining or useful for your audience. Consumers enjoy seeing – and sharing – entertaining content such as an interesting story about a new product or an instructional video that demonstrates your expertise. For instance, if you own a gardening center in Houston, you could create a short video about how to plant roses in Texas with step-by-step instructions. Another approach is to create videos that answer common customer service questions, like this one from Evernote. If you find the content interesting or helpful, chances are, your target audience will too. And remember, the more interesting your topics, the more people will want to follow you and share your videos.
Keep your videos short.
The rule of thumb for online videos is to keep them around two minutes or less. If you have a lot of information or footage to share, break it up into a series of shorter videos. Anything much longer risks losing your audience’s attention. Plus, creating a video series entices people to keep checking back for the latest “episode.” What’s more, videos contribute to a dynamic Web Presence, giving consumers more content to discover when they search for your business name, products, or services.
Make them look stellar.
To create videos with the best quality, you can use an inexpensive HD video recorder, like the Flip video cam, and take the time to edit your videos with professional software. And if you don’t want to worry about filming, editing, and uploading your videos, we suggest hiring a professional to create one for you. A quick way to dress your videos up – and give a boost to your organic traffic – is by adding five seconds of branding at the beginning and end of your video. Include a screen that displays your business name or logo and a URL to your website or blog, so consumers know where to go to learn more about you.
Optimize for organic search.
If you don’t already have one, create your own YouTube channel and post your videos there. Since YouTube videos often receive prominent placement on Google, they can really improve your organic search results and drive more traffic to your business. When you upload a new video to YouTube, create a title based on the keywords you want it to show up for when someone conducts a search, such as “The Easy Way to Plant Roses in Texas.” Add a thorough description and 10-15 keyword tags about your content and your business, including your business name, to maximize your organic discovery.
Share your videos everywhere.
Now that your video is uploaded to YouTube, how do you get more people to see it? You can post it to other video sites, like Metacafe, Blip.tv, or Yahoo! Video. Also share your video on social sites like Facebook®, Twitter®, and LinkedIn®, where your fans and followers can view, comment, like, and share it. Don’t forget to add your videos to your website, blog, and Cast page, as videos have been shown to increase consumer action and conversion, like contacts or direct visits to a business.
Learn More
To help you create and market your online videos, ReachLocal offers TotalVideoNow, a turnkey video production service, and ReachCast, a Web Presence Optimization service that puts more of your content in more places to get more customers. To learn more about these solutions, contact your ReachLocal representative.
Tamara Farley helps equip small business owners with information about local online advertising, social media marketing, and more as a blogger for ReachCast and ReachLocal.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Intro to Online Video: 6 Tips for Creating Engaging Video - ReachCast Blog, Plano, TX
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