The First Annual (Virtual) G+ Bloggers Conference - Increasing Your Market Share Through You Tube

I'm Chef Dennis Littley and we're here with the first annual virtual bloggers conference. Today we're at session 4. It's been quite a day so far. We've had some great sessions and now we're getting into the YouTube session and it's really going to be a lot of good information for you, ways to increase your market share, ways to increase your visibility, and just to have some fun too making these videos. I know a lot of people are hesitant at first, but to get behind the camera in front of the camera, not behind it, get in front of the camera and have yourself taped. But really, you know, it's, it's a lot of fun and you'll enjoy it once you get over the initial shock of seeing yourself live in a video. So I'm going to introduce who we have here today, and we're going to start on my one side. We have Hilah Johnson from Hilah Cooking, we have Joanne Ozug from 15 Spatulas, and Stephanie Manley from CopyKat. So we're going to start with Hyla. I'm going to turn it over to her and she's going to talk a little bit about how she uses YouTube, what she's gotten out of it, and we'll go right down the line. And then we're going to come back to a question and answer period. So if you have questions, type them into the comment bar and ask them. Please don't be afraid to ask. If you want to know how to get started, how to do something, or anything technical, you know, that they might be able to help you with, now's the time to ask. Alright? So here we go. Hyla, it's all yours.

Thanks, Dennis. Hi everyone, I'm Hyla. I started making YouTube videos in January of 2010, and I didn't have a blog before that at all. We just— my now husband and I started making them just sort of as an experiment to see if we could build a YouTube channel, and our initial goal was just to make 100 videos and At this point we've made over 250 videos. And yeah, when we first started though, I didn't really— I wasn't really interested in the YouTube community as a community. I had sort of a bad impression of it just from what I'd heard, you know, about trolls and stuff like that. So I kind of avoided it. But once I realized that there are a lot of people on YouTube that really, really love to cook and really want to learn how to cook and were really interested in what I was doing. And I started like actually responding to questions and we could have real discussions on the YouTube platform. It started to become a whole lot more fun. And then because it was more fun and I was more engaged with the audience, then it started— the channel started to grow a lot faster too. And so now I guess I've got 80,000 subscribers, I think. And I do a website too that sort of corresponds with the videos where I post all the recipes and then do some additional just recipe blog content over there. And it works really well together. So yeah, I think that's my YouTube history in a nutshell. So yeah.

Great. OK, we'll move on to Joanne. Joanne?

Yeah, so I think this panel is really awesome because we all have different ways that we use YouTube, and we have different stories. And my point of view is definitely transitioning from food blogging to YouTube and kind of expanding your brand to video. Are we just talking about stories right now, or like—

Whatever you want. The floor is yours.

Okay, I have like 5 minutes of like general thoughts. So YouTube and food blogging are similar in many ways and they're also wildly different in other ways. So I'm going to talk a little bit about that and then also talk about reasons why you might consider doing YouTube because I know people are very on the fence about it either because of the work involved or you're nervous about being in front of the camera for various reasons. So on the food blogging side, videos can really enhance a reader experience. On my blog, I do step-by-step photos, but there are definitely some techniques that can really be shown much better on a video. And the other thing on the food blogging side is there are so many food blogs out there, and The reason why a reader might come and visit your blog again and again is because they want to hear your story and they want to, they like your personality, not necessarily just your recipes. You might have good recipes, hopefully you do, but like because of like the way that you share those recipes, like your point of view. And just as people say like, you know, you shouldn't do a food blog if you don't want to put your picture up there, you're not willing to open yourself up. I think people really want to know who you are, and video just makes such a big difference with that because you're recorded and you're live, and people can, you know, get more of your personality than they can from writing. So I think it really strengthens like that reader-writer connection and can really like build trust. The other reason you might consider doing, you know, gaining traction on YouTube is to diversify your income. I think especially if you're doing food blogging full-time, it's just another arena that's growing more and more and just a good way to bring in income. Like blogging, I would say never go into it primarily for making money because it's a lot of work up front. You gotta really work hard for a year, maybe two, in order to make like serious amounts of money, but it's definitely possible. And aside from ad income on YouTube, kind of like with sponsored posts on blogs, there are more and more opportunities to do sponsored videos, which I think is really cool. I've noticed like even in the past couple of months, more and more companies coming to me and asking me to do stuff, and also publishing networks, like sending out emails and presenting opportunities just to do video. So I think for that aspect, it's also another reason to at least consider doing YouTube. So those are kind of the whys, and then as far as the how to transition, as crowded as food blogging is, there's a lot of food bloggers, I'd say YouTube is way more crowded. So it's difficult to kind of gain traction on YouTube. If you want to build your audience there, the first thing I suggest is taking a look at your blog stats and seeing which of your blog posts are the most popular. From what I understand, pretty much everyone has like something that's gone viral on Pinterest or Tumblr or something that gets a lot of search traffic. Something where you get a lot of views on your blog, make videos for those pages and embed that video into that blog post. It'll help you really get started on YouTube both with views and with subscribers, and you can kind of like transfer some of your blogging traction and success to get you going on YouTube because I'm sure Hila will talk about this later, but, um, The more likes you have, the more comments, the more views and activity you have on your videos, the higher it'll appear in the search. It'll be suggested as like in the sidebar as like suggested videos to watch. So, you know, if you can use some of your blog success to get you kind of get the ball rolling in YouTube, that's a really good way to get started. I'm trying to think what else. Hilah's, I'm sure, going to talk about SEO, so I won't even talk about that, but that's his— is very important. And then the other thing is to, when you get started, spend a good amount of time picking an editing software and really learning it and trying to keep your videos to like 3 minutes, maybe 4, because people definitely prefer shorter videos and are more likely to watch. And there's— Stephanie and Hyla should correct me on this if I'm wrong, but like there's Part of the algorithm, like for YouTube, is like where people drop off in your video. So you want people to watch for as long as possible. If it's like 10 minutes, then they probably won't. So anyway, that's my really long general overview of points. So I'll pass the baton to Stephanie.

Thank you. And Stephanie, the floor is yours.

Okay, so I started on YouTube because I wanted to augment my existing content. I've done really well. I've been blogging now for almost 20 years and I do pretty well in SEO. But I noticed that people that have video and a recipe, there's a possibility it'd end up twice in the top 10 for SERP results. And I thought that was really, really important to try to go after to drive blog traffic. That's kind of what I did when I went after YouTube. I've loved YouTube since then. In fact, I like doing video more than just a blog post right now. Now I feel like I'm just doing half of an effort if I'm not shooting a video for it. I love the interaction and response that I get from my audience. People will tell you that they're so happy that they made a particular dish and you saved dinner and that their family loves them. For me, that's kind of the real reward in blogging, is knowing that you're making happiness and joy in people's lives, and you're doing something to just make people feel really good. I love video for that because people are much more interactive, and they definitely want to engage with you. People will talk about my dogs running around. They talk about my kitchen and at times kitchen utensils that I use. Which ones I fail to use. So it's, it's a lot of fun, and I think you get a larger audience and a much more engaged audience. So I think it's important to, to grow your brand and continue to go after a new audience very actively. So I love YouTube.

Very good. Another good reason to use it. And I think we were talking about that before, is that how the level engagement is definitely stronger on YouTube than it is with their blogs. And it's funny, with the podcasting we did earlier, they were saying the same thing. You may not get anywhere near as much traffic, but the level of engagement is— and I think it's because you're diving deeper into speaking. You're not trying to keep it down to a set amount of words or keep it short enough. People just skim our blogs. Where watching a video, they can't really skim the video. They can, they can fast forward it, but if you keep it to that 3 to 5 minutes, I think you're in a good zone there. So Ladies, we do have a couple questions, and one was, Joanne, Molly Darden wanted to know how they can get on with sponsorship or affiliation. Do you have any thoughts on that? You mentioned about getting YouTube's brands.

Right, I assume that means sponsored videos. So there are a couple ways. If you have any relationships already with brands, like if you've worked with someone on your blog, definitely just pitch them and say, you know, I have this idea to do a video using your product, lay out a summary, lay out your cost, basically the same way that you would propose a sponsored post. So you can approach them. Sometimes they'll approach you, though I think in that case, I don't know where you're at with a YouTube channel, but it's good to have like portfolio, so to speak, of videos you've already done. And then as I mentioned, like, I've seen, like, publishing networks, or I don't know what you would call those groups, like the same groups that contact a group of bloggers for sponsored posts. They've been sending out basically pitches for a sponsored video, like not even a blog post. So I think those are the those are the 3 main ways.

So the PR agencies are starting to do that now, the—

yeah.

Hyla or Stephanie, have you done any sponsored posts?

I have, I've done a few and they all approached me, so I don't really know, but I have gone and contacted PR companies myself for other reasons and they're usually really, really helpful and if you have an idea for them they like that because they're— it's usually they're the ones that have to come up with all the ideas. So if you're like showing up and you have an idea that might possibly help them make their client happy, then in my experience, they're, they're really ready to listen to you. I would say too, like once you get that sponsored video post, follow up with the company or their PR rep or whoever your contact is there. And like if you get a good comment on YouTube where somebody says, oh, that 'Your appliance looks awesome, I need to get one of those,' or somebody, you know, asks a question about whatever product you're using, take a screenshot of that and send it to that company and say like, 'Hey, look, it's working.' Basically, you're showing them like that their investment in you was worth it for them.

Sounds good. Stephanie, have you done any of those?

I have not done any sponsored posts, but what I have done is I've had a couple of national TV spots. And some local TV due to YouTube directly. Since I'm the copycat recipe person, brands tend to stay away from me just a little bit because they're afraid someone's gonna get sued. I've been doing this for 20 years and never been sued, so, ever, but knock on wood.

Haha.

Yet. Yet. So I've never been sued.

Well, good. That's good. I hope it stays that way.

Me too.

We had another question here from Janice Mansfield. She wants to know, do you have any recommendations for good editing software?

I really love Final Cut X. I started on Final Cut 7, and when X rolled out, it's so incredibly different than 7, I almost my head blew up. I mean, it was like, what is going on? But once I just like sat down and looked at it, it's actually really simple to use, I think. I got the basics of it within like 30 minutes or an hour. I was able to cut a simple video together. So yeah, if you have a Mac, I really like Final Cut 10.

iMovie also does great videos as well if you find that Final Cut is a little bit more challenging to start out with. I think that's Probably tough. I loved iMovie. You know what, I've used the Movie Maker when I used to be on PC and it worked just as good. Any of them are fine.

I use Corel VideoStudio Pro, which is, it's not as fancy as Final Cut, and it's a good option though if you're looking to get something that's around like $80 or $100 as opposed to some of the I don't know what Final Cut is, but some of the fancier ones are like $300 to $500. But iMovie is also a good option. I think, I know iMovie for me, like I grew out of it pretty quickly. Like there weren't enough bells and whistles. But if you're just like getting started, there's certainly a lot of functions on there that would probably work for most people.

And I'll tell you something that I learned. If you buy your computer at the Apple Store, you pay for the one-on-one, they will teach you how to use Final Cut or iMovie. You just walk down to the Apple Store with your computer and you can book as many 1-hour sessions as you want and they will show you how to use their own software.

Awesome.

Yeah, it's definitely a good thing to do. And also, if you're a blogger and you make money for your blog, let Apple know that because they will make you a business partner. So you get invited to networking groups and things like that. So be sure to throw that weight around a little bit. Let them know that this is your profession, you're doing it professionally, and the kids there will definitely get really engaged with you, and they get very excited about it. They know they're working on something that's going on YouTube and that, you know, thousands, maybe millions of people are actually going to see it. Leverage that when you can.

So I guess if I was making them, I shouldn't go in and say all 6 of my viewers are going to see it.

They don't know that.

Hopefully I have more than that by now.

I think you have 7.

Yeah, I think so. I must have added a couple today. The software everyone uses is for Apple though, for Macs. Is that what everyone's using for for their YouTube? Macs, no PCs?

I don't— yeah, I don't use a PC.

That's fine, I was just asking.

I use PC. I actually use both, but I do my video editing on a PC.

So the software will work on that then too? Okay, what you were talking about. Okay, that's all, because I know not everyone has a Mac, so it was just a question. We had a question here from Where is it? Gabby Dawkin. And she wants to know, she's so excited to tune in, you guys are fantastic. Without asking for specific numbers, can you give a range on what sponsored video content typically would run costs? Anyone want to divulge anything or give an idea?

I mean, I think it varies depending on how many views, like how many views your videos get on average. Obviously, if your video gets a whole bunch of views, they're gonna pay more for it. Um, I mean, gosh, I don't know, that is kind of a sensitive question.

As food bloggers, you two guys, would you say the numbers are about the same as they would be for sponsored blog posts?

Yes, um, maybe even a little bit more. And I feel like it's the same approach as when you're trying to decide how much you should charge for sponsored posts. Like, factor in how many subscribers you have, how much traffic you get, your time and your hourly rate. It's so hard to like— Gabby, send me a private message or send me an email.

I know, it's just—

sensitive subject.

And another thing, what you're— it's about— we were talking about the engagement of the audience. That is something that advertising companies look at too. So like, even if you don't have the most huge numbers of subscribers, if you have— if your subscribers are people that comment on every single video, that's sometimes worth more than having a bunch of less interested subscribers. So you can sell yourself that way a little bit too and say, I don't have the numbers maybe that other people do, but my people really are involved and engaged and really care about what I have to say.

You know what, these videos and even your blog posts, this is content that lasts forever. It's not a short-term thing. I would gather to say that there's probably a few recipes that I've developed that have probably earned me probably over $10,000 in the lifetime of those recipes. So, you know, I would urge people to think of that when they're developing content, is that it can last forever. We're developing evergreen content. So, you know, I would encourage people to be mindful of that when you're doing your work.

Very good advice. Okay, Lenny Ferrera asks, she has a question, he has a question for Hyla. Creating a Roku channel is relatively involved. Has it been worth the effort?

We partnered with a company to design that, and they, they said, you know, we'll set it up with however many videos you have now, which I think at the time was maybe 150 or something. This was sometime last year, and And then in return, they'll put ads on it, and then they'll just like keep the ad money until they've gotten whatever their money was back. So we didn't really have to put anything into it initially. The only thing is it is real involved to keep it updated because you have to reformat each video into like, I think, 8 or 10 different speeds basically so that it will keep playing even if your internet connection drops. And that's just proven to be— take up way too much space and time with our little 2-person team. So we have failed at keeping it updated. I have not actually seen any revenue from it, and we probably won't. But it was really good at the beginning because it did open up a whole new audience to us of people that don't watch YouTube but watch their Roku. And so a lot of people found the YouTube channel and the website through Roku. And actually the people, I feel like it's kind of difficult in my experience to get the people on YouTube to go leave a comment on the website. They're just more comfortable on YouTube. But with Roku, because there's no other way to interact besides going to a website or YouTube, they were really likely to go to the website and leave a comment if they had a question about the recipes or anything like that. So it was good for exposure, yeah. If you can find a company that would partner with you to do it like that for no upfront fee, then I would probably say yes, do it.

I don't know if this is really relevant to this, but I know that— I don't know what you're looking for exactly from Roku, but I have my videos syndicated on iFood.tv, and I know that some of their viewers watch my videos on Roku as well. And I do get ad revenue from them also. So like I said, I don't know what exactly you're looking for from Roku, but if it's just like the option to watch stuff on there, you could possibly do that through iFood.

Blip TV too, if you upload on Blip, it'll automatically go to their Roku channel.

And for those that may not know about— you're talking about streaming videos that they watch on their television like they would watch other streaming videos, movies, or any of their favorite Yeah, yeah, like a set-top box, like Apple TV, same concept. Okay, that is pretty wild. I hadn't thought of that possibility, but that's interesting, especially if you have a TV in your kitchen and you want to watch the recipe and make it along with it. That would be a really good way to go. I like the— was it iTV, Joanne, you said?

It's iFood.tv. iFood.tv.

Yeah, I'm on that as well. They've— yeah.

Have you found it to be good for you, Stephanie, or?

They send me checks every month.

Then it's good for you. Okay, well then I would find it to be good.

I did ditto that.

As long as it's not embarrassing to cash them, yeah, I would find it good.

No, no, it's not embarrassing to cash.

Okay, we have a question here from Brenda Bennett, so would I post the video into the recipe blog post every time or just stick with the YouTube video and not insert it into my blog?

Put it in your blog.

Yeah.

Is it any trouble to embed it?

Nope, it's just a little embed code that you copy and paste into your blog post.

It takes 15 seconds.

Does that cause any problems with time loading your blog then or does it add anything to it?

Nope, nope.

Because nothing is really residing there, right? It's just a link. Gotcha, okay, that makes sense. Good to know. Alright, where is it? Molly Darden says, "Is it a few hundred dollars or $150 average?" What was that? I forgot what the question was.

Oh, for the—

Video?

Sponsored video?

I don't know what the original question was. Oh yes, it wasn't about that, so I'm going to have to pass on that one. Okay, we'll come back to it. Denise Woodward says hello, she's glad to be here, says hi to everybody. Cheryl Suzanne has a question. She said, how long do each of you spend editing a video, and how long did it take you to get comfortable with editing? It's one thing that keeps her away from video, finding the time to learn how to edit. Good question.

I think when we started making videos, it probably took a good 3 hours to edit a video, and after doing it for a year, it maybe takes me an hour, and I think that's probably about as fast as it's gonna get.

But your videos are very, very involved.

3-camera setup.

Yeah, so when I do a 1-camera setup, and then maybe if I add a couple of photos in there, I could end up with a 3-4 minute video I can probably edit, just edit in less than 30 minutes. It's just completely not complicated, so.

Obviously it's going to take longer in the beginning. 'cause there's a learning curve. I would say I spend a couple of hours. The way I've been doing my videos recently is I cook everything twice. So I do a wide shot, just run through, and then I'll do everything close up, and I splice in the close-up shots. That's a bit more editing intensive, so it's been probably 2 to 3 hours of editing, but it was shorter when I was just doing a wide shot. So it depends how much you want to do. As far as the editing goes, I'd say it's worth doing. So it's just like investing time in improving your photography for the blog or other things. It's just another thing that will take a little bit of investment at first, but it'll take just as much time as writing up a blog post, I feel like, once you get the hang of it.

Yeah, yeah.

Very good. Okay. Alright, we did have a question that I missed from Becca Heflin. She said her YouTube account was set up with her Gmail account, which means it's her personal name, not the name of her blog, and she wants to know if you think that's an issue with her YouTube account, or should she set up a business account to put her videos to, or does it matter?

Go ahead.

I mean, I guess it depends on if you're just If you're just uploading to YouTube in order to host them on your own site, then it probably doesn't matter. But if you want to actually build a YouTube audience and a community on YouTube, then I would say it would probably be better to match your blog name.

Stephanie?

So I think that since G+ is so adamant about keeping us and our names together, I changed my YouTube channel from CopyKat Recipes to Stephanie Manley, just so you know that it's me. So that way when I put out a cookbook or whatever, you know what, you're gonna remember my name and that association is gonna be much quicker than, oh, that's that person, let me match that up to their name. That's just my philosophy, is just go with your name, put it out there, be your brand. You know, don't let there be any confusion about who and what you are.

That's a good point for lots of things. Yeah.

And with you, Hala, your name is your brand, right? Just like mine, pretty much. I think those that have our name into it, it's our brand. Makes it easier for us. But I think the way Google is running, and from everything I've seen and I've heard, is that they're, they're making it more about being a person, about personal connections. They're getting away from companies, from people that don't have visibility as a person. It looks like they want this to be more of a people-to-people connection, you know, the way they're doing authorship and the way they're setting things up. Their philosophy has been that people connect with people, so it would only make sense that they're going to continue this onto YouTube since that is part of theirs. But again, you never know, things can change, but right now that seems to be the way things are heading.

Great.

If you guys have any other questions, please don't hesitate, you know, put them in the comment bar and we've got a great group here to ask, so take advantage of it while they're here. So let's— I'll throw a question out there. Okay, on your YouTube videos, you were talking about time constraints and making them between, what, 3 and 5 minutes, I think is what you were saying, 3 to 4 minutes, so you don't lose the attention span. When you're making them and you're editing them, do you find that you lose any of the steps, or is everything still cohesive? And, you know, I've seen all of your videos, but I'm wondering if you ever had— when you first started, if you had a problem with that in editing and to make it—

yeah. Yes, early videos are just excruciatingly long, and you don't want to delete them off your channel because they get lots of traffic, and then people will be upset that you deleted that one video.

So it's like You can't go back and edit them anymore and put them back, so it's a done deal once it's up. So don't worry about it, do it, you know, get it under your belt. I mean, from what I'm hearing is, you know, everything is just, you know, start. If you start with one camera, start with one camera. You can't wait until everything's perfectly aligned and you have 3 people or 2 people helping you and you can really do everything like that. Just jump in, get it going, and learn learn like everybody else did, flailing away, doing the best you can.

For sure.

I would suggest people that are doing one-camera shots, go watch Food Wishes, Chef John, go watch his videos. That is a one-camera shoot with him doing the voiceover later. And that is a great way to start. So you can just get the hang of it. And that's all it is. It's one camera, one microphone. It's a great, great way to do it. Start out with simple things. I don't care if it's making like egg salad or how to slice a tomato. Just do it. I didn't really feel comfortable until I maybe did like 100 videos. Just because you're going to be nervous and you're going to— you need to develop your own style and your own sense of who you are on camera. Don't worry about it. You know, quite frankly, nobody's going to watch your first 10 videos, probably not even your mom.

Right. Don't worry about it.

Just do them so you can get in the practice and the mode of doing the video.

And we did when we started, we made a couple of videos before that we never intended to show anyone. They were just like, okay, let's just make a couple videos to practice. And then there was no pressure that like, oh, we got to upload this next week because they were just throwaways, but it was a good way to sort of help me get more comfortable in front of the camera and us to figure out what shots are going to work and where the cameras need to be and how to put the lights and all that. So kind of a dry run.

And in terms of keeping the time down, definitely it's painful, or at least it is for me. I have a hard time making myself do it, but if you storyboard It will make everything so much easier because if you just film yourself going, you will be shocked at how much you ramble about pointless things that do not help the viewer at all in making this recipe. So if you have kind of an idea of the points that you want to make and the things you want to say, the shots that you want to show, it'll make editing so much easier.

Very good. We have a question here from Monique Johnson, and she's asking, what are your video setups and equipment used— camera, lights, etc.? So we'll start with Hilah, and you can tell us.

Um, okay, so we use a Canon 60D for the main wide shot and— oops— and a Canon T3i for the B camera. That's sort of the one that follows the food. And then we recently added a third camera mounted overhead on the ceiling. Which is just, I don't even know what it is. It's this little Canon HD, just a little video camera, which this one is cool to use in the overhead because it does have like an autofocus that will, you know, if I'm holding stuff up, moving stuff around, we don't have to worry about everything staying in focus that way.

What do you use to switch back and forth between them? Is that a—

They just all— they're just always running, and then in the editing software with Final Cut, and I think any editing software, you can sync up the 3 cameras so that they're, you know, so they're synced up so you can cut it from there.

So all 3 just run continuously and then you just pick the shots you want from them. That's great. What kind of lights are you using?

We've got a couple of softboxes with some daylight balanced fluorescent lights in them, those compact fluorescents. So we used those two and then just the overhead kitchen lights. And then we used a little wireless lav mic from— oh, what's the company? I can't remember. German company. And that was—

It is wireless.

It's wireless, yeah. When we first started, we had a wired lav, and that actually worked fine, and it was like $30 from Audio-Technica, I think, and it worked great. It just kind of is a little annoying to be tethered to the camera. So we actually— that was like one of the first like big things we invested in was like a wireless lav mic. But I think even still it was like $300. It wasn't crazy expensive.

Great.

Okay, Joanne? Yeah, I use the same camera that I use to photograph on my blog, the Nikon D5100. It's not really expensive. It's like $600 or $700, $600 lens. And Hilah's like serious business. She's got like 3 cameras, and I've been debating getting another one because I have one camera, so I go through and I make the recipe once, wide shot, and then I do it again. If you are really serious about doing video, two cameras will certainly make it easier because then you don't have to go back and do everything over again because both cameras are filming from two different angles at the same time. But I feel like this is said over and over again, you probably heard this before, but the audio is so much more important than the visual quality. So whatever you use, make sure to invest in a good microphone. It will make all the difference.

Lights, do you use any studio lights with yours?

I don't use any studio lights. I do all the adjustments on the camera, and actually, like, on auto, it's underexposed, so I just bump up the exposure and it fixes it pretty well.

Great.

Okay, Stephanie.

Okay, for lighting, I do have a couple of soft boxes that I'll use if my daylight— I try to shoot everything during the day, and if my daylight lighting isn't enough, I will use my soft boxes. Otherwise, I try to go with natural light. For my mic audio setup, I actually record that separately now. I just upgraded that, but whenever I do voiceover work, I use a Yeti microphone, I use that for those. And for camera-wise, I just use a regular video recorder, an inexpensive camera. I would love to learn how to switch and use my Nikons. I have a D90 and I don't know what, a D600. I would like to move to using those because I just think they photograph beautifully, photograph a lot nicer than your video camera, although it works well, I'm not saying that it doesn't, and I really like the one I have, it's a Sony, and it has a hard drive built into the camera, so I just stick in a cord like this, and then I upload all the stuff to an external hard drive. So maybe that's something we should talk about, folks, is what do you do with all this data? Yeah, it's mind-boggling. I would love to hear the other ladies' suggestions, but I finally have— I have learned just whenever you shoot video, move it to the external drive when you take it off your camera and don't put it on your computer because I filled up a 1 terabyte hard drive in a matter of 2 months with video stuff. It was crazy. So maybe you ladies have some suggestions on workflow that would be helpful.

Great.

What do you guys use? Hyla?

Yeah, external hard drives. We've got one backup that has like everything that we've ever done on it, and then we've got I think 2 other working external hard drives that we're using now. So yeah, it's a lot. It's a whole lot. When we first started, we didn't keep— we only kept the master edited version. We didn't keep any of the footage, which so far hasn't caused us any problems, but we keep all the footage now just in case anyone else ever wants to use it for anything. But yeah, it does take up a lot of space and get an external hard drive. I hadn't thought of that at all.

I would have thought just the video was done, you leave it on YouTube and it saves it. So, phew. So that's why I'm not making it, me and my 6 viewers. Joanne, what do you use in the story of yours?

I have less videos than Hila and Stephanie. I've done around 50 or 60 if I recall. I have a 1 terabyte plus a solid-state hard drive, so I have 2 in my computer, and so far I haven't really filled it up very much, but I do, like, any clips that I don't use, I delete. It's kind of a pain and very boring task, but I'll see which clips I use, 'cause I take multiple, like, close-up shots from different angles and such, and delete what I don't use, and then save it in the computer, and I also have, my entire computer backed up to like a cloud automatic service.

Okay, good advice. We have a question here from Cheryl Suzanne, and she wants to know if each of you could give one best tip for shooting video, what would it be?

Ooh, for shooting? Um, can it be an editing tip?

Sure, well, she asked for shooting, but yeah, go ahead, give your best tip.

I think Joanne already hit the best tip was the audio. For shooting. But I would say, I guess for editing, when you cut, cut on a motion. Don't, like, cut during the knife cut, not after the knife is finished cutting, and it makes a smoother flow of your finished video.

Sounds good. Joanne, one best tip?

I'm not sure if this is relevant if you're planning to be in front of the camera or not, But practice before you start doing your videos, like recording yourself trying to be energetic, and you'll find that you look very tired and sleepy and bored. And just kind of get a feel for how much energy you will need to appear relatively interested in what you're doing, because it's very difficult. And if you haven't, like, watched Hyla's videos, like, are super entertaining. There's so much personality. I feel like that's, that's so important and like something that I struggle with so much. But at the very least, work on trying to, to be energetic and engaging.

Good advice. Stephanie, one best tip?

My best tip is probably try to storyboard and plan out what you're going to say. Don't just stick the camera on and think the magic's gonna happen. You gotta spend a little bit of time doing a little bit of homework and planning it ahead of time.

Okay, sounds good. Brenda Bennett has another question. She said, you make a quick video, then you also have to write the recipe, and would you write content just as you would have for the recipe, or you just skip writing content because you're taking on the video anyway, and you have the recipe under the video. So I guess she's asking, can you just do a video and just put the recipe under it? Do you really need to write anything?

I do. I write stuff. Sorry. Yeah, I think it helps for SEO reasons when people are searching for a recipe. I think it does help to have some text in there for Google to like grab onto. And then also like whenever I'm cutting the videos, if I end up having to cut something out for time but I still think it's an interesting fact about that food or whatever, then I like to throw that information in there too.

Is she talking about on the blog?

Ah, you know, I'm not sure, Brenda, what she's saying about that. First I thought it was the blog.

Or if it's the metadata that's actually on YouTube?

It could be.

The description box? I'm not sure I understand the question.

I was thinking it was on the blog. I hadn't thought about it being on the video itself.

So I'll just speak to— I would never not just slap a video up on my website without doing the regular blog post. My audience has seen blog posts for years and years and years, and those people really don't care about videos. In fact, they tell me, "I'd like a recipe without a video." Well, that's great. You don't have to watch the video. I accommodated you by writing the blog post. And again, for SEO, you want to go ahead and do that. You have to realize everybody has a different learning style. Some people love to read and they gather information that way. Whereas some people are more kinetic or visual and they want to see it being done for them to get what you're trying to do. So I would probably do it.

Yeah, I would think as a matter of engagement too, you would want to have some content there because people aren't— you're not going to connect with someone who just slaps a video up there and doesn't say, "Hi, how you doing?" or anything, because you can see see that it's more or less them just rushing through it or going through the motions. You need to have some kind of level of entertainment besides that and engagement to make you seem like that real person that they want to connect with. So that was a good question. Jasmine Fine wants to know, is there a good resource for storyboards? I have never written one, so I would love a good site or resource with templates and guides.

I just get a piece of paper and start drawing the stuff out. These are the shots.

This is how I wanted to start.

Look.

You know, piece of paper.

Yeah, the way I do mine, I put like shots in brackets and then whatever I want to say in quotes. And I'll just like write it out, a general idea of what I'm going to say. What shot is gonna be there. It's not fancy, I don't know. I just, it's very simple the way I do it.

So you're like, your shots are just basically like the steps of the recipe then?

Yeah, I'll just say like, I don't know, close-up of gooey cheese stretching, or like, I don't know, I'll put something like that in there, like whatever is going to be the visual you know, with whatever I'm saying.

Good idea.

Okay, well, yeah, I guess you can probably, let's say, Google it. No, I mean, I know anytime I can't find anything, but I'm sure there's probably some resources out there, Jasmine. And if, you know, there's people use storyboards for a lot of things, so that might be a good way to find it. And if none of these ladies use them, it might not be as important either. Just kind of lay it out and go with your gut on how it should, how it should feel and flow. Becky Rosenthal was asking, what are some easy tips for helping your videos to get found online?

Oh, that's good. That's SEO metadata stuff. Um, do y'all, I mean, do y'all want to go first, or—

I think you should go. You're like the very knowledgeable SEO person. Same with Stephanie. I'm probably the the least knowledgeable?

I can tell you the best tip I got from Ronnie Binzer.

Okay.

There's this website called Speechpad, and for $1 a minute, they will convert whatever they hear on your video to text, and then you load that transcript to YouTube, and then that way YouTube knows specifically what you're saying. So YouTube knows what's in the video. That was my best tip, and I found in videos that I actually did that, that the videos probably get 20 to 30% more views.

Yeah, same experience here.

Yeah, that was my, that's my big tip on videos.

Okay. And then another thing is, yeah, don't neglect your, we mentioned the description box earlier, don't neglect that. Make sure that you do your tags and your metadata. And YouTube will let you set default tags and metadata so that, you know, if you want whatever like your shtick is, if you have like a niche that you're in, like I do a lot of Tex-Mex food, so like my default tags are my name, my website, Tex-Mex, Tex-Mex cooking, Texas cuisine, like anything like that. And then I go in and add specific tags for that video. And think about common misspellings when you're thinking about what to tag stuff as. And then for the metadata, that's important too. That's another good spot to put in your keyword, whatever. Like make sure you put that in the first 2 lines so it's sort of above the fold so people will see it before they have to click "see more." And then you can put links to your website or your Twitter or your Facebook or whatever in there also. And thumbnails, ooh. Like if you have the best SEO in the world and you have an ugly thumbnail, probably no one is going to click on your video. So take the time to upload a custom thumbnail for each video and make it look pretty.

Would you, would you take like a still, then a still shot of the finished product and use that as your custom?

Yeah, yeah, we do that, or sometimes even just pull a screenshot from the video. And then we've got a little bit of branding on the side that says Hilah Cooking sort of up the vertical there. And something like that I think is good too, something kind of subtle that's not going to be in the way of the picture, but at least, you know, at first glance, like, your audience can recognize, like, oh, that's one of her videos. I want to watch that one.

Good idea. Excellent idea.

Okay.

Let's see. Any other questions? Becky Rosenthal said, well, what was that website for the transcriptions?

Stephanie?

Speechpad.com.

Speechpad.com.

And if I said it incorrectly, I will put it in the comments down below if I made a mistake.

Is there any other way to get your videos— I mean, besides that, are there any other tips you have for getting people to see your videos? Or for gaining subscribers. Let's talk about that. How do you build your subscribers?

Okay, so I'm glad you brought this up because I forgot this because I didn't want to be looking at my notes. But one thing, like transitioning from food blogging to YouTube, I feel like there aren't really strong calls to action on at least food blogs, calls to action being like asking people to subscribe or do stuff like that. And it's really important to be really aggressive on YouTube. If you look at like any of the big channels on YouTube, you will see that they always ask viewers to subscribe. They ask them to like the video. They ask them to leave a comment. It feels kind of weird at first, but I feel like On food blogs, it's not like that. It's not really that aggressive. You might have something on the side that says, like, oh, like, subscribe to my blog, but it's not, like, within the, like, blog post or anything like that. But on YouTube, if you don't ask or remind people to do those things, they're probably not going to. And for subscribing, if they don't subscribe, odds are they probably won't come back. And then, um, in terms of liking the video or leaving a comment. The more likes or comments you have on your video, the better it will appear in the search results and all that stuff. So, yeah.

Where and how do you ask them this stuff?

I've seen lots of different ways. I, at the end, just say like, you know, don't forget to subscribe, like, leave a comment. I know people who, one channel that comes to mind is Divas Can Cook. She doesn't do any like in front of the camera work. Hers are all just like the shots of the food. But like in the middle of making her recipe, like halfway through, she'll be like, oh, you know, guys, don't forget to visit my website, divascancook.com. You can get all the recipe measurements there. You don't have to write everything down. So she'll do it like right smack dab in the middle. So I think there's different ways to do it. Depends how aggressive you want to be, but definitely should include it somewhere.

You want it to be in the video somewhere.

Yes.

Yeah, okay, good point.

And then annotations too. You can do a little— add an annotation box to the corner that says click to subscribe, and you can set it to link right to the subscribe page and have that up there the whole time. And then, yeah, I'll also add a little annotation that says like, "Thumbs up for more desserts," or "Thumbs up for my stupid dog," or whatever, like something relevant to the video. And I'll usually put that in at the beginning, just like a little reminder. Thumbs up, guys.

Very good, very good. Okay, let's see. Dion said, "So having transcriptions for our videos is a good idea, right?" I said, "Yeah, that's a good idea." Yep. Okay. Molly Darden, do you coordinate your YouTube video with your G+ site?

They're linked. Yeah.

Sometimes I'll plan out little arcs of content. Say I want to do a whole bunch of mushroom recipes.

Bees.

I'll try to do some things in clusters, but I don't go out of my way to— yeah, you are your YouTube, or your YouTube and your G+ accounts, they are one.

OK. Yep. All right, so that answers that one. Mona Holmes asked to please repeat the app and spell it, and Stephanie's going to put that into the comment box for you, Mona. Once we find out for sure what it is.

Yeah, I thought I'd put out there too, like, I just type it out myself.

Your transcription?

Yeah. It's a dollar a minute.

Oh my God.

You know what?

I, since I was little, have been like a super fast typer, so it takes me like 10 minutes to type it. So I, if it sounds like that's a good option, but if you don't want to pay for it, or you can also do it yourself.

Yeah, I'm lazy and I don't spell well.

I'm with you on that one. I feel your pain, sister. I feel your pain. And spelling has kind of fallen by the wayside with all these spell checks we have, which is not good.

And text talk.

They never interpret me correctly.

I—

yeah, no.

I can't spell anymore and I can't drive anywhere without a navigator. It's great. Okay, let's see. Any other questions? That's about it. We're running towards the close of the session.

Wow.

Does anybody have anything else they would like to touch upon? Anything you can tell people about vlogging or what you do or how to set up something? Now's the time. Anybody have anything left to share with us?

Sure, should I go?

Absolutely, dive in.

So I've been to a lot of conferences recently and I feel like so many people say, like, I, the food bloggers in particular, like, oh, I really want to do video, but like the most common thing I hear is that, you know, they just don't want to be in front of the camera. And I have two responses to that. The first is like, it's hard in the beginning, but you just kind of have to do it. Another thing is if you really don't want to be on camera, you don't have to be. There are plenty of really great videos that aren't in front of the camera at all. My friend Julie Diley has a channel, and like her videos are just all the close-up of the food. They're like 2 minutes long. They're super short, to the point. Very instructional, and she's not in front of the camera, and the videos are really great. Like, there's so many different ways to do it, and even like in terms of being in front of the camera, there are different ways people do that. So one channel I know, Entertaining with Beth, she like sits down on the couch kind of like Giada De Laurentiis style, and she'll verbalize what she's doing and cut to kitchen shots of her doing it. So it's not her live in the kitchen, she's sitting in her living room couch, but she's talking to you and telling you what to do. So there are so many different ways. Oh, and side note, and she said, I think, that she does that because she has a hard time talking and doing food preparation at the same time. So there are just so many different ways that you can do your videos, and pick which way works best for you. There's so many different ways you can do it. Just do it.

I like that. I may be getting a recliner and be doing my shots from me sitting in the recliner with maybe a beer in one hand.

There you go.

And shoot the food and do a voiceover. That, because I can't compete with Giada, so that might be the way to go.

I would just encourage people to look at different channels on YouTube, not just food bloggers. There are, I mean, my goodness, Angry Grandpa has what, like 14 million views? Angry Grandpa, this is an older man who yells and cusses, and that's all he does. That's it.

Absolutely.

Just be aware that, you know what, whatever you do, I bet there's an audience out there for you on YouTube. So don't let someone else's style stop you from creating your own videos.

Absolutely. You know, one thing I've learned doing this and setting this up too was that, you know, at first I tell everybody that, you know, when I thought of blogs, all I thought there were were food blogs. And then how naive was that? And then I G+ is when I found that everyone's a blogger, just a different kind of blogger. So everybody's making videos, there's a lot you can learn, nothing is set in stone and what works for someone won't work for you but you might have something new to bring to the table so don't be afraid to try it. Worst thing you can do is you won't get any viewers and you start over again and try and you've gained experience in doing that. Lenny Ferrera says, "I don't like being in front of the camera." the camera, but Lenny, you do it so well. You really need to be in front of the camera more. Give Denise the camera. We had one last question and it was about AdSense, and I'm trying to find it to tell you who asked, but it was saying about using AdSense. Is there anything you can say about that or suggestions for how to use it to monetize the videos?

You just turn your ads on. There's 3 different ad options on YouTube now. One's the little bar at the bottom, the overlay. And then there's the skippable TrueView, I think they call it. And then there's a standard pre-roll that's like 15 seconds. So yeah, you can choose per video to turn those on or off. And you can pick one or the other, or all 3, or none. And yeah, you just get paid through your AdSense account.

About how many views do you need to get before you're going to see anything?

I think video pays better than anything.

Really?

Yeah, so what's the minimum AdSense check, $100?

I think so. Yeah, maybe.

So what would that equate to views?

I'm going to say $5 per CPM, just throwing that out there as a baseline.

Numbers, so about 20,000 views.

20,000 views, you can get $200.

So just so people have an idea and so they have realistic expectations, it's going to take a while, people. This is not a get-rich-quick scheme by any measures. A lot of work involved, a lot of ground laying.

Correct, slow.

Slow and steady wins the race.

We should have put that as a topic, how to get rich slow, become a food blogger and a vlogger. If you've got 5 years, we've got the plan for you. Okay, but anyway, alright, it's been a great session everyone. Thank you so much for coming. Hilah, it was a pleasure having you today.

Thank you.

Joanne, thank you so much for coming.

Thank you for having me.

And Stephanie, as always, a pleasure to see you again. Thank you. Alright guys, this winds up session 4 of the first annual virtual bloggers conference on G+ and we're making history today. Thank you for being with me. In just about an hour we're going to come up with session 5, 2 more to go and I get to go rest my voice for a while, thank goodness.

Yeah, have a beer.

I don't think I'll have any trouble sleeping tonight. I will see you all in about an hour when we bring Adam Barnes, Taylor Mathis, and Naomi Robinson on to talk about photography. So thanks for coming, and I will see you soon.

Thank you.

Bye! Bye!