How to Harness the Power of Video to Generate New Leads and Business

Greetings everybody, welcome to the Wednesday, February 3rd, 2016 episode of Free Webinar Wednesdays. This is Eric Cook and I'm with WSI Digital Marketing where we work with businesses and organizations in helping them better understand and leverage the power of the internet as a strategic business tool. You can learn more about me and WSI online at www.poweredbywsi.com. With me this week is my good friend and Free Webinar Wednesday partner, Mr. Jeff Simpkins. Jeff, say hello to everybody out there in Free Webinar Wednesday world. Greetings everybody, this is Jeff Simpkins. I'm with Community Bank Consulting, Inc. You can learn more about me and Community Bank Consulting, Inc. online at www.communitybankconsulting.com. Excellent. Well, those of you that are frequent flyers here on Free Webinar Wednesdays—that's a lot of Fs—may have heard Jeff and I had an opportunity to get together. Actually, we're face to face last week with a meeting and doing some stuff. So, Jeff, it was good to see you, and we continued our travels south. So while Michigan and all of my friends in the northern area are experiencing more of the white stuff and frigid temps. I'm pleased to say I'm joining Free Webinar Wednesdays today in shorts and flip-flops and a t-shirt, and I'm kind of liking it. So hopefully you are— You're in similar attire. But normally when we have Tom Petty on, he always rubs our nose into the sunshiny, warm California weather, and I'm always in Michigan cursing the fact that it's not me. But today, I think maybe Tom and I are dressed similarly. Who knows? In the Bay Area, Tom may not be in shorts and flip-flops today. It just sort of depends on the day and the time of day.

Yeah, definitely not in shorts and flip-flops today. Absolutely not.

Cool. Well, we've had to— we always have to kick off with our proverbial weather report because You know, with Jeff and I traveling, you never know where we're going to be. And, you know, this time of year it's usually commiserating about the snow and the cold and whatnot. But, uh, yeah, so it's nice. They'll be joining Free Webinar Wednesdays from warmer climates for a little while, which is, uh, which is going to be good. So, uh, let's go ahead and we will officially kick this thing off because I am super excited. I know video is a huge topic for the clients that we work with. And I know a lot of banks Chuck and I are talking with are now starting to dip their toe and think that maybe this video thing might actually be something they should be considering, which is kind of funny because it's been that way for a while. But we're going to talk about video and how to harness it from a business perspective. But just a couple of housekeeping items. If you have comments or questions or would like to make an observation during today's session, please feel free to use the chat functionality in your control panel. We'll be monitoring those during today's conversation, and when there's a break in the action, I'll go ahead and ask your question for you. And today's show and all shows are being recorded, so if there's something that you would like to go back and revisit, or maybe something that you discover and want to share it with a colleague or coworker, you can go to freewebinarwednesdays.com and access the recording and share it with everybody. We certainly would appreciate that and can grow our audience that way as well. So with that, I am going to work my magic and I'm going to send the presentation controls over to one of our guests. It's my pleasure to welcome Stephanie Shaterian and the internet rock star Tom Petty. I asked permission before I gave that introduction just because the Tom Petty reference, in my opinion, never gets old, but maybe it does if your name is Tom Petty. Tom and I have known each other for a long, long time, and he's a frequent flyer here on Free Webinar Wednesdays, and we're excited to have him back, and we're excited that Stephanie has joined him as well, and are going to share their knowledge and some ideas and strategies around the concept of video and how we can, we can use it not just to look at funny cats chasing lasers, but to actually use it for real business purposes.

That's no fun.

Well, maybe we can still do it for funny cat videos. That's okay.

There you go. There you go.

Yeah, so guys, welcome to Free Webinar Wednesdays. Thanks for joining us.

Yes, thanks for joining us.

Thank you so much. Yeah, so yeah, and as you said, I'm sort of a— this is Tom Petty, and Stephanie and I will do our little intro in a section. Second, but Stephanie and I had met at a mixer, I don't know, I think back in November, sometime in that timeframe, and we just sort of hit it off. And Stephanie really gets marketing and online marketing and uses video for that, so I've kind of felt like this would be an interesting topic to discuss. And so that's why I invited her to to play and join us today. So looking forward to this.

Yes, I'm excited to be here. And I think, I think, you know, we— the melding of our 2 expertise really is going to help everyone be able to fully harness the power of video. So let's get into it, huh, Tom?

Yep, let's dive in.

I gave you— I think I gave you mouse control, so I think you should be able to go. Go for it.

Let me see. And there goes my home phone. It always goes off when the webinar starts. Anyway, so what we are— it's just a given. So yeah, so what we're going to be talking about today really is how do you harness the power of video and why video is so important, why a lot of or a lot of business owners actually ignore it and are kind of afraid to dip their big toe in. We're gonna talk about the 12 different types of videos that you can use in your marketing, and Stephanie is going to deep dive into the 3 key video methodologies that you want to implement when you're building out your videos and using these for marketing. And then at the end, we're gonna be talking about how just quick step on how you can actually search engine optimize your videos so that they do show up in the search engines. So we've got, I think we have 800 slides, something like that, don't we Stephanie? Somewhere in there.

It might be slightly less than that.

But yeah, we've got a lot of material that we're going to cover, and so I think we'll have a lot of fun. Definitely ask the questions if anybody has questions out there. So take it away, Stephanie. Who are you?

Who am I? Well, so I have a background actually in front of the camera. I'm a graduate from the Baltimore School for the Arts, and I also have an acting degree from the theater school at DePaul University. But for the past 10+ years, I've been working exclusively in online content, and I'm a part owner of a creative agency. Called FlowContent. You can visit us at www.flowcontent.com. My approach to video and video marketing is really a marriage of those 2 approaches. It's really understanding from a creative aspect what's going to resonate with your audience, what's going to grab their attention, because as we all know, you have very little time to capture their attention, and a real understanding of the online environment. So that's a little bit about me. Now it's your turn, Tom.

All right, cool. So who am I? That is me, and I've got all the little badges there, but I'm a trainer and president of the Bay Area Search Engine Academy, where I teach online businesses how to market themselves online through the search engines and Lots of other tools. Just got back last week from teaching a week-long class. I actually had somebody that flew in from Australia just to take my class. So it was really cool to have somebody come from halfway around the world just to take my class. I do a lot with Constant Contact, which is an email marketing platform. I'm also a certified usability analyst from Human Factors, which means I'm an expert in how websites— people interact with websites. And I have a consulting firm where I help businesses with their online marketing. So that's a little bit about me. And so Stephanie and I are just going to kind of have a little bit of a— I think we're going to just have a little bit of a conversation and just kind of a back and forth here as we go through these slides. But one of the things that I always point out whenever I do a webinar, when I talk to people, is that The important thing to remember is that your customers are looking for you, and it's— they're looking for you in lots and lots of different places. So search engine optimization, a lot of people think that that's the only way to get found online, and the reality is that there are at least 10 different ways to get found online. If you've got your website in the core, in the center there, you've got search engine optimization, paid placement, social media, PR, blogs, videos, which we're going to talk about today. Right. Lots and lots of different ways that you can actually get found because your customers are looking for you in all of these locations. So today we're going to be talking about video, and video is one of these components, but video really dovetails very nicely into a lot of these tools. You can use it in your email, you can use it in your blog, you can put it in your PR, social media of course. And so there's lots and lots of places where you can use video I'm sorry, were you trying to say something, Stephanie?

Oh, I was clearing my throat, but yes, I can throw in some stats. I can throw in some stats about the power of video.

Absolutely.

I think the latest stat that they're now saying for 2018 is that 84% of internet traffic is going to be video. So that's pretty huge.

Yep.

And there's all kinds of different ways, no matter what kind of business you're doing or nonprofit, that video can really help you. If you put just even the word video in your email campaigns, it will increase your open rates. If you're a nonprofit, 57% of Donors that watch a video will donate money after watching it. So really, as Tom was saying, thinking about video and how you use it in all of these different ways, it's going to enhance every single one of those channels.

Yep. Yeah, those are great stats and all true. And I think I even have some of my own. The statistics— there's an article, really interesting article, it's called— the footnote there shows where the title is, but they say that mobile data usage rose 69% last year, and over half of that mobile data is just from video.

Wow.

So your stats there that 85% of the internet is going to be video in a couple of years, I completely agree with. And this was interesting to me too, that Facebook gets 4 billion video views every single day, and 3/4 of that is on phones. So it's all the people that are sitting there scrolling and watching, as Eric said, the cats playing with lasers and whatnot. Is capturing people's attention. And according to YouTube, the number of hours spent watching videos on mobile is up 100% year over year, so it's doubling every year.

Amazing.

Yeah, it's crazy how much this is growing. I remember seeing a stat a couple years ago where they were saying something like 180,000— the equivalent of 180,000 full-length Hollywood feature films are uploaded to YouTube every week or some just crazy number like that. So it's—

That's a lot of content.

Yeah, so video is just growing, and that's, that's what we're gonna be talking about today and why you need to have video in your own marketing plan. So when you're doing your search engine optimization and all the other stuff, your video is really going to help you because It captures people's interest, they're gonna watch it. It's a great way to tell a story. Trying to type that out into text is really hard to get people to pause long enough to pay attention. So putting it into a video can really help you with that. And one of the important things too for me is really getting people to know and like and trust you.

Oh yeah.

And as you were saying, Stephanie, with nonprofits, statistics show that as people watch videos, donors for nonprofits, donations go up because it's like, oh, okay, I get it. I get their story. I get what they are all about. And that's going to really, really help you.

Yeah, and speaking to trust and like you, it's really an opportunity to start building that relationship with the prospect. Before they ever pick up the phone.

Yep, absolutely, absolutely. So what I did here was I sort of built— broke the types of videos down into 3 different kinds. One is trust building, another one is an informative type video, and then you can also use video just for advertising or marketing and just trying to sell stuff with your video. So when you break those down, I like to put effort into the trust-building types of videos because the more people trust you and get to know you and like you, the more likely they are to hand you money. Whether it's a donation, whether it's purchase something, whether it's testimonials from other people who have worked with you, there's lots of things that you can do to capture people's interest there. And I like using testimonial videos too. You can do this with your cell phone and just say, hey, you know, how was your experience working with me? And let them talk. And it's 60 seconds, and from your cell phone you drop it right into YouTube. Now you've got a testimonial video that people will watch and pay attention to. Lots of other types of trust building. If you want to show people a virtual tour of your office, your staff, before and after when people were doing whatever it was that you do, lots of different things. You can do interviews. So there are lots of things that you can do around the trust building side of things. informative type videos, vlog or video blogs. More and more people are using, rather than the written blog, you can do video blogs.

Is that how you say it, vlog? I always thought it was vlog.

Yeah, or vlog. I don't know. I don't know that that's in—

However you want to say it, we know what you are talking about.

Yeah, vlog.

Interestingly enough, that was the name of my Dungeons and Dragons character when I was growing up, was Vlog the Destroyer. I'm just kidding. I did play Dungeons and Dragons, but vlog, that just popped into my head. I had to share it. Sorry.

I totally believed you. I totally believed you. So yeah, lots of other types, how-to videos, information demos, webinars like this one today. These are all informative things that people can get to know you and learn. Learn something. And then marketing or advertising, and just— I do this as well where I'll just set up my camera on a tripod and say, hey, this is Tom Petty, blah blah blah, and it's just a little video introduction. I put those in my press releases because I do online press releases, put them in blog posts, put them on landing pages, lots and lots of places where you can utilize these types of videos. That's— those are some ideas around what you can do with it, and I think Stephanie is gonna take it from here and tell us all the cool stuff that she knows.

All of it.

All of it, yeah, just in the next 20 minutes, unload your entire brain.

Well, so as Tom— I'll do my best. As Tom was just saying, so he gave a lot of great ideas about different types, different ways that you might think about putting together a video. So in order for any of those types of videos to be effective, you have to have a plan. You have to have a goal. You need to know what it is that you want to achieve from that video. And so what I'm going to be sharing with you right now is a methodology you can actually go and take from this webinar and apply to put together any of these kinds of videos. So as I was just mentioning, the first thing you want to think about is you really do want to have a goal of some kind for your video. What is it that you are trying to achieve? Is there an action that you want to elicit? And I like to break that down into 2 really simple elements. And the first is audience. So a lot of small business owners, when we're thinking about who we can help and who we can offer to, there's many, many different folks, right? And when you're doing a video, or really any online marketing, you've got to narrow it down as much as you can. So just pick one. Find one. If you're talking to a specific audience, it doesn't mean that you're saying no to all of those other people. Get as specific as you can with demographics, with psychographics, what's important to them, all that good stuff. Pick an audience. Then the second half of your goal is think about an action. I really encourage you to think about a specific action that you would like to elicit. Maybe it's sign up for my newsletter. Maybe it's follow me on Facebook or Twitter or connect with me on LinkedIn. Maybe it's buy now. Whatever it is, be specific. Again, a lot of times we want our video piece or whatever our marketing piece to try and do many things all at once. And as we all know, and I think Tom can probably attest to this, that if you try to make things too general on the internet, what happens is you just get lost in the white noise.

Yeah, kind of what I like to tell people is if you try to market to everybody, you're going to market to no one. Because you've diluted your message too much. So I think what you're saying here is being very specific about who your very specific audience is and exactly what you want them to do. That call to action is critical.

Yeah, exactly. And it doesn't have to be as hardcore a call to action as all that. It can be as soft, but just as long as you know and you have in your mind exactly what it is that you want the video to achieve, it's going to help you because everything else that you put together to make that video is going to be relating to that goal. Once you have that goal, now you can get into strategy. Now you can get into tactics. Again, let's break this down into 2 easy pieces. The first is the content. Of course, you want to have some information in there that's going to relate back to that action that you want to achieve. Usually it's going to relate back to If it's a straight-up marketing piece, some kind of— whatever the pain points are that your audience is having. So if you are talking to that specific audience, you want to think about the pain point and the solution, the pain point and the solution. And detail those out. I would say in a 2-minute or less video, which is standard for— I think 2 minutes has been the max for videos on the internet for quite a while now. And you probably want to do less than that because people's attention spans are so short. A minute, minute and a half, you really want to narrow that content down to only 3 or 4 very, very critical essential points, whatever those are that are most meaningful for your audience. So once you have that outlined, once you know exactly what it is that you want to be sharing that's going to relate back to those pain points that they have, those problem areas that they're having, The next thing you want to think about is tone. What is the voice? What is the pretty package that you're wrapping around that content? Because it can be boring to just sit there and say, you're having this problem and I do this. This is the problem you're having and da da da da da. If you just lay it out like that, it's It can be boring. It can be boring, yeah. So you want to engage people's attention. So you want to include the voice or the tone. And usually that's going to be a reflection of your brand. So whatever, it should be very much just like it would be if they were meeting with you in person or walking into your storefront. You want them to really feel Again, like we were talking about earlier, like Tom was mentioning, authentic and you. I like to kind of lay that out in a couple of quality words. Tom, I'm going to put you on the spot here. If you were thinking about your brand and you were going to put a couple of quality words on there to describe your brand, what would you use?

Well, you are putting me on the spot. It could be something—

yeah, go ahead.

I would say like personal attention, if that makes sense. So like if I'm teaching a class, the students get personal attention from me. It's not just a big seminar with 200 people in the room. It's everybody gets the personal attention. So is that what you're looking for?

Yeah, it can be as specific as that, as personalized. It could also be even more esoteric like, are you warm? Are you authoritative? Maybe if you're a banker or financial advisor and you're working with people that want a firm hand and they want to know that you have control of things. Maybe it is that you are approachable. Maybe that is your girlfriend. Hey girlfriend, let's hang out.

Whatever it is.

That doesn't really apply to me.

Not to you so much.

I'm so glad that you said that because I always wanted to say hey girlfriend to Tom but I've never had the courage to do that.

Now you've done it. Once you kind of have that, you understand your content, you know what the the voice or the tone of the overall video piece is going to be. The next thing to think about is super important. Can anybody guess what it is just from looking at this picture?

I know, I know.

What?

Emotion.

Yes, of course, emotion. And I gotta tell you, emotion is what makes video hands down The most effective marketing tool out there, because it really does elicit emotion in others like almost nothing else. And I encourage you to think about what do you want people to feel when they are watching your video. So it can be positive or negative. Usually positive, you tend to see a better response from. Is it hopeful? Is it aspirational? As soon as you book with me, you're going to be able to change your life for the better or something like that. But negative works too. A lot of times you see that in guilt. When was the last time you went to the gym? How's that New Year's resolution working out for you? And of course, politics is the classic, getting people angry and riled up. As much as they can to go out and do, go out and vote for whatever you need. But the reason why we want people to feel things when they're watching a video is because feeling things leads to what?

Action. Well, it leads to the next step.

Yeah.

I mean, and I talk about this too, is that a little different terminology, but people don't buy features, they buy benefits. So by using your video, you can actually point out what is the benefit of my product or service and how is that going to help them.

Yeah, thanks for jumping in there. I think that really all of us, we can sit here and we can rationalize to ourselves, oh yes, I got that new phone because I really needed it for my business so that people would think that I was important and on trend or whatever. But really there's always some kind of underlying emotional current that leads us to action.

Yeah.

That's why that emotional piece is so important. Now the question is, how do we create emotion through video? And the answer is through story. So it is really important no matter what kind of video you're doing, whether it's a testimonial video, whether it's an about video, whether it's a product how-to You still need to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. It can be very simple. Princess meets a frog, kisses the frog, he turns into a prince, the end. But you just need to lead people on an arc. I don't know how many videos I've seen, I'm sure you've all seen them too, where you click on it and it's just somebody talking into the camera and they're just going on and on and then it just never really goes anywhere. And when you do that, you're not leading them to that goal. So you want to have a beginning and a middle and an end. So important. So that is really the key, the methodology to thinking about how to implement those types in a way that's going to be effective for you. So now, Tom and everyone, I'm going to jump into talking about production.

This is the part that's interesting. I mean, all of this is interesting, but I'm really interested to hear the production piece of it too. So, yeah.

Oh, good. Well, so this picture is of— just to give you a scale, and I don't know how many people out there have already started trying to make videos or working with providers to make videos or But just to give you an idea of scale, this picture is maybe like a QVC type level of production, right? And so you can imagine a picture in your head of what that looks like, the finished product. And you can see how many people it takes just to make something like that, right? You have camera 1, you have camera 2, you have your talent, you have your boom mic operator, you have your script supervisor, you have a makeup artist, Now of course, you don't necessarily need to do all of those things for your video, or necessarily to have an effective video. But I share this just to illustrate to you that there are a lot of different components into thinking about particularly live-action video, which would be thinking about the sound, thinking about the lighting, all of those things that go into Making it look like you have a video that is consistent with your brand and your audience. What I always recommend to people is that if you are talking to the C-suite, don't shoot it with your phone. If you are talking to other small business owners where it makes sense, if you can make it make sense production-wise, production level-wise, then do that. So you have a lot of options for you. But— yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, I was going to say that it's kind of what do you want to portray? And if you are shooting video with a camcorder or with a cell phone or something like that, that to me says that this is a much more personal thing, that the business owner is, is doing this themselves versus having a whole production thing, which, like you say, with your audience, it may be that that's important that you've got a professionally built and professionally shot video that looks really nice and slick and has all of those. So it is kind of a which way do you want to go with your messaging there too. So that's good.

Well, that's a really great point. And one thing too that I was kind of alluding to before, and speaking to personalizing it, but if you are going to be shooting with your webcam or your phone, a trick to do is to set up expectations. I'm going to give you guys a little of my secret tips here. Okay. If you are doing something like that and maybe your audience is more high-end and would be expecting a higher quality product from you, If you set it up like, oh my gosh, here I am at my desk and I just had to share this with you, I couldn't wait, then you're setting up that expectation. So it's like, oh okay, that's why it's like this, because she's just sitting there.

Right.

I also want to share a couple of different ways to think about video. I'm going to share 3, as we mentioned at the top, 3 different ways that you can put together video that actually don't require live action necessarily. Just to kind of open up your minds to some of the possibilities out there. Unfortunately, because of the way webinars are transmitted over the interwebs, I was advised by Tom that I shouldn't actually share an example with you. If you look at the link at the bottom and you grab that, that will take you to actually see the example of this video. But one thing you can do is think about using titles only, which is just words, right? I'm sure if you think about it, there are some very effective ad campaigns out there. Sometimes they get all crazy and have the words move all around, but it doesn't necessarily have to be that way. If you tell a story succinctly with words, with a little music behind it. You could take some of your written testimonials. That's a great way to put together a video piece without having to go on camera. If you go out and see this example, what we actually did, and I think we actually did this in iMovie, so if you have a Mac, this is something you can maybe even do on your own. We took an audio recording recording of a client testimonial that we had received, just a voicemail. Then we kind of did a funny thing where we, in the text, were providing our reaction to the testimonial. It's a fun thing to check out. If you have something like that, it's totally worth thinking about using that as a possibility for you to create a video.

That's a really good point too. It's the first time you get on camera, it's hard. You just, it's like, oh, I don't like how I sound, I don't like how I look, and it can be a little intimidating to think about being on camera. But I think this is a terrific idea and can be a very impactful way of doing it too, because it's different from what everybody else is doing. So I like this idea. I like it too.

Yeah, that's true because you definitely want to stand out. I do think those kind of head-in-the-box videos, as video becomes more and more ubiquitous, it's going to be harder to grab people's attention with.

Right.

Another great idea is using still images. If you have existing stills already of your storefront, of your product, of your maybe speaking in front of a crowd or doing a workshop, you already have assets that you can use to create a video. And you can, instead of just doing like a straight-up slideshow, there's all kinds of things you can do with editing software where you can kind of pan across the images and zoom into the images and zoom out. And again, you can do that to music. You can record a voiceover track. You can put in footage as well. If you grab this URL and go out to this example, this was for a nonprofit that had a bunch of really gorgeous images of what they did. I think again we actually used an audio testimonial for this one, but you don't have to do that. It can be any kind of voiceover track. You could put titles on the images and not even have any kind of voiceover. So that is another option. For you as well. And a third option is animation. So have you ever thought about doing animation, Tom?

I've thought about it, but I've also figured that it was going to be very expensive, so I don't know.

Well, that is, that is true that animation can be one of the more More expensive options. There are lots of apps out there. There are lots of tools out there where you can utilize them to make videos. I would say in my experience, if you're going to go the animation route, it's probably worth it to just pay the money and work with an animator.

Yes.

Because those tools, they tend to look stiff and cheesy. Again, if you play into that, if you can creatively play into the animation style, then awesome.

Yeah, the one that I've seen that I thought was kind of cool, and I don't remember what it was called, but it's like the hand that draws it all out.

Oh, the whiteboard ones, yeah.

Yeah, like it's a hand drawing on a whiteboard, and those are kind of cool. So I've considered that kind of thing, but yeah, just doing a flat-out animation, I haven't ever done that.

Yeah, and whiteboard animation is super popular right now and there's at least 2 or 3 apps out there where you can go in and kind of plug things in. And also you might even be able to find a provider that can do whiteboard animation that gives you a little bit more customization.

Uh-huh.

And lastly, just to put into your head that you can also do a combo. of these kinds of techniques, right? So you can have a little talking head, you can put some pictures in there, you can do a little animation, you can do some titles, which then gets a little bit more fancy but also makes it more visually engaging for the viewer.

Right, yeah, that really helps keep the interest up too.

Yeah, so that's, that's That's what I got. But then once you have your awesome video piece, then you have to get it out there, Tom.

Yep, definitely. Does that mean—

Yeah, that's you. That was my dating video.

Take it away. Okay, I've got to click on the right thing here. There we go. So yeah—

Come on, girlfriend, pay attention.

I was just having fun listening to what Stephanie was having to say here. But yeah, and one of the things too is that YouTube is supposedly the 2nd most used search engine behind Google. And of course Google owns YouTube, they bought them many years ago. But lots and lots and lots of people are searching on YouTube. How-to videos, how to do this, and, you know, just a long, long list of things. And supposedly YouTube alone gets 3 billion, with a B, searches every single month. So if you are publishing your videos on YouTube, they're gonna show up in the Google search results, just in the regular old organic search results, and even other video hosting services like Vimeo Also can show up in the search results as well. And I, I like using Vimeo because I can control, do a lot more control with what my— where my video can be played or downloaded or embedded and all that kind of stuff. But—

You also don't have the other recommendations that YouTube throws up on there too.

Right, right. Yeah, that drives me absolutely insane with the other suggested videos that YouTube puts on. I had a dance studio that published their dance recitals, and the videos that YouTube was suggesting were inappropriate for the girls that were in, in the class. And they were like, what can we do? Because I'm getting complaints from moms. And it's like, there ain't nothing you can do. Yeah, right. So that's why I like Vimeo more, because you, you don't get all that garbage that shows up. So, but what do you, you know, how do you search engine optimize a video? And one of the things that you always want to do is you can create a YouTube channel. So if you've got a set of videos that you've created, you can create a channel that people will follow. And then they'll subscribe to your videos as you're publishing them. They'll see your videos. I've got a real estate realtor friend that she does her vlogs as your Dungeons and Dragons character, Mm-hmm. Eric, but she does a weekly vlog with her videos, and so she's got a channel that talks about whatever it is that she's doing and the houses that she's selling and on and on. So it's, it's really useful to have that. But one of the things you want to do is find out what is it that people are actually searching for. And a really simple tool that you can use is called Google Suggestions. Just go to the Google search bar and start typing, and Google's going to drop down a list of the top 10 things that are related to that search term. Like how to train a dog, and people are looking for how to train a dog to sit, to come, to stay, not to bite, and so forth. And those are each video opportunities that you can create in whatever industry you're in. And these are the top 10 things that people are actually searching for. So when you upload a video into YouTube or Vimeo or any of the video sharing platforms, they're going to ask for 3 pieces of information. The title, which is kind of the what is the video all about, and that is the number one thing that's going to influence whether somebody watches your video. The description on YouTube can be up to 5,000 characters long, so you can have a long description of exactly what this video is all about, and the more you put in there, the more it's going to show up in the search results. Make sure that you have your keywords. So if people are searching for training a dog, train and dog and those kinds of things you'd put in the keyword. Make sure you put it in the right category. And then with all social media platforms, and YouTube is a social media platform, the more your video is watched, the more people like it, the more they interact with it, the more they comment on it, the more it's going to show up higher in the search results. And that it just sort of feeds on itself. So make sure you put your video in your blog, in your marketing on your website, anywhere you think people will watch it. You can put it in your email and so forth, and that'll help get your, your views up. And then always make sure that you link back to your website from the description field in your videos, because if people see the video and they do a search, then they want to get in touch with you. and engage with you. So, I don't know, did you have anything else, Stephanie, that you wanted to bring up?

No, I think we did it.

Alright, so Eric, did we have any questions from anybody out in the interweb world there?

Well, other than the fact that we've got a guest that doesn't think that I should be admitting to playing Dungeons and Dragons as a child. That's okay, it further supports my affinity towards The Big Bang Theory and Star Wars and all that fun stuff.

Yeah, yeah.

I've got a question for you. It seems like there's a lot of handheld video services going on where you can catch people in the moment. And I'm talking about Periscope and Meerkat, which I think is kind of dwindling, but Facebook is now pushing out its live streaming video options beyond people like Ricky Gervais and The Rock. So live time streaming and in the moment kind of building your own video, call it a news channel or a news feed. But getting engagement and questions and all that kind of stuff. Maybe talk a little bit about the growing popularity and how you can take that instantaneous in the moment and then leverage some of the tactics that you've talked about here so that it can live on and continue to be a productive part of your business video strategy.

That sounds like a whole other webinar to me.

Yeah, you know, well, maybe I'm Maybe I'm setting things up for another webinar, but in the last 12 minutes maybe share some thoughts on that and comment about where video is headed and some of the crystal ball futuristic type things.

Wow, yeah, I don't know, do you have any thoughts on that Stephanie?

On livestream? Yeah, well it is a whole different animal I would say than than what we're talking about here. So it's kind of hard for me to think about, like, oh, how could I do that in 12 minutes? But I would just say that, to agree with you, Eric, that it's a super popular and growing area. And if you are comfortable on camera and that is a way that you'd like to build audience and prospects, that that is—

Yeah.

Definitely an opportunity to seek out for sure. And I think too, as I was just describing, if you're going to be doing those kind of tools or building them out, to think about it in the same kind of strategic way as we were just talking about for a single piece. That marketing strategy in place.

Yep. Yeah, I completely agree. And again, doing those kinds of things feels a lot more personal too rather than watching a prerecorded, whether it is a professionally developed video or it is something that you do with your handheld. But this feels even more intimate and personal because as Stephanie was saying, it is in the moment that people can really engage with you and you can get people to know and like and trust you. So I mean, even this webinar is It's an extension of that, or the live video feeds is sort of an extension of the webinar too. So yeah, they're all— I actually haven't used Periscope yet. I know what it is, but I just haven't used it. I just haven't had an opportunity to use it. I don't know, have you guys used it, or have you used it, Stephanie?

I haven't either, although I've definitely explored it. I think that, you know, again, I haven't seen yet if it's right for my audience, so that's kind of what I'm thinking about, and the people that I work with.

Yeah, well, I know, you know, Jeff and I spend a lot of time in the banking industry, and it's no surprise that bankers, rightly so, are conservative in nature because, you know, they get paid to manage risk for a living, and there's a certain level of expectation you have when you deal with the bank about Professionalism and whatnot.

Right.

But I've got an opportunity where we're actually working with a real estate agent up in northern Michigan, and she sells a lot of lake property that people from downstate may be interested in purchasing for vacation home or a second home or something along those lines. And we're actually exploring Periscope as a way for her to do a live tour of a home. But broadcast that out so maybe folks that live, you know, in Detroit or, you know, someplace in southern Michigan may be able to hop on and, you know, she can walk through the home and give a live tour and essentially create this experience that can be in the moment. So if she's in the kitchen, for example, somebody can text in and say, you know, is that a Viking stove or is that a Sub-Zero refrigerator or is that a steam shower? And be able to respond to those things because while creating a video and posting it may be a very good first step, having that instantaneous— there may be things that she would be asked questions of that maybe wouldn't think to bring up while she's doing her tour, but then gives the ability to not only answer that person because they had the question, but then it's part of the question for the video that, you know, then you can save it and post it, and it's, you know, more comprehensive. So anyway, we do have some other questions rolling in, which has been great. So I'm going to—

Very cool.

Quell my questions and comments. I'm going to ask a few things. So we've got a question, how important is quality for, say, a 90-second video on a website? Will a basic $500 camcorder do the job adequately, or maybe what's a minimum investment to do a decent video?

You know, on a production level, on equipment level, I don't know that there's a number that I could put on it. Honestly, most phones that shoot with HD are going to have files that are perfect and great quality for the internet. What I would say is if you were going to make any kind of investment, that it's worth to put that into lighting and audio equipment.

Uh-huh.

So because lighting, if you have inadequate lighting or if you have sound issues in your video, that automatically brings down the production level of your video. And there are light kits you can get for a couple hundred bucks on Amazon. You can invest. There are all kinds of little gadgets you can actually get for your phone, lavalier mics, boom mics, or directional mics. And that is going to take out a lot of any kind of ambient noise, or just if there is hiss or fuzz, that will really up-level production-wise for video.

Yeah, there's a follow-up to that question. It sounds like they may be more out-and-about type. He mentions eco tours in Alaska, for example.

Ooh, fun.

Yeah, so in addition to loving to see some of those, I think controlling your lighting would be difficult to do. I think the biggest thing that I would suggest along those lines would just be Getting a decent microphone system because the audio, if you're going to be in the outdoors, right, you may not have a tremendous amount of control over your lighting. Obviously, timing of the day, where the sun is positioned, you know, weather is going to have an impact on it. But if you're doing eco tours and you're trying to capture feedback from people that are participating, strategically placed microphones or putting a lavalier on somebody and asking them, you know, well, how did you like today's tour?

Right.

Audio quality is not something that you can really fix in post-production from what I've heard from others that are doing it. So, but that, yeah, we would definitely, when you put some of those together, send them our way. I think you've got 3 people, 4 people here that are very interested in checking out eco tours in Alaska.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I would, I don't, kind of to add on a little bit to the whole thing is that I've got a $400 HD camcorder that I bought, and I had a tripod for my camera, and I just used that. And then I bought a $35 lapel mic that I just clip to my shirt when I'm doing my talking head videos. And I'm just doing it myself, so the sound quality is a lot better with a little lapel mic. I didn't invest a lot of money in it, and it works fine. And So yeah, it is kind of like what Stephanie was saying. It is hard to put a number on it and say, well, you should not spend any less than this. It is just what do you want? I mean, you can buy very expensive cameras, very expensive microphones. And lighting, I think for me, would be the next thing that I would want to do is even just a single source light that's better than the ambient light in my office. It's a spectrum of how much you want to spend.

One more question has come in. Do you have any suggestions on how to measure the success or failure of video efforts? Obviously counts on YouTube and surveys of how people find you are good, but what other suggestions do you have to really measure the effectiveness of video?

Well, I would say the number one thing you want to measure is, did people convert? So if you've created a video with a specific end goal in mind, whether it's sign up for something or purchase something or whatever it is that you're asking people to do at the end of the video, then Did people do that? And if that didn't happen, then that didn't work. So it's always measure your conversions.

Yeah. I would say too, like, if your goal is maybe more of an awareness goal, if you don't have a specific conversion that you're trying to do, YouTube— I'm not sure what the Vimeo metrics are, but YouTube has The metrics you want to look at are not just how many views you have, but also how many people watched all the way through.

Right, right.

So, and if people are dropping off, and that's a lot of great information too that can help you improve your videos going forward.

Yeah, yeah, if people are dropping off before your call to action, then they're not seeing it, and therefore it's not working for you.

I would also kind of play off of Tom's suggestion. We've talked a couple of times on Pre-Webinar Wednesdays about Google's URL builder and how you can go in and actually create what's known as a tagged URL that you can use as part of your video call to action that ultimately will get somebody back to your website, but you can tag it with the source and the type and the content and whatnot to tell Google Analytics, assuming that you're using that for your website, That, hey, this person came from my YouTube video. So not only are you hopefully seeing more conversions and sales, but now you can start attributing those posts versus YouTube video watches versus banner advertisements. So conversion metrics and all that, again, that's probably a whole nother show. Yeah.

But yeah, you know, trying to—

Yeah.

Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, but yeah, I was just— I'm nodding here going, yep, yep, yep, that's exactly it.

Amen, girlfriend. Yeah. So in the, I guess, in the last 1 minute together, we'll go ahead and we'll move towards wrapping this up. I know we could probably ramble on for at least another half an hour because any video is Such an immersive topic. Once you start diving in, there's so many different tangents that you can jump off and chase. But any closing thoughts or things that you'd like to mention before we go ahead and wrap it for the day?

Yeah, so we wanted to let people know that we have a few available slots on our calendars that if you'd like to actually get a private call with both Stephanie and me, you can go to that Bitly link and block out a 15-minute time on our calendar, and we'll be happy to sit down and talk with you a little bit more about video or SEO or your online marketing, whatever it is that you want to talk about for 15 minutes.

Very cool.

Yeah, so, but we've got very few slots, so I think we've got 6 or maybe 8 slots, so if anybody wants that They should sign up. We can answer more questions or deep dive into a topic, whatever.

Perfect. There's one of those. I suspect it's probably a tagged URL, so you'll get an opportunity to see just how many people—

I don't know, Eric.

At least Bitly is going to be paying attention to how many people are clicking on it, so it's a good thing. Cool. Good. Well, listen, it has been a joy as always to have you on the show, Tom, and it's certainly been a pleasure to have an extra voice and I dare say a much prettier face joining us, although this is a webinar.

Yes.

We really appreciate your time as well, Stephanie. This has been really good and would encourage you listening, if you're live or if you're listening to the recording, hit them up and take them up on their offer and just chat for another 15 or so minutes just to see what opportunities might exist. I know that you won't be disappointed.

So with that, we'll go ahead and—

Thanks for having us, Eric. We really appreciate it.

Yeah, believe me, it was my pleasure. So, and as we alluded to, there may very well be a couple of more webinar requests on the horizon. I think there's a lot more stuff that we could talk about, but we'll have to save that for another week, unfortunately.

Sounds good.

We'll go ahead and wrap this week's Free Webinar Wednesdays. Remember, if you'd like to go back and relive the show, maybe you forgot the name of my Dungeons and Dragons character and you'd like to go ahead and get that, you can certainly do that when the recording is made available at freewebinarwednesdays.com. We wish you the best of the rest of the week and we'll see you next week and every Wednesday here at freewebinarwednesdays.com. Take care. Bye-bye.

Bye.

Bye-bye.