Gelfand Design

Ever wondered how to use online video to build your business? Hubspot has just hosted yet another highly informative Webinar to help you do just that. These tips for making your online video pack a powerful punch come from marketing experts Mike Volpe and Karen Rubin.

First Things First: What the Heck Is Inbound Marketing??

If you’ve ever fast-forwarded through a TV commercial, screened a sales call, or lined your birdcage with newspaper ads, you know intuitively that the traditional advertising model is broken. The hot topic of the day is “inbound marketing,” and it represents a huge opportunity for us as marketers and as consumers. (We are, after all, both.)

• Outbound Marketing (aka “The Hammer”): Traditional radio, TV, newspapers, magazines, mass emails, telemarketing; one-way communications a company broadcasts that customers are unable to contribute to or avoid. We are getting more and more adept at ignoring this kind of advertising (Tivo, caller ID, spam filters, etc.).
• Inbound Marketing (aka “The Magnet”): Leveraging blogging, search engine optimization, and social media (like online video) to help customers find you and then entice them to learn more about you, like you, trust you, and—eventually—buy from you.

30 Tips for Marketing with Online Video

1. There are two basic types of video: Entertaining (music videos, spoofs, TV mini-shows) and Informative (Webinars, interviews, tutorials). Leverage both types for your business.
2. Publish your video everywhere! You are not penalized for duplicate content when it comes to video, so post it wherever you can, and especially on your own Web site.
3. Focus on the first 10 seconds. Attention spans these days are not impressive, so you must hook your viewers immediately.
4. Use action, humor, and mystery. Prompting a little curiosity (“What the heck is this about?”) can entice viewers to keep watching.
5. Camera shy? Try screen recording. It’s excellent for tutorials and demonstrations.
6. Be yourself and don’t over-script. The video can come out sounding stiff. Outline your presentation instead of writing it out word for word. Spontaneity is valuable; it adds interest, a human touch.
7. Don’t break the bank. You don’t need a $5,000 camera for your online videos, but you do need an external mike jack. Don’t rely on the built-in mike. Cheaper microphones are okay, though. Hubspot uses a $40 clip-on mike that came with the camera. Finally, a tripod is the best $40 you’ll ever spend.
8. Shooting for wide screen format is a good idea.
9. HD quality is not necessary for videos posted online.
10. Prioritize how much editing time you’re willing to devote to a video project. You’ll probably want to spend less time editing informational video and more time on “viral” videos.
11. Don’t shoot video in front of a window. The quality will be awful.
12. Publish your movies as Flash for best compatibility. Otherwise you’re likely to get complaints about incompatibility.
13. HOWEVER, you need M4V format for iTunes, iPhones, and iPods. Flash is not supported (thanks, Apple).
14. Make file formatting easy on yourself with this simple shortcut. Record video in any format you want, and upload to a site such as YouTube or blip.tv. These sites convert the format for you. Then you can use the embed code they generate for posting to your own site.
15. Optimize your video for search engines. Use keyword-rich titles and descriptions. When you post video to your own site, add a text transcript or program notes.
16. Sometimes SEO conflicts with your need to maximize the social/viral element. Obscure titles can make videos fun, enticing, or mysterious. For example, compare Hubspot’s videos “Optimize Your LinkedIn profile for SEO” and “Dude, cold calling is for losers.” You may want to publish a video with an “enticing” title at first and then change the title to a keyword-rich version later on.
17. Optimize for YouTube. Promote your video to get more people to link to it or embed it. Encourage ratings and comments. YouTube features “most discussed” videos, which can significantly increase your Web traffic.
18. Publish a controversial or shocking video. Sex, religion, and politics are always good bets. This tactic is dangerous for businesses, but the rewards are ample if you pull it off successfully.
19. Optimize for iTunes. Use descriptive titles and descriptions, and include an attractive image. Promote your video to increase its popularity rank.
20. Promote your video everywhere—Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon, etc.
21. Tweet your video. It’s even okay to tweet it a few times on the day you publish it. (Don’t forget to use a URL shortener like tinyurl.com!) Add a “Tweet This” button to the video on your Web site.
22. Facebook promotion: Post the video URL to your status (the handy Twitter app will forward your tweets to Facebook). Add the video to your profile and business page. Encourage your company to post it on its business page.
23. LinkedIn promotion: Add the video URL to your status. Use one of the blog apps to add your blog post to your LI profile. Send a link to your video to your LI groups. Ask your company to post it to their profiles and group.
24. StumbleUpon promotion: Submit the Youtube link as video.
25. IMPORTANT: Play around with StumbleUpon before you start promoting your own material. You need to participate and contribute to this tight-knit community first, or anything you post will be suspect as spam.
26. Promote the video on your blog. Be sure to describe or transcribe it for SEO purposes. Respond to any comments. Encourage your company to blog it as well. Again, search engines do not penalize you for duplicate video content. Just make sure that anyone posting your video does not also copy and paste your supporting text.
27. Make it easy for your whole company to promote the video. Email everybody to let them know about a new release, provide a short URL, and provide a “lazy man’s tweet” (a blurb they can copy and paste into Twitter).
28. Paid promotion is not usually worthwhile.
29. Try ending your video with a call to action. Using a custom URL as the landing page will help you identify incoming traffic from videos.
30. Measure traffic, leads, and customers from your videos. This is the reason you’re making and promoting videos to being with. YouTube Insights let you see viewer activity. Blip.tv also provides statistics. And, of course, Hubspot does a great job of helping you track these metrics with their software products (surprise).

Other Online Video Marketing Resources

• Examples of online video Web sites: YouTube, blip.tv, Google Video, justin.tv
• Tracking and analytics for online video: Visible Measures, tubemogul, Hubspot
• 12 free and commercial screen recording software tools
• Slides from Hubspot’s How to Use Online Video for Inbound Marketing Webinar