Getting views on YouTube isn't easy

To get more people to look at your web video on YouTube, you need good content, effective optimisation and efficient promotion.

Content

Your online video needs to be relevant and valuable to viewers. If it’s different, exciting, and interesting to watch, more people will be interested and might recommend it to others.

Think about the story you’re telling and how you’re going to illustrate it. Aim for a mix of methods to maintain interest – ‘talking heads’ can give information, but you might also need good graphics live-action footage or still photographs.

The maximum length of a YouTube video is 15 minutes – but don’t use it all if you don’t need it. Keep the content short and to the point. Edit the video ruthlessly so that it works effectively – and ask others for their opinion, to take advantage of their ‘fresh eyes’. Remember that if viewers are bored, or find your video difficult to understand, they’ll look elsewhere.

Aim for the best production values possible within your budget and the 2GB size limit. The video should look polished and professional, with high-quality visuals, clear sound, a confident presenter, and interesting graphics. It needn’t be expensive, but it shouldn’t be amateurish.

Optimisation

Optimise your video by adding information and keywords that people will search for. The more you include, the easier it is for people to find you.

Follow a step-by-step process:

• Have two or three relevant keywords in the title of the video, including (if appropriate) general phrases that people might search for, such as ‘Tips for…’, ‘A guide to…’ or ‘How to…’.
• Make the description as complete as possible, including good keywords that describe the content clearly.
• Have relevant keywords in the tags section – one way of finding these is to search on YouTube for similar videos and see what tags they use.
• Use a thumbnail image that’s sharp, eye-catching and informative – this will make your production stand out in the ‘Suggestions’ list. The optimisation information is added when you upload the video, but take time to prepare it in advance.

Promotion

Promote your web video as widely as possible:

• on your website, include an inviting description of the video along with stills and a link
• include a short description and a link in your email signature
• if you have an email newsletter, write a short article about the video with a link
• add the link to your social media accounts such as Facebook and Twitter
• ask suppliers, customers and other stakeholders to promote the video

What I find…”Challenging”, isn’t necessarily the Filming, the conditions on location or dealing with the customers etc.  No, it’s the logistics of the shoot, working it out and breaking down the day, especially when it comes to multiple video.

You may think if there is going to be 5 videos, then you shoot the relevant footage in sequence, dealing with 1 video subject at a time.  The reality is very different from this ideal, the reality is that during the course of a day’s shoot, you’re overlapping, creating footage that can be used over more than one video, though being forever mindful to capture enough footage for every video.

Of course, you can plan this and create a schedule of the day, so you know what areas you’ll be covering, but often if a company is multi-sited or will include Testimonials from their customers, then you won’t have been to those locations…and of course, anything can happen to throw a Spanner in the works!

Of course, the Weather is a major factor, especially as we only get 2 days of Sun in this country! Anyway, what I’m going to talk about today, is a case study of a client that had multiple videos, all shot within one day (afternoon and following morning).

Len Lothian Storage

Link to Videos

The first hurdle was that fact they are based in Scotland, in Edinburgh and Glasgow.  Not a problem if you live in any of those Cities, however…I don’t…though I do try to hide my Midlands accent.  So the first hurdle was getting to Scotland and a 5.5 hour journey in the Car is long, however it’s now at the point where I don’t think about it and it’s a good time to collect my thoughts, oh…and listen to Radio 4!

The purpose of the visit was for a Planning Meeting, to ascertain the requirements for the video, get a feel for the type of company they are and what they can deliver and to generate ideas.

I met with one of the owners and an individual from the Marketing company they use to go over the video.  While I always research their website before hand and look at relevant videos in the industry, I like to go with a fresh approach and not have too many pre-conceived ideas.

I have a set of questions that I ask and often tailor them to the industry I’m working on, however some of them are quite simple and a little vague, because I’m not only trying to gain information from a client, what they do, how they do it etc  I’m also trying to gauge their ethos as a company, what drives them, what are their instincts and at the forefront of their mind.

Might sound a bit “airy fairy”, but this aspect is huge for me, because it kick starts the creative process.  It’s funny, sometimes it freaks customers out a little, because I’m actually composing the video, there and then, in real time. I’ve formulated my questions in such a way, that the information they tell me, invokes imagery and I start to see the video, the shots, Camera placement, tempo, music…right there in their office.

I would be lost though, without my trusty Tablet (of the Fruit variety) as I’ve become the fastest typist in the West with it.  Once I’ve gone through my questions and answered their questions, I’ll have the framework, the skeleton of the video in my mind already, so that we can make decisions at the meeting.

With Len Lothian, the scale of work that they do, the history they have is immense and they had concerns about trying to cover all of this in a single video, would make it almost unwatchable, as it would need to be a Documentary!  It was clear at the meeting, that the multiple video approach was needed.

After coming up with some ideas, I went back and fleshed out the ideas some more, however I don’t storyboard in terms of images or photographs (though I always take shots of the locations at the meeting) but I put together a brief, a run down of the company so that I know and they know, that I know…what they do.  I then broke down the videos into individual pieces and gave them the information that would be required to fulfil them.

In this case, I broke down their videos into:

1. Domestic Storage
2. Commercial Storage
3. Online Stock Control
4. Health & Saftey and accreditations (ISO)

Ok, I said 5 videos!  The 5^th video was created from elements of the above 4, with extra footage, showing some of the history of the company and interviews with the owners.

So, the brief was approved and a shoot day was set.

Now, when I go out filming, there’s always 2 of us and will fill the Car up to the brim with the equipment, which includes 4 Cameras, Tripods, Lighting, Sound, Dolly, Slider, Crane/Jib…the list goes on.   A whole Production Studio, going up the M6!

In the next Part, we’ll be discussing the day of the Shoot!

Jamie Morden

Videos boost SEO and keep users engaged for longer

Video is a compelling way for many businesses to communicate with customers, potential customers, employees and other stakeholders.

Recent innovations in digital technology mean that it’s now possible to make and edit videos using a smartphone, although it’s probably more efficient to use a purpose-designed camcorder.

Who uses business videos?

Videos are particularly suitable for products that can be actively demonstrated on screen, to show off their features and benefits.

However, they can also be used by service organisations such as management and marketing consultants, to demonstrate the personality and attitudes of leading members of staff.

A mixture of step-by-step demonstrations, talking heads, illustrations and graphics (which can also be easily produced online) is a great way to engage watchers, and can help any business get their message across – whatever that may be.

The many benefits of business videos

Videos can be used for:

• adding interest to company websites and social media channels
• promotion on video sharing sites such as YouTube, Vimeo and Flickr
• interactive catalogues and brochures
• blogging
• online instruction and maintenance publications
• sales webcasts and online conferences

Videos can explain large or complex products and processes in an easy to grasp way, making them an ideal way to market to specialised audiences, or to potential customers in other parts of the world.

Using video to explain maintenance and service for machinery saves the cost of engineers travelling to site, to reduce the cost of providing after-sales support. Video is also a very ‘believable’ way to introduce staff members, or to deliver user testimonials.

On a website, moving images tend to attract and keep the attention of visitors, so even a simple video is likely to increase the time spent on your site.

Website videos also improve search engine rankings, and add interest to business social media platforms.

It's easy to create your own simple business videos.

The availability of low-cost camcorders and simple editing software has brought video within the reach of most businesses.

As a result, it’s now easy to create video marketing material to use alongside, or instead of, two-dimensional products such as brochures and product leaflets.

Uses of business videos

Video can be used for:

• corporate promotions – showing, rather than just telling, the market who you are and what you do
• product demonstrations – to show their benefits in practical applications
• step-by-step instructions – for using or maintaining products, or for trouble-shooting
• customer testimonials – which carry more weight and ‘reality’ than a written case study on a website or brochure
• video blogs

What are the benefits of using videos?

With a video, you can express your personality and that of your business much more easily and effectively than in print or with a static website.

Communication is also faster – using product demonstrations and on-screen graphics along with spoken words – and it’s much easier to emphasise product features and benefits.

One big benefit of business videos is that they can be widely used and re-used, for example:

• embedded in your business website
• posted on free video sharing websites such as YouTube and Vimeo
• on business pages on social media platforms such as Facebook and Google+
• shared with followers through Twitter
• shared with customers in email newsletters or attached to online quotations

There is some evidence that videos keep visitors on websites for longer, and they definitely improve search engine optimisation: websites with video rank higher in search engine results.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that videos can be used offline as well – at exhibitions and conferences, and during sales meetings with potential customers.

Can I make videos myself?

Although the equipment and software available for online video marketing is easy to use, it’s worth investing time and effort in learning how to make high quality videos with a professional finish, which will reflect well on your business.

You’ll also need to understand the technical aspects of how to format, upload and share web videos for the best results.

A professional video production company can advise you if you’re not confident.

Share your video on public websites like YouTube.

Business videos can be a great, attention-grabbing way to promote your business and its products or services.

To maximise the benefits of your investment, it makes sense to use the video as widely as possible – always remembering your overall business and marketing objectives.

1) Your business website

This is the primary place to put your videos, either as a live stream or a downloadable file – or both.

In-site videos help to increase time spent on websites, and also improve search engine rankings.

2) Social media platforms

These include Facebook Pages, Google+ Business Pages, Twitter posts and blogging sites such as WordPress. All of these can benefit from videos to add interest and make them more ‘sticky’.

3) Video sharing sites

YouTube is the best known video sharing site, but there are several other public websites where you can upload and share your video. These include:

• Flickr
• the Yahoo! photo-sharing site, which now hosts short (up to 90 second) videos
• Vimeo, which has a limit of 500Mb per video for free use
• DailyMotion, where the limits are 100 minutes/2Gb

As well as these, Metacafe and UStream are social video-sharing sites which benefit users who want to create a community and actively encourage feedback and/or interaction.

4) Emails, e-newsletters and electronic press releases

First use of videos in launch promotions can be very useful for creating a ‘buzz’ about new products and services.

It’s possible to embed videos in newsletters, although a lot of email providers will block this content. It’s better to give a text link – or better, an image with a ‘Click to watch’ graphic – which sends readers to your video.

5) Interactive catalogues

Interactive publications are increasingly popular as a low-cost and highly effective way of communicating with customers and potential customers.

Embedding videos into these is a great way to add interest – and to demonstrate your product benefits and features in a real and immediate way.

Thinking about what your video is for will help it be sucessful

This should be the first question we ask when making a video, which makes it kind of embarrassing that I’ve been blogging for 5 months now and this is when I’m choosing to blog about it. Anyway…

The purpose of a television commercial is to barge into a persons living room and demand their attention and try to make the potential customer aware of/like/want to buy the product. This is NOT the purpose of an advert on the web (usually, but we’ll get to the exception later). The purpose of a web advert is to appeal to a potential customer who is already searching for the product/service in question.

Your video is a short window of time during which you get to try and persuade a viewer, who is already interested in your product/service, that they should call you in preference to any of your competitors. This means that you don’t need to spend time persuading customers that they need your product/service. They are already looking for it.

What are the two feelings that would persuade a customer to buy your product rather than a similar one or the same one from another provider? Eliciting these feelings is the purpose of your video and you should construct your video with this in mind. Transmission of information is secondary unless it helps in this aim.

Example 1

A video for a dentist is looking to give the viewer two feelings, a feeling of trust for the dentists themselves and a feeling that they are experts in their field. We could accomplish this by showing the dentist at work, showing happy customers being treated, and mentioning one or two technical aspects of the work that lets the viewer know that the dentist knows exactly what they are doing. We don’t need to go into too much detail; we don’t want to bore the viewer.

Example 2

A vehicle hire company needs to make a viewer realise that they have a range that can accommodate whatever vehicle they need and that the price will be competitive. To do this the video could feature a wide range of the vehicles available. The shots will need to be well thought out and full of movement as footage of cars and vans just parked in a depot will be boring. The video could also show a customer being served by a member of staff and driving off smiling, to show that they are happy with the price and the service they’ve received.

Example 3

A children’s play area needs to let parents know that their children will be safe, and have fun. The video could show children playing, running around, bouncing on the soft play equipment, and all the other activities offered. It would be good to show staff interacting with the children, and probably the secure entry too. Laughing children and relaxed parents would be the key here.

Remember the purpose of your video is to get potential customers to call you rather than your competitors. Don’t get bogged down with too much information, just enough to establish the feeling you need to elicit from the viewers, and think carefully about what you need your viewer to feel to encourage them to call you. Trust? Expertise? Care? Bredth of product range? Good pricing? Quality? Fun? Security?

Then show these feeling to your viewer.

The exception I mentioned earlier is the viral advert, and I’ll blog about that next time.

Good luck,

Jonathan Jeeves

Mixing music and video can be highly engaging

I love cutting video to the beat of the music. There’s a little squirm of joy when images change with every thud of the beat of the soundtrack.

Here’s how I do it.

Every piece of NLE (none linear editing) software has the capacity to place markers on a time line. I start the process by placing my choice of music on the timeline and listening to it. Then I scrub back to the beginning a play through again, but this time I click the marker placement button on each beat. It’s just like tapping your finger to the music as it plays. When I’m done I start to place my shots. When you place your shots normally you are looking for the natural change in the scene to decide when to cut. With this process your ability to choose when to cut is severely restricted. You can only cut on one of the markers you have placed. This means this is going to take more time than normal, and that you have to be a lot more careful about exactly what snippets you take from any one shot, your video still has to make sense. This means this technique is a lot easier when you are creating a montage of images rather than following a narrative structure.

Once you’ve placed your shots in line with your markers, even though you’ve been watching the video continuously as you cut, go back and watch it all again. This time through you will be painfully aware of just how far off the beat most of your cuts are. So now you have to go through the time line and adjust every single cut. Most NLEs will display the waveform of your music but this isn’t always a help as the waveform may peak on sounds that don’t fall on the beat you’ve chosen for the cut. Most of the time however there will be a nice peak in the waveform that will give you a helping hand, but there is no substitute for listening and looking at your cut over and over again. You won’t necessarily be cutting on every single beat of the music but every cut you do make should be on a beat for the effect to work. However, you don’t have to stick rigidly to this throughout your whole video. This is a technique that you can dip into and out of using it for some sequences but not others.

Here is a video where the technique is used between 16 – 24 seconds, before slowing the pace of cuts down a little.

I hope you have fun with this, and good luck with your videos.

Jonathan Jeeves

If you’re having testimonials, this would have been organised and if you are appearing the video, you’ll be rehearsed and know exactly what you’re going to say…of course, this is the ideal from a Video Producers perspective, but the reality can be somewhat different.

Small things can be often overlooked, like permission to film at a certain location, especially in large cities where the relevant council will need to be consulted and often require payment for a Video Producer to use equipment in public places…sometimes the Police need to be informed, though most councils, especially in London deal with this.

So my advice is to expect the unexpected as it sometimes does, however if we have a schedule to break down the day, then it’s a good guideline to follow, however if you have hired an experienced Video Producer, then they will know what to do in most circumstances, if things don’t go to plan.

Shoot days can be long and depending on the time of year (daylight hours) it can be 8 hours or so. It’s up to you if you want to be with the Video Team throughout, some of my customers, I’ll meet them in the morning and see them at the end of the day, while others like to be involved at every stage…it is up to you, but I recommend delegating your duties for that day, so as to concentrate on your video and arrangements for the day…plus, if your Video Producer is like me, you’ll be needed because I’m terrible at remembering names!

Your crew will turn up early in the morning and it’s here we generally have a quick chat about the day, go over the schedule, the locations and the people who will be included. If there are any pieces to Camera on Green Screen, I generally get this set up first, with the lighting and film any scripts towards the end of the day, to ensure I’m using as much natural daylight as possible.

In the 2nd part, i’ll be getting a little more technical about the tools and methods used.

Jamie Morden

Some of my colleagues have written excellent articles about social networking and placement of videos on the web.  So Instead I’m going to consider a few alternatives.

The good old fashioned business card has a lot going for it. When you give one to someone they feel like they’ve gotten a gift, it means something, and they have a physical object to remind them that you made contact. What if that business card is a tiny business card shaped DVD?  DVDs, of course, can have menus, additional data, games, as well as video content. Imagine the possibilities.

What if your business card has a QR code on it that will take your customer straight to your video, but still has your contact details on the other side? Would that be a more personal form of contact that allows you to use the power of video, with people who are still reluctant when it comes to digital content?

But QR codes can be used on any printed medium. You can place a QR code in magazine/newspaper adverts, or in your Yellow Pages ad or Yell.com listing.

Then what about physical displays? You can play your video on a loop on a screen in your premises, or your shop window, or on a smartphone or a tablet when talking to your customer, or perhaps you can pull out a pico projector (linked to your smartphone by bluetooth) and project your video all over your customer’s wall. That would make quite an impact. How about mounting a floor projector in your shop/premises so that your video content is projected all over the floor people walk on? Or projecting onto the outside of your building at night? Do you remember FHM magazine projecting an image of Gail Porter onto the houses of parliament in the 1990s?

Of course you can always optimise your video for the web so that it is small enough to look good, but be easily transmitted, and email it to customers. This can often be construed as spam and therefore be off putting to customers who have not requested the video, so it’s something that needs to be done with care. Easier still is just to email a link to a hosting site where you have your video. BUT, what if your video is made with interactivity in mind and you’re inviting your clientele to take your video and re-edit or just play with it? You need to be able to distribute the video file in these circumstances.

And what about the future? Those of us now heading for middle age are acutely aware of just how fast technology changes. In the last 5 years mobile web access has become ubiquitous, in the last 10 years home broadband has spread to almost every home. Read this BBC news article from November 2000 to remind yourself how much things have changed.

E-paper utilises e-ink to create a page of text or an image on a page. Power is only used when the image changes. You’ve probably already seen it used in a Kindle or similar book reader. There are already prototypes of e-paper that plays video in colour. Imagine covering the wall of your front from with wallpaper that changes colour and pattern whenever you want it to? Then imagine that it replaces your television. Now imagine covering your car or van with the same stuff. “I’ll drive a red car today please… no actually I’ll make it blue” or better still play videos on your car doors as you drive a long… that may prove a bit distracting and irritating, but this world is coming. Shop windows that are now covered in vinyl images to advertise their wares will soon be covered in transparent e-paper, which can display any message, and then play any video content.

Video everywhere.

Maybe now is the time to do something a bit different and get ahead of the curve before everyone else is doing it too. Video will be everywhere, the thing is to get used to making yours now. Most people won’t be able to make their own videos to the standard they need and will have to hire outside production companies, but this is becoming more and more affordable for small & medium sized companies. Maybe now is the time to start using the power of video to sell your business, so that when the ubiquitous video world arrives, it will already be part of your business plan.

Good luck,

Jonathan Jeeves

How to share video on Twitter

Back in September 2010 Twitter introduced the ability to embed videos into tweets so that that users can stream videos whilst on the Twitter website. The user can read tweets on the left side of the page whilst streaming video on the right side of the same page. This move is a  compelling reason to share video via Twitter as part of your video marketing campaign.

You cannot upload a video direct to Twitter. You need to upload the video to a compatible video sharing website, such as YouTube, Vimeo, TwitVid, Twitpic and Y-frog; all these sites enable you to share the video to your Twitter account.

Alternatively  its easy to use a YouTube short URL to embed a video into a tweet. Use of a short URL helps to keep your tweet within maximum of 140 characters. To create a YouTube short URL take the full YouTube URL of your video and replace “http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=” with “http://youtu.be/”

For more details see Twitter’s own short video tutorial about how to share videos.

Micro-Videos: An idea for video marketing on Twitter

There are video experts who recommend that because Twitter is a micro-blogging website it makes great sense to create micro-videos for Twitter. A micro-video is a video of 10-30 seconds duration.

We felt this to be a powerful idea and produced 10 second videos for hundreds of UK businesses. Here are links to a couple of our favourites – you’ll see the power of the passion and personality and that can be expressed in a 10 second video clip:

 Masquerade

Red Dog Music

It can be simple to create a micro-video. If you have a webcam on your PC try out TwitCam . Apps are available which enable sharing of  videos via a smartphone, for example Qik and Ustream are both available via the Android and iPhone apps stores. Also available for iPhone is Viddy which offers  production features such as music and transitions for your video.

Video can do wonders for your business website

Video killed the radio star

Here’s a bit of a history lesson to point out how advertising mediums will evolve and the most forward thinking companies are the ones that survive and grow;

– when radio was first introduced in 1930’s many people thought it was the end of vinyl record sales (these are like download singles to you young pups out there!) as people could just listen to songs they like rather than having to buy them, and indeed there was a severe drop in profits in the US record sales from 75 million dollars to 26 million over a 9 year period , however what a lot of scare mongers failed to point out was that this was during a period of history when most of our males were off getting killed in a world war and the time of life was known as “the great depression” – so was this slump down to radio ?????

– fast forward to the 1950’s (the war is over now in case you didn’t like history) and in comes – the transistor radio , a little pocket radio that you could take out of the house

From here on in clever businesses decided to “advertise” on radio as they saw that this was a medium that was going to stay and transmit their business to a lot of people!

Then in 1981 someone threw a spanner in the works! It was a little broadcasting channel known as MTV – suddenly people didn’t have to just listen to music they could watch it! and advertisers saw the potential of it immediately – they could “show” their products and services to new customers instead of just telling them

So 5 years later in 1986 another television channel launched this one ONLY selling goods to people its called ……………. QVC. This company really saw the power of “showing”

So television had a good run of being the leader in the market for companies showing their goods and services both by having dedicated channels but also by “adverts” in between programmes but companies were always going to be looking for the next big idea, not least because the huge costs associated with television advertising meant that small/medium businesses could not compete with the big boys.

2 years later a little company decided to start up which would make as big an impact on consumers buying avenues as television did when it started …………….. that’s right it was Google!

Google mission statement is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”,

It could just as easily have been “to allow all the companies that couldn’t afford to advertise on the telly the opportunity to compete with the big boys!” they could do this by having good visual content via a company website

Fast forward 17 years to 2005 and in comes you tube a whole medium dedicated to “showing” meaning that companies now had another avenue of engaging customers in the form of video (something that MTV saw the power of 24 years earlier just on telly instead of online!) with articles in 2008 projecting their advertising revenue at 200 million dollars – this really was a powerful medium for “all” size companies.

So what does a company need to do today to stay in front of the most amounts of customers?

• Simple have a good presence online in the form of a website that gets found and looks good
• Have good representation on a “search” website (I find yellonline a particular good one lol) Have a video that engages and can be found
• And have a printed directory advert because since 1976 when we started no one has invented any paid for advert medium that (As yet) has rivalled our cost per lead for small to medium business

So we know that internet won’t kill the video star, it will enhance it but we do have to ensure that internet doesn’t kill the radio star or more importantly the small and medium companies in the UK today that don’t have a proper online presence and aren’t moving with the times!