By Joan Stewart
The Publicity Hound
People of all ages are falling in love with Internet video, much of it
produced by amateurs.
Even so, amateur video can be an incredibly inexpensive but powerful
tool in your publicity campaign. The other big benefit is that the
search engines often reward websites and blogs that use video by giving
them higher rankings on the organic search list—that is, the non-paid
listings that appear on the left side of the screen within seconds after
you type a word or phrase into a search engine.
These statistics should convince you that it’s time to dive head-first
into video:
• YouTube, the most popular video-sharing site, is almost double the
size of
Google in daily page views.
• Almost 123 million people in the U.S. (70 percent of the U.S. internet
audience) viewed 7.2 billion videos online in January 2008.
• On average, each video streamer viewed 59 streams—nearly two videos
per
day—and viewed 151 minutes of video online during the month.
• The average viewing time was 2.6 minutes.
• Google, which purchased YouTube for $1.65 billion, was the top
streaming
video property in January 2008. YouTube.com alone accounted
for 992 million
video streams initiated.
• Internet marketers who use video to sell products and services report
that
sales increase considerably, sometimes as high as 500 percent,
compared to
when they don’t use it.
So how do you get in on the fun and profit?
How to use video for publicity: 9 ideas
-
Create
short video interviews of no more than two and a half minutes, and
demonstrate how to use one of your products or services. Authors,
you can actually record yourself reading from one of your books.
-
Create
video that introduces people to others within your company, like
your customer service manager or public relations spokesperson.
-
Create
short videos related to the topic of your
press releases, upload the videos to your website, and then
include the link in online press releases.
-
Take
people on a video tour of your bricks-and-mortar store or company.
Assign somebody to work the camera while you walk from department to
department, explaining what happens there.
-
Identify
your customers’ most frequent problems. Create one short video
devoted to each problem, and provide solutions.
-
Use video
to promote upcoming
special
events. At annual events, shoot video, and use it to promote the
event the following year.
-
Ask your
clients and customers to provide video testimonials, which you can
post at your website.
-
Use video
for your online pressroom. Create one that welcomes journalists and
explains how you can help them. Create another that introduces
journalists to experts within your company. Create a third that
answers the questions people ask most frequently about your business
or organization.
-
All the
uses above are for “talking head” videos. You can also create a
video of something that’s displayed on your computer screen, using
Camtasia Studio, a software program from TechSmith. You can create
and edit video using this one program. For example, I’m creating a
video that takes visitors on a tour of my website at
PublicityHound.com.
You’ll probably think of dozens more
uses, but these are plenty of ideas to get you started.
Video equipment options
Webcams: The lowest quality camera is the webcam,
like the
Logitech webcam, which can be placed on top of your computer
monitor so you can sit in front of the monitor and record yourself.
Webcams have built-in microphones. The problem with webcams is that the
video often doesn’t match the audio. For that reason, webcams are a poor
choice.
Flip Video:
The next step up is a camcorder that connects directly to a USB port.
The Flip Video camera is a simple digital camcorder that captures video
in 640x480 resolution at 30 frames per second. It uses 2 AA batteries.
It lacks a memory card extension slot but can be connected to a computer
with its pop-out USB connector, eliminating the need for a cable.
Because it lacks most
of the features of more advanced cameras, a 6-year-old could learn how
to use it. Depending on memory size, the
current “Ultra” model camera retails for about $150 for 30 minutes (1 GB
of flash memory) of video or $180 for 60 minutes (2 GB). This is the
camera I used when I got started.
Flip cameras have built-in microphones, and video quality is good
enough if you wanted to get started quickly with a simple-to-use camera,
but it's not perfect. Once you learn how to record and edit video, you
can graduate to a more expensive, more difficult-to-use and a
better-quality camcorder.
A camcorder: This is the recommended camera for the best-quality video
and audio. Buy a MiniDV camera with a memory, so you can move video files
between the hard drive in the camera and your computer hard drive without having to rely on tape,
which is more time-consuming. Here are three good makes and models:
Panasonic PV-GS320 3.1MMP 3CCD MiniDV Camcorder with 10x Optical Image
Stabilized Zoom
Canon ZR950 1.07MP MiniDV
Camcorder with 48x Optical Zoom
Sony DCR-HC96 MiniDV 3.3MP Digital Handycam Camcorder with 10x Optical
Zoom (Includes Handycam Station)
Look for a camcorder with an
external microphone jack that can be clipped onto the lapel of the
person in the video.
Make sure
your camcorder has a hole on the bottom so you can attach it to a
tripod. There are more than 700 makes and models of camcorders on the
market, and not all have this feature.
How to edit
I use Sony Vegas Movie Studio to edit video I create with my Flip
Camera.
There’s a bit of a learning curve, but I shortened it considerably when
I bought the Sony Vegas software from Mike Stewart (no relation), who provides
several excellent video tutorials you can download. They will walk you
step-by-step through the entire process, including how to insert music
into the opening and closing of your video.
He also offers a variety of other tutorials with special software and
instructions that you can buy from him on how to set up a video sales
page or a video blog on a free WordPress platform.
Learn more about the equipment I use and listen to a 70-minute teleseminar
I conducted with Mike on
“How to Create
Videos for Your Website to Pull Traffic, Impress Visitors, Make the
Phone Ring and Close the Sale.”
Now that you know several uses for video and what equipment to buy,
start practicing. The good news for Publicity Hounds is that these don’t
need to be full-feature videos. We’re only talking about two and a half
minutes here. Anything more, and viewers start to get restless.
The faster you start, the faster you’ll start pulling traffic into your
website or blog, and closing the sale.
Direct comments or questions about this article,
including requests for reprint rights, to:
Joan Stewart
The Publicity Hound
3434 County KK
Port Washington, WI 53074
Phone: 262-284-7451
JStewart@PublicityHound.com
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