How-To Videos: How To and Why To Teach on YouTube
You have heard by now that informative, educational and entertaining content is your friend in many Internet marketing ventures. You may already be writing articles, interacting as an expert on Facebook and Twitter, and giving your authoritative views in your blog. You can add to your body of work in a powerful way by producing some great how-to videos for YouTube.
Why do how-to videos?
First of all, how-to videos are very popular. Anytime someone wants to learn about something she is interested in, there is a good chance she will go to YouTube to see a how-to video on the subject. If she does not go directly to YouTube, she might go first to a search engine. There your how-to video will pop up in the search results if you have optimized it carefully. In either case, your video will reach her.
Not only will she come across your video, but she will also watch it from beginning to end if it is truly informative. A video can capture attention like no other medium can. What is more, the how-to format is easy to follow because the steps are laid out clearly and directly. Your viewer’s attention will not get sidetracked as easily as it might with some other types of content.
Finally, how-to videos can bring in more customers to your website and ultimately to your business. Always include a link back to your website. Tell the whole story that the how-to is supposed to cover, but leave your audience wanting more. Mention a new topic that they might also be interested in and tell them how to reach you at your website to get the additional information. The more you engage your viewers, the more traffic and business you will see.
How are how-to videos done?
You need an interesting subject related to your products or industry. Remember that it is not a sales video, but it can touch on the products you do sell. For example, you might sell fishing gear. You would not do a sales video for YouTube and pass it off as a how-to. Instead, you might make up a video that discusses how to use a particular type of fishing equipment.
Once you have your topic, make an outline of the steps needed to do the task. Depending on the complexity of the task, decide on the length you need for your video. Write up a script and practice saying the words distinctly, relatively slowly and in a pleasant voice. When you are satisfied, get your props or photos together to flesh out your video.
Set up the camcorder yourself or have someone take the video for you. Then, you can edit it to make it run smoothly, without a hitch. Upload your how-to video to YouTube, and you will soon improve your status as an authority on one more subject.
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Small Business Networking Tips – Narrowing Your Focus in Social Media Marketing
You may be fascinated with the possibilities of social media marketing, and rightly so. It has been a source of added website visitors and increased sales for my business and many others like it. However, if you do not have the staff or the budget to support a full scale social media blitz, consider scaling back your efforts and planning a more focused campaign.
If you are a self employed home businessperson or a sole proprietor of a business, you only have so much time to spend doing social networking. It is important to make that time count. The best avenue to take is to develop strategies to use your time to the best advantage.
You may be doing all the social networking yourself This could be due to budget constraints, having a small staff or no staff at all, or simply not trusting anyone else to do it for you. When this is the situation, it is best to concentrate your efforts on one social networking website.
Rather than having a Facebook account, a Twitter account, a MySpace account, a Friendster account, and as many others as you can find, choose the one you like best. This may mean that you try several out for a short time, but once you get the basic idea of each, select your favorite and run with that one.
Then, post to that social networking site several times a day. Have the website open on your desktop if possible, so you can glance over at the thread from time to time and add relevant comments to join in the conversation. When you are only trying to keep track of one site, you can work it more effectively and efficiently. It should be a part of nearly every day for you.
Since networking is a social event, it can be a good stress reducer during the day. One strategy to keep your pinpointed plan running smoothly is to choose the relaxing break times to do social networking. One of these times might be when you have been engaged in intense data analysis. Another time might be when you have been poring over your financial statements.
You can get on the social networking site and unwind, chatting with potential customers in a friendly and helpful way. Your amiable attitude will gain you more followers than all the blatant sales tactics you could ever devise would do. With your emphasis on one specific social networking site, you can have a very large presence on the Internet with no outside help. Then, if you want to expand to other sites, work it into your budget to pay the small cost of hiring professional social media marketers to post to those sites for you.
Facebook Advertising for the Experienced Marketer Part 1
There are some important techniques when considering Social Ads on Facebook. One of the first items to keep in mind is your advertising goals. It is important to craft your ad to as closely target the ‘friends’ you are looking for as possible. Then of course you want your landing page to fulfill on the promise you are making. What promise? You might be asking.
A well-crafted Social Ad on Facebook is essentially telling the friend on FB that you have information or services that they are interested in or need in some way. This is the promise. The landing page is the fulfillment of the promise. Since you the advertiser are paying for views you will want it to be as clear as possible what you have to offer and the name of your company.
As an Internet Marketer you have the luxury of providing information to people in various locations. If you were marketing a Christmas gourd business you might be targeting people locally or people in the United States. Facebook Ads gives you the ability to make this choice. It is your responsibility to clearly think it through. Another technique is to deliver the advertisement in other countries language if you are advertising globally.
Of course the proper use of keywords is another important technique to use in Social Ads. Just like using keywords anywhere else you want to work your keyword naturally into your advertisement content. You also want to take the time to highlight anything unique you have going on. Especially things that show friends on Facebook that you are different and can better meet their needs.
The complex part of advertising on Facebook is that you also have to make your ads simple. So simple the advertisement seems like an offer of help that the FB friend would naturally click on. This is not the place for details. This is the place to use all those things you learned about in those English classes. Things like proper punctuation and capitalization are important. Most of the people in Facebook are well educated. They are from colleges and universities or alumni. They will notice if you neglect proper grammar. Another technique is to tell the friend from Facebook what you want them to do. Clearly tell them. When looking at other traffic sources you may have heard this called ‘the call to action’.
Soft Skills to Sell with Blog Marketing
What is the point of your Blog Marketing efforts? If what you have in mind is getting people to your website or Search Engine Optimization or even that old tried and true online diary thing you are selling your Blog short. Just like any other marketing technique your Blog Marketing is designed to get sales.
Because a blog has more of a conversational feel to it you can attract people who are different. The person attracted to your Blog Marketing will be attracted to the give and take of a conversation. If they wanted and article that just used SEO a blog would not be the place to find it. This type of customer wants a little more. Do not get me wrong I can and do use SEO techniques on my blog. I use it gently though. I am much more focused on the conversation.
Because the internet is so focused on new and changing content the first contact your customer might have with you is your blog. If this customer enjoys blogs in general it also might be the ongoing contact point with this customer. You want to concentrate on keeping it inviting. Even build your brand name and your readerships awareness of what is possible.
The design of your blog should be easy to navigate. You want your customer to be able to move around in your blog and easily find the product that is the answer to their question. Yes your blog posts will give them tidbits of the answer but it should be easy for them to find answers in a package. That package being one or several of your products.
The trip to your website can be the final step to make the sale. Think of your Blog as one of your tools which lead to the sale. For example if you have a real store front you or salesmen you hire are the tools. You expect courtesy, respect, and knowledge in and from your salesmen, particularly in respect to customer service.
Keeping that same mind set in your Blog development. Your blog can be one of your salesmen. It can even be the place where your customers can comment on your sales and lead other customers to you. A well kept up Blog that is inviting will also invite the customer back for further sales. After all a customer once found will be easier for you to sell with Blog Marketing a second time, third time, and even more times.
Market towards the Future and Not Just the Past
In most of your website analytics, you are looking at the past to see what has already worked for you in the Internet marketing game. While this is a valuable use of your time, it does not tell the whole story. Some aspects of the market are bound to change during your upcoming marketing campaign, and you need to be ready for them. Here are a few ways you can plan for the future.
1. Trending Topics Trending topics and trending videos on social websites can give you an idea of the next big thing. You may have to wade through a lot of chatter and silly ideas that are destined to be no more than fads. However, there are trending topics that will tell you about the newest ideas on the minds of people everywhere. Some of these are problems for which no solution has yet been created. Just think: you can be the first to solve the problem with a hot-selling new or repurposed product.
2. Developing Patterns Patterns are all about the past, right? Well, actually, no. The individual bits of information making up the pattern are a part of the past, but the overall curve usually marches on into the future barring any new developments. It is graphs over time where you will see where your marketing efforts are heading.
Look up a keyword in Google Insights that you might use for your business, and see how it has fared over the course of the past few years. If there is a recurring pattern, use the keyword in your SEO articles and on your website in the next such period of time. For instance, if you sell textbooks, you might see a spike in the keyword phrase “used textbook” just before the start or right after the end of a college semester. Use that information to employ that keyword heavily at exactly that time.
3. News Stories Keep up with the news, both general news and industry news. You will want to be the first to know when something is happening that will affect your business. Do not wait for the information to filter down to you through casual channels. Go out seeking enlightenment on the subjects that are pertinent to your business. You will stay ahead of many of your competitors, and you will know what your target audience wants the most.
4. Talk to Everyone Talk on Facebook, Twitter or whatever social networking sites where you have accounts. Bring up hopes, plans and needs for the future. Share your expertise, but most of all, listen to what your target audience is saying. They probably know what they want better than you could ever dream to. All you have to do is give them the time and the respect of listening to their ideas.
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Developing a Content Strategy for Your Social Media Marketing Campaign
There is no worse way to start a social media marketing campaign than to dive right in without thinking. Although you are only writing in limited-character bursts of dialogue, you are still producing content. That content needs to have a focus and a direction or you will never accomplish anything productive for your company.
If you have not defined your branding thoroughly yet, work on that before you jump into the social networking websites. Establish who it is you want to be, and how you want consumers to think of you. Consider the attributes you want consumers to associate with your company such as high quality, customer oriented, fast delivery or cutting edge technology. If you do not narrow down your branding messages, you will seem like you are trying to be all things to all people, and that rarely works. People want to know that you stand for something, and they want to know what that thing is.
After you know who you are, choose people who will be responsible for your social media marketing campaign. Make sure that you have enough people, working plenty of hours to connect with your list on a regular basis. Your social media team should be up to date on how to navigate the social media websites, accomplishing actions like uploading videos and other content as well as sharing content from other sources.
Work with your team to develop a social media marketing plan in detail. Make standard rules about what kinds of interactions are to be used. Find ways to encourage creativity in coming up with new and exciting content for the updates or Tweets. Choose individuals within the team to work with different aspects of the social scene, such as educating people about the industry, fielding customer service-related topics or establishing a brand presence on the social media.
After your social media marketing campaign has been running for awhile, reevaluate it and determine whether you are making any progress. Look at the number of people who respond to social media-only discount offers. Take note of the numbers of people who are being added and who are dropping off of your lists. Most of all have your team pay attention to the responses of others to the content they post so they will know how they are doing and what they need to change. Social media marketing takes dedication and patience; more than that, it takes awareness.
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The Homepage Conundrum – Working Out the Possibilities
You cannot be all things to all people, and neither can your homepage. Your Internet marketing campaign will have better success if you nail down exactly the right amount of content and optimization on your website’s homepage. You obviously want to put your best foot forward, but you cannot show everything on the first page. This creates a puzzle that you have to figure out to make the most of that single most important page on your site.
Main Keywords
The homepage is the place for your main keywords. These are the keywords most identified with your company, your product or your service. You only have room for just so many main keywords, so make them count. Do not make them overly general, and make sure they relate specifically to your niche. It should be natural to incorporate them into your homepage content.
Keywords from Additional Pages
Each of the subordinate pages on your site will have specific keywords that go logically with their subject. Those pages will be optimized for those keywords or keyword phrases very easily, since the range of choices will be limited. Yet you cannot include all these keywords from all those pages on your homepage, especially if you have many pages on your site. The best solution is to use as many keywords from the ancillary pages as possible without disrupting the flow of the content on your homepage.
Product Descriptions
Unless you have a very small website, product descriptions are best left for secondary pages. You can mention products. You might want to put in a clickable link so visitors to your website can move on to the mentioned product if they are interested. However, the main theme of the homepage should be a general overview of your company and products, not intimate details of each and every one.
Video
Video is a great addition to your homepage. An interesting introductory video will keep your visitors happy long enough to look around your site and to discover the benefits of your products. That being said, there might be such a thing as too much video on your homepage in some cases. Mixed media usually works the best, so you capture the audience that likes to read as well as the audience that enjoys video and photos. You have to know your target demographic, though, in case yours prefers only watching video.
Your design, layout and navigational tools are also important, but not really part of your content. The most important thing about content and optimization on your homepage is to balance the general with the specific. Your overall theme should be the general, with hints of the specific information waiting on the inner pages. When you have found a good balance of ideas and images, you will have solved the puzzle of the homepage.
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Using Targeting for Your Facebook Ad
Facebook makes it very easy for you to get your marketing message out to your target demographic. Their system can define your objective down to small details you might not have considered. Use as many as you need of these targeting tools that Facebook offers.
Targeting by Birth Date There are several choices within this category of targeting. You can target people to receive ads specifically on their birthdays. This is a good practice for companies who give special birthday offers. Another way to target is to select a range of ages for your entire ad campaign. You can do exact match where 100% of the people who get the ad will be in your specified age range, or you can do a broad match where people just outside your range will also be included for a lesser cost.
You might want to target a specific, exact age range if you have a service that is only available to people within that range. An obvious example of a very specific age range would be a military ad, where recruitment is only open to people of the correct age. If you do not have any pressing reason to exclude people just outside your chosen age range, then you should probably consider a broad match.
Targeting by Likes and Interests This is a very interesting feature of Facebook that is not available in many other marketing choices. You choose keywords for Facebook to search for on the profile pages of users, and when they come up as likes, your ad will run for them to see on their page. For instance, if you sold beach towels and you chose the word “beach” to search as a Like, a person who said they “Like walks on the beach” would get your ad on their page. That would reach your target demographic of people who spend time at the beach.
Targeting by Education You can not only target by education level, but you can also target certain colleges or college majors. You can target people who graduated college in a particular year. Facebook will pick them up by the information on their profiles, and will deliver your ad to them if they fit into your target demographic.
Targeting Current Fans It is easy to target Fans of your Facebook page, and you should do so anytime you have special deals and offers. The setup screen for the ad gives you the option under “Connections.” Your Fans will become even more loyal and interested if you keep them informed and include them in events and sales.
You can gain from targeting your Facebook ad, no matter which of their given parameters are useful to you. Study the marketing information on the Facebook Help page and choose the ways to target that will get your ad directly to the groups of people whom you know are looking for your product. With a well-designed ad, this perfect positioning can make all the difference in both your website traffic and your conversion rate.
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Article Marketing Rules – How to Get Approved by Article Directories
If you want a way to direct traffic to your website without spending a lot of money, article marketing is a great choice. The good news is that you can do it yourself and spend nothing but the cost of your time. All you do is write articles, add in a link to your website, and submit them to an article directory to be published and possibly distributed.
There is one hitch, though. Most article directories where you submit your work have certain requirements. If you do not follow them, your articles will not be accepted. In fact, if you flout the rules in an extreme way, you might not be able to submit there in the future. Therefore, it is best to find out what makes the directories tick.
The best way to get your articles accepted is to go to the article directory where you want to submit and read through their guidelines. Read through all their terms and requirements until you have learned what they want. It takes some time, but it will be well worth it when you have a library of articles sitting on their directory.
To get you started, here are a few things that are nearly always at issue.
Do not sell in the body It seems counterintuitive. After all, you are marketing, so you want to sell, right? Well, you do, but it is a little subtler than that. Instead of selling your product in the body of your article, you write an article that displays your expert knowledge of a subject. Usually, the subject will be related to the items you are selling. Use every fair tactic of creating interest to get people reading your article, but do not sell.
Beware of keywords You do need keywords. Otherwise, people are not likely to find your article. That being said, you need to limit the number of keywords to a reasonable percentage. Most article directories will let you get by with 3% to 4% keyword density for any one keyword phrase. If you overuse your keyword, your article may be rejected and you will have to rewrite.
Write for a PG audience If you write adult-themed articles, they may not be accepted, depending on the rules of the particular directory. Be careful not to offend. Not only will you drive away customers if you are too graphic or x-rated, you might also be breaking the rules of the directory. Most of them spell out precisely what they will and will not allow.
Brush up on your writing Most article directories will not publish your articles if they are full of poor grammar and spelling. Luckily, most of them will give you a chance to correct mistakes. Some will even correct them for you. Yet, you should be careful to write articles the best way you possibly can because it adds to your credibility.
Sell in the author box Every article directory has some version of the author box. This is where you put your biography, your pitch, and your link to your website. Keep the selling in this box and you should safely get your article past the editors. At the same time, by including this information, you do what you set out to do. You create a marketing path from the directory and Internet searches to your website.
Photo Credit: Michelle Meiklejohn
Viral Video Marketing and Branding Your Company
Video sharing websites have become some of the most popular sites on the Internet. It only makes sense to take advantage of this wide audience to market your company. Just remember that the kind of video you present will influence what people will think of your company and how they will perceive your brand.
Creating a viral video is something like getting struck by lightning. You can take certain steps to make it more likely that you will get struck by lightning, like going out in a thunderstorm, holding a lightening rod to the sky, and waiting on a hill for lightning to strike you. While videos impact a much wider group of people than lightning does, you still have to take action to make it more likely for them to go viral. Quality, relevance, humor, impact, tagging, descriptions and importance all come into play.
Many businesspeople do not think about their company brand when they are focused on creating videos that will go viral. They are so concerned with making up zany stunts and amusing group scenes that they forget that the whole purpose is to give people the right impression of their brand.
If you want to get the most positive success from viral video marketing, start by figuring out what you want to say about your company and your product. Perhaps you want to say that your product is for fun-loving people. You might want to say that your company is trustworthy or customer-oriented. Make a list of these attributes that you are trying to put across in your viral videos.
Next, make up a list of messages you want to avoid sending. Maybe you want to avoid sending the message that the quality of the video reflects the quality of your product or the casual appearance and professionalism of your staff. These messages can be whatever is contrary to the branding you want to establish for your business.
When you produce your video, or have it produced for you, make sure you consider both what is important to have and what is important to avoid in branding your company. A viral video can be made with a few people engaging in a crazy stunt or an unusual activity. On the other hand, it might be a large mass of people doing a song or creating a scene together.
No matter what the size of your cast, you need to be able to have some control over how the video will brand your company. Then, when the video goes viral, everyone who sees it will see the company you want to portray.