Broaden Your Video’s Reach With Social Media

Business owners: what online tools and techniques are you using to drive new customers to your website or front doors of your business? If you’re using a combination of SEO, blogging, social media marketing, Facebook ads and more to gain brand awareness and put your company near the top of Google page rankings, then congratulations! You’re on the path to making your business better known and hopefully more traffic and sales.

But are you using video to promote your products, brands, partners or services? If not, you’re missing out on a huge, no wait, HUGE opportunity to create online branding awareness for your company. Everyone is watching video online and it will only continue to grow.

According to Cisco Systems, over 90% of all consumer IP traffic on the web in 2013 will be for online video. Other estimates show that over half (53%) of Americans and nearly 3/4 (71%) of all internet users will watch online video in 2012. And because so many people are watching videos, that gives marketers a huge incentive to advertise on in-streaming videos.

These signs should point you to the importance of marketing your business with video. Millions are already doing it – start now to boost your brand awareness with online video. We’d like to share some of Mint Social’s top tips for making your videos searchable, relatable and traffic-drivable.

Let’s assume you’ve got a decent video camera (HD is better, but pricier), and a clip-to-lapel mic to go with it (no one likes echoed audio on videos). Then here are your next steps.

• Pick a newsworthy topic for your customers and/or potential audience you’d like to reach. This can be about anything, examples being a newer/faster/better way your company is delivering its products, to a n industry movement you’re eager to talk about.
• Choose a ‘host’ or speaking human for the video. The old corporate videos with background music are passé – find a person who can represent your company affably and with warmth and grace.
• Find a suitable location. If it’s your company’s lunchroom, then use that. If you’re in the outdoor pest control business, you might want to shoot the videos in spaces you inhabit during your work day. There’s no right or wrong here, but make sure you have adequate light and minimal distracting noise.
• Take advantage of the video shooting situation to shoot several videos for a series. One of our clients has its CEO deliver a stream of on-target messages once a month that are then edited down into items to use throughout the month.
• Edit to just around 45-60 seconds. Most studies find that our capacity to watch non-personal-enjoyment videos are limited. Keep ‘em short. Keep ‘em coming.
• Make sure you TAG your clips. You do want them to be found by your intended audience, yes? Then tagging is essential. Put common terms about your company and business in quote marks.
• Write a transcription of the words being spoken and link to them in the video description area. This will help the search engines find your video faster.
• Once you’ve edited, tagged and transcribed your clip(s), upload it to the top five major video upload sites  (YouTube, Vimeo, Metacafe, Hulu and Veoh). Now’s the time to socialize. Grab the link and use it on your company’s Facebook page, Twitter sites and other social media sites your use. Use hashtags to denote certain search terms for Twitter. Embed the clips on your company’s blog. Share the link with customers, targets and even in yur monthly e-newsletter. There are so many ways to connect the links.

If you’re consistent in your approach and tactics with online video, you will start to see increased search rankings for your brand, company and products. If you’d like to learn more about online branding, contact us at Mint Social, and we’ll be happy to start you on your online video journey.