With the ever-increasing popularity of YouTube (it’s been getting more traffic than Google!) video marketing is a powerful tool to add to your marketing mix. It may seem quite challenging to produce your own videos as a solopreneur, but before you say, “I don’t want to see myself on video” or “Isn’t that really hard to do?” read on…
YouTube is now the second largest search engine, according to ComScore, with 50% more searches than Yahoo! And 180% more searches than Bing. YouTube has 300 million visitors every month who watch more than 12 billion videos.
As a social medium, YouTube features user generated content and facilitates video sharing, commenting, rating, and the ability to create special interest channels. These attract friends and subscribers who share interests and can interact with each other; users look for videos to entertain and inform. Businesses participate by providing answers to users’ questions, how-to content, product reviews, instruction, expert opinions, etc.
It is a forum for establishing “social authority” that businesses seek for the topical areas most related to their services or products and there is no better way for people to connect with you than actually seeing you on video! It’s pretty simple to create your own YouTube video channel and start uploading your videos immediately.
If you have a pocket camera (I recommend the Kodak Zi8 – it’s a great little camera for a reasonable cost) and a computer, you are ready to go! You don’t necessarily need a professional videographer – sometimes candid videos showcase your personality and likability even better than scripted, polished videos. Just do a search for your topic on YouTube and you’ll see how many people are doing it to promote their businesses.
How is Video Social?
Subscribe
There are multiple opportunities for viewers to subscribe to your YouTube channel and be alerted on their own YouTube login pages when new videos are added to your channel.
Like & Comment
YouTube provides a system for viewers to “Like” and comment on the videos, which lends weight to the social authority of the experts who create and offer the videos.
Most recent “Channel Comments” are shown toward the bottom of the image. These comments appear much like they do in blogs. Their purpose is to engage viewers (prospects and customers) in the conversation, and build familiarity and trust between them and the business.
Share
One of the best features is YouTube’s “Share” functionality allows viewers to share the video link through their other social media accounts, such as Facebook and Twitter, or post it to their own blogs.
Remember, online marketing is effective whether or not a business currently sells products or services over the Internet. “Brick and mortar” businesses of all kinds are using video marketing with impressive results.