by Carl Weiss
When it comes to breaking out of the box, it's easy to talk the talk. But when it comes to performing the deed, few businesses are willing to walk the walk. The Internet is a prime example of this phenomenon. Chock full of cost effective technologies that can take a business to a whole new level of interactive marketing, for the most part there are few companies who truly grasp, let alone embrace, what the web has to offer.
How has SEO changed over the past few years?
In past blogs we have talked about how SEO has changed from an injection to a process that factors in everything from your website, to such things as blogging, social networking and even YouTube. In reality, there more than 30 points of relevance that the spiders look for when searching and sorting out the most relevant sites. It is no longer sufficient to pay someone to tweak your keyword density and Meta Tags and expect to wind up on page one. To get the job done, you need to create compelling content on a regular (ie weekly) basis. Ignore this fact of online life and you will relegate your website to the backwaters of the major search engines. Embrace this concept and it is not only possible to generate a page 1 result on such search engines as Google, Bing, and Yahoo, but you can potentially generate multiple page 1 results.
Gone are the days when seasoned online marketers created an ubersite that was composed of numerous pages that web surfers could be expected to navigate through. Today you almost need to treat a web search as a question and the website (or landing page) as the answer. In other words, in terms of SEO viability, it is far more effective to create a number of microsites that are targeted at high value keywords. Not only is this tactic more effective at generating a page 1 result, but it is also much more effective at generating a conversion. Particularly if you include a video that answers the question posed by the keyword selected, this could jumpstart your online results in a hurry.
Why is blogging critical to your online success?
Speaking of hurrying, a blog post properly optimized can be one of the quickest way to jump the queue online. For example, a couple of months ago, I wrote a blog post entitled "Get Your Best Customers to Toot Your Horn." The post extolled the virtues of employing video testimonials in order to increase credibility, as well as turning your best customers into your best salespeople. After posting this article on blogger, as well as reprinting it on linktoexpert.com, I googled the title the next day and found that both the original blog, and the repost appeared at the top of page 1. Not bad for a half hour's work.
Creating and disseminating compelling blogs are one of the easiest ways to wind up on page one. Why? Because Google is gaga for mixed media, particularly when they own the conduit. By posting your blogs on Blogger, which Google owns and posting your videos on YouTube, which Google owns, not only will you improve your content worthiness, but you will also feed the 800lb gorilla in the room that owns and operates the most successful and profitable search engine on the planet.
How social is your social network?
This is another area where most businesses miss the boat when it comes to online success. To get a bead on how to successfully employ social networking, the first thing you have to understand is what it is not designed to do. Just as with blogging, if you simply attempt to create and disseminate ad copy via social networking, you will quickly find yourself isolated in an ever shrinking pond of influence as your audience either ignores or unfriends you.
While social networks can be used to generate an audience and augment the bottom line, there is a right way and a wrong way to go about doing so. The best approach is to create an environment in which compelling stories, humorous insights and helpful hints about your business are produced and promoted online. The key is that unlike ad copy with is 90% pitch and 10% information, when it comes to social networking, this equation is turned on its head. In fact, the best way to turn a reader into a customer when using social networking is to show them that you are an authority who can save them time or make a problem disappear. Interacting with an ever growing audience is what social networking is all about.
What can video do to revolutionize your marketing results?
When it comes to breaking out of the box, online video can be your elevator to the top if employed properly. As with social networking, no one wants to watch a 60-second commercial online. What people want to see is what I refer to as "infotainment." If you can entertain and inform your audience you will get your message across and have the opportunity build a vast audience who wait with baited breath for your next installment.
Think I'm joking? Let me share with you a story about a product called the Orabrush. Sounds like a toothbrush, doesn't it? Well it's not. What it is is the worlds first tonguebrush. After spending about $40,000 developing the prototype and getting the product ready for mass production, the inventor of the Orabrush started making the rounds of big box retailers looking to score a little shelf space for his product. Care to guess at how many retailers signed on? You got it..Nada. Now some forty kay in the hole and panicked by the thought that his business could well go under, the inventor started googling around looking for a way to save his business from the scrap heap. To make a long story short, the owner of the Orabrush decided to pay $500 to create a couple of videos that he posted on YouTube. Had he simply talked about the merits of the orabrush, his videos would have no doubt garnered little traffic. But that's not the approach he took. Instead, he created a catchy, funny series of video shorts that caught the imagination of the viewers and quickly propelled his video views into the millions. After that, not only did he succeed in getting the big box retailers to rethink their opinion of his product, but he also managed to sell over a million units online. His video channel, titled Cure Bad Breath, is now the third most viewed YouTube channel after Apple Computer and Old Spice.
The moral of the story is that viral video can be one of the most effective promotional tools of all times. What most people do not realize is that YouTube is viewed by more people than all the TV networks combined. (More than 1 trillion videos were viewed in 2011 alone.) It is also a search engine and social network where video content is available on-demand 24/7. More importantly, the cost of streaming content on this online mega-station is exactly zero. So there really isn't any reason why your company can't start "programming" your own YouTube channel today.
Want another reason to jump on the YouTube bandwagon? Consider the fact that every video you upload on YouTube can be embedded on your website and blogs, can be linked to your social networks and newsletters, and can be used to put every piece of printed literature and advertising that your company gives out on steroids and you'll soon wonder how you ever did without this online wonder weapon.
Carl Weiss specializes in helping clients break out of the box online. Visit his viral video megastation at Jacksonville Video Production.
Still Waiting for the Movie to Come Out?
by Carl Weiss
Everyone knows how important
the Internet is to promoting their business.
Yet all too many website owners are reluctant to embrace online
technology that is truly game changing. For
example, a few years ago blogging and social networking were introduced. These technologies not only enable business
owners to engage and interact with prospects and clients at the push of a
button 24 hours per day, but they do so for FREE. Still, the vast majority of website owners continue
to undervalue and under employ these business tools to this day.
That brings us to online
video, which everyone admits is another game changing technology. Like it or not, YouTube is a fact of online
life that is hard to ignore. Mashable.com
recently reported that, “More video content is uploaded to YouTube in a 60 day period than the three major
U.S.
Just to put the viewership numbers into perspective, today more than 3
billion videos will be viewed on YouTube.
Last year, more than one trillion videos were viewed on YouTube. And do you know how much a company is charged
for airing a video on YouTube? Not one
red cent.
Then why isn’t every business
in the US US
What’s even better is the
fact that once produced, a video can be used to put every other form of
marketing you are currently employing on steroids. Have a blog.
Embed the video. Want to tune up
your tweets? Link your YouTube video to
twitter at the click of a mouse. Speaking
of social networking, Mashable also reported that, “YouTube says that on
average there are more than 400 tweets per minute containing a YouTube link.
Meanwhile, over on Facebook over 150 years worth of YouTube videos are watched
every single day.”
Want to break out of the
box? Every piece of print advertising
and literature that you currently employ for business purposes can be enhanced
by the addition of one square inch of ink known as a QR code. How would you like to enhance your conversion
rate by a factor of 5? It has been shown
that people are five times as likely to click on a video as read text. Do you think that a 90-second video
introducing your business, your offer and a satisfied customer might have a
positive effect on your conversion rate?
Don’t take my word for
it. ComScore.com reported that , “Research and Markets report showed
4,500% growth in QR code scans in 2011. According
to the data from Nielsen research, as of January 2012, almost half (48 percent)
of all mobile phone users have a smartphone device.”
This fact alone should be a
wake up call to businesses large and small to the fact that QR codes, online
video, mobile websites and apps need to be a part of every business’ marketing
mix. It is also a fact that within the
next few years, more people will be surfing the web on their smartphones than
on their computers. The latest 4-G
networks are designed to stream video faster than a DSL line.
So, if you are still waiting
for the movie to come out featuring your business, don’t wait too long or you
might not like the ending.
Carl Weiss is president of http://access-jax.com and http://jacksonville-video-production.com
a company that has been helping companies take their online marketing to the
next level since 1995. Carl can also be
heard weekly on his http://workingthewebtowin.com
radio show broadcast on http://blogtalkradio.com
YouTube vs the Boob Tube
What do you want to
watch? The answer to this question used
to be relegated to whatever the networks or cable affiliates decided to serve
up. But not anymore. While networks continue to turn out the same
old, same old, served up with ubiquitous four minute commercial breaks, many
viewers are breaking away from the Boob Tube to embrace YouTube. In fact, in 2011, it was reported that web
viewers watched more than one trillion YouTube videos. One trillion. That's more
than 3 billion views per day or 140 videos for every person on the planet.
Known chiefly in the past for
airing junk videos chock full of funny cat tricks, dorm room pranks and millions
of amateur videos replete with shaky camerawork, the stage is now set for a
whole new level of web TV programming that while short of the mark set by the
major networks, is nonetheless compelling and well produced. Just as with the networks, the success of a
web tv shows is measured by viewership. Recently,
Mashable.com compiled a list of the top 10 YouTube series, which generated
anywhere from 4.27 million for the tenth place “Back on Chart” to a whopping
49.26 million viewers for “The Annoying Orange.” Not bad for a wisecracking piece of animated
citrus fruit. (A recent episode of Annoying Orange generated more than 100 million views.)
While most of the current
lineup on YouTube is hardly giving the major networks a run for their money
when it comes to production value and budget, that doesn’t mean that they can
rest on their laurels. Every day new
reality series, variety shows and homegrown sitcoms debut on YouTube. Some of them are even sponsored by local
businesses. The reason that it is so
easy to get into the game is due to the fact that unlike TV, you don’t have to
beg a network or cable affiliate to carry your show. It’s plug and play when it comes to web
TV. Anyone can get into the game.
This factor opens up the
floodgates to companies and individuals who can produce must-see-online-TV
shows. Just think of the
possibilities. Instead of merely
producing blogs and tweeting your head off to get the word out about your business,
why not create a series where you can engage and build an audience. Unlike producing an infomercial or shooting a
cable show, online episodes are not shown in the dead of night to a negligible
audience. They aren’t aired one time
only. They air on demand and are online
all the time. This means that someone
tuning into your series at episode fifteen, can watch all
fourteen preceding episodes at the click of the mouse.
Also production costs are
much less for online productions. Where
it takes several days to shoot a typical cable episode, it isn’t unusual to be
able to shoot four episodes (enough to air an episode per week for a month) in
one day. This means that the cost to
produce a web series is much less than anything that can be done for
traditional broadcast television. Plus, every
episode can be used to enhance all your existing marketing by being embedded in your blogs, linked
to your social networks and included in every piece of printing, advertising and direct mail you produce by
the inclusion of a QR code.
Carl Weiss operates a Web TV production facility at http://jacksonville-video-production.com His web series include http://american-dream-machine.com http://workingthewebtowin.com and http://mancavemunchies.com
Stay tuned for breaking news.
Everything I Know About Online Marketing I Learned by Playing Blackjack
by Carl Weiss
While I have been making my
living as an online marketer and consultant since 1995, before that my
professional life revolved around beating the casinos at their own game. My game of choice back then was blackjack. As anyone who has ever ventured inside a
casino knows, the gaming halls are better protected than NORAD. Between the eye-in-the-sky and trained
personnel on and off the casino floor, most people would be hard pressed to
devise a system that could take money from them on a regular basis. In fact, if you ask any pitboss, he or she
will tell you that they welcome system players with open arms. Why?
Simply because most systems don’t work.
And those that do, well let’s just say that the casinos don’t like it
when you do to them what they do to everyone else.
So, how did I manage to make
my living month in and month out for better than twenty years right under the
very noses of a virtual army of people who were paid to prevent me from doing
just that? It boiled down to just four
things:
- Having a game plan that worked both on paper and in the real world.
- Hitting them where they weren’t looking.
- Developing a team that was committed to playing the game over the long haul.
- Hiring a captain who would be tasked with organizing, training and managing the team.
The other thing that
separates the pros from the amateurs is a little thing called commitment. While amateurs only look at the results in
front of them, a professional is only concerned with long term gains and
losses. What this meant in realtime was
that as the play progressed over days and weeks, accurate records were kept and
adjustments were made to optimize every player’s earning potential. Everyone on the team was trained and tested
on a regular basis. Due to such factors
as joint bankroll, every player was able to wager higher amounts without
incurring the risk of depleting their bankroll and going bust. While we didn’t win every time we played, we
never had a losing month. And we never,
ever, lost an entire bankroll.
Exciting stuff right? Sure, but what does all of the above have to
do with online marketing? You see, the
same principles that worked in the green felt jungle can also be employed in
cyberspace. From a mathematical
standpoint, online marketing is nothing more than a game that if played
properly can result in a profitable outcome.
In fact, there have been a number of online marketing professionals who
have been accused of “Gaming” the Internet, by employing Black Hat tactics designed
to unfairly favor their clients. (It
would come as no surprise to any casino professional that where there is money,
there are cheaters.)
The problem with black hat
tactics is that once detected, not only do the professionals that employ them incur
the wrath of the search engine operators, so do all their clients. Besides, just as with blackjack, you don’t
have to cheat them to beat them. All it
takes is a mathematically sound system, accurate tracking and playing consistency
to come out ahead. Plus, just as with
professional card counting, utilizing team tactics online actually accentuates
the gains that any individual can hope to achieve.
How can team work pay
dividends? In any number of ways. First of all, you have to understand that
modern Search Engine Optimization (SEO) takes into consideration a number of
factors, such as blogs, social networks, reviews, recommendations, videos and
the frequency and quality of content updates.
All of these factors can be favorably enhanced by using the buddy
system. For instance, I will review your
site if you will review mine. You can
like me on the social networking scene and I can do the same for you. These are tactics which can be employed by
virtually anybody. Even from a
motivational factor, having someone holding you accountable to continuing to
publish regular updates is in itself invaluable. But if you want to really play with the big
boys, you need to take your game to the pro level. The only way to do that is hire a pro,
someone knows the game, plays it full time, has the resources to stay ahead of
the competition and can organize and manage a team.
A professional online
marketer not only has the experience to keep a team on track, he or she also
has the knowledge, resources and time to
advise, train, and manage a group of
busy businesspeople. A pro will take the
time to keep up to date and can reach out to other professionals to see what’s
down the road. The web never sleeps and
as a result by the time most laymen have gotten a bead on something that is of
value to their marketing mix, it is usually too late to fully exploit it. Plus, there is the daunting task of
organizing a team, which is not for the faint of heart.
The best online tiger team team
ideally consists of businesspeople who work the opposite side of the same
street. Excellent collaborations can be
made between service providers and contractors.
Home remodelers work well with plumbers, electricians, roofers, home
inspectors and other subcontractors.
Advertising agencies are a good fit for marketing firms, website
designers, printers, sign makers and videographers.
Once the nucleus of a team is
formed, the next step is to get everyone to agree on a regularly scheduled
face-to-face meeting on at least a monthly basis. While a lot of what goes on in team play can
be handled remotely, such tasks as training and review need to be done
live. Anyone who can’t commit to taking
60-90 minutes out of their busy schedule every 30 days should be left on the sidelines. The first rule of team play is that, “There
is no “I” in “T-E-A-M. This translates
to everyone committing the same amount of time to the effort. If you don’t play, you won’t get paid.
Rule number two is, there is
only one team captain and everyone must follow the leader. The greatest system in the world will do you
no good if everyone isn’t using it. More
money is made in Las Vegas
from weekend warrior card counters then from greenhorn players, simply because
they don’t stick to the plan. They start
to let their emotions take control. They
are no longer driving the bus.
Online, this translates into
momentum gained or lost. If you are supposed to post a review for your
teammates in the next few days, then that’s what needs to be done. If everyone else on the team posts a review
on your site and you don’t post one on theirs, then you aren’t holding up your
end of the deal. Moreover, by doing so
you are showing a lack of respect for everyone else on the team. This is the surest way of being removed from
a team that I have seen. A team can’t
afford slackers.
While using a team approach
can be one of the best ways to take your Internet prowess to the top level, it
can also be one of the most daunting.
You see, there’s no such thing as a free lunch, either on the gaming
tables or on the Internet. Just like you
can’t get a little bit pregnant, you also can’t be on a team if you aren’t
prepared to do your part, pull your weight and listen to the coach. That’s one of the reasons that more people
don’t take advantage of this winning technique.
It’s just like card counting. Virtually anyone can learn how to count
cards. But most people don’t. Why? All I can tell you from twenty plus years of
professional play is that most people are either too undisciplined or too lazy
to learn a winning system. As I used to
say back in my casino days, “We thank all of you players for keeping the lights
burning for us winners.”
What is the Best Social Media Site
by Hector Cisneros
There is no such thing as "what the best" social media site for a small business. A small business should create a presence all on as many platforms as they have time for. I tell people they need a presence on all of the top platforms. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+ You Tube etc.. More is they have time to set them up. These will all provide backlinks and traffic to their website which most businesses already have.
However, using a social media site as a marketing platform is a different matter. This requires some planning, some analysts, a pre-determined budget (either money or time) and the understanding of what their USP is (unique selling proposition) and who their ICD is (Ideal customer demographic). On top of this they should set goals. Goals should be SMART in nature and of one of three types. Goals for network development, goals for positive interaction and goals for closed business. In the beginning it is easier to setup and achieve network development goals (i.e. grow your following). Having a decent size following will help you with achieving positive interactions (buzz, viral messages spread ...) and be able to close more business. It's much easier to get a response from a marketing message when you send a message (email, tweet, post etc...) 1000 or 5000 people than it is if you send your message to 124 followers. The rule of ten follows here Ten in a hundred suspects will have an interest and one of the ten interested prospects may purchase. Therefore it's better to start with 1000 suspects which will yield 100 interest prospects which, inturn, will yield 10 possible customers, than to start with 100 potential suspects. If a business wants instance gratification they can do PPC, (pay per click) on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and others sites. People who are successful today start by creating a marketing plan that is measurable, testable and executable within their budget. Most small businesses can afford to pay for consulting help if they don't know where to start. A marketing consultation can usually create a plan for about $500. This is a good deal if the consultant is not selling you the service and they have provided you a plan that can be bid out. For a person with no budget but time on their hands, I suggest that they create a schedule and stick to it. They should also invest in some tools that will let them create message post conveniently (tablets, smart phones etc...) and also use aggregation software (like Hootsuite or TweetDeck) which will allow them to post to multiple platforms simultaneously and also schedule their post for future dates. If they do these three things they will be able to create a social media campaign on a shoestring budget. I hope this email helps you. If I can be of service in any way let me know. Sincerely, Hector Cisneros Hector "The Connector" Cisneros With BNI where "Giver Gain" Website Know How, Inc. Mobile 904-887-0946 Hector.Cisneros@websiteknowhow.com
The Art of the Online Deal
by Carl Weiss
For the past couple of years one of the hottest tickets
online would have to be daily deal sites.
The online business of serving up daily deals has attracted millions of online
users and spurred dozens of clones of market leader Groupon. But even the big dog hasn’t fared all that
well. Consider the fact that less than three weeks after Groupon went public, share
prices fell from an opening price of $20 per share to $14.58. More recently, the aftershock of Facebook’s
announcement that it would soon go public gave Groupon a boost. This morning’s opening price of $23.51 puts
the stock back beyond the IPO price, but not by much. Still, Groupon is faring better than many of
its competitors. So why is it that the
art of the online deal seems to be so elusive?
The premise of offering discounts to members certainly seems
like a plus in these tough economic times.
From a consumer standpoint, it would seem that this model should have
nowhere to go but up. That’s not to say
that consumers have all been delighted with the services vended by
Groupon. Google “Groupon Complaints” and
you will currently see more than 1 million results, many of which lament the
fact that the service that was promised by some vendors was not what the
consumer received, or was deficient with regard to quality control. In 2010,
there was even a class action complaint filed in Chicago.
Of course, as with all deal of the day sites, it is clearly
impossible for companies like Groupon and Living Social to police every vendor
that signs on with its service. At least
not until after the fact. Just like any
business, to establish and grow a daily deal site it takes money to makes
money. That’s where many daily deal
sites have been getting caught in the squisher.
For example, in the first quarter of 2010, Groupon spent
$7.99 to acquire a customer. By the
second quarter of 2011, that figure had jumped to $23.46, nearly tripling their cost of acquisition. Writ large, this meant that the
king of online couponing shelled out a king-sized wad of cash to keep the mill
running, spending $378.7 million on marketing in the first half of 2011, up
from $35.5 million in the same period a year earlier. And that doesn’t take into account the cost
of sales.
As the market grew, daily-deal sites also had to hire more
salespeople to line up coupon offers from local merchants. In 2011, Groupon had
990 sales employees in North America, up from
201 a year earlier. During the same period, LivingSocial, the No.
2 player in the marketplace, watched its sales force rocket to 700 employees
from 191 a year before.
Experienced salespeople do not come cheaply. Groupon pays sales associates about $35,000 a
year before commission, after which their compensation can jump to as much as $100,000.
While the big players in this high stakes game have been
able to keep feeding the kitty, a number of lesser known daily deal sites have
not. In 2011 alone, nearly one-third of
all daily-deal sites nationwide—or 170 of 530—either shut down or were sold. Even major players like Google, Facebook and
Yelp have either tried and discontinued similar services, or are still playing
with the mix. Other entrepreneurs have
seen the industries growing pains as a sign to take action by evolving the
business model.
Take Jacksonville’s
Value Hound. Instead of offering daily
deals that consumers need to look through and select, their business offers a
discount card that is good at a number of local establishments. What’s
interesting about this new concept is that it doesn’t require members to clip
coupons at all. All they need to do is
present their card to participating businesses and they will be able to take
advantage of exclusive discounts. For
the business, this concept offers a lot of appeal as well, since it doesn’t
require them to give the consumer as well as the coupon purveyor a cut of the
pie, which is another sticking point with the Groupon model. For instance, if a merchant was to offer a
25% discount ala Groupon or any of its clones, not only would the merchant have
to reduce their selling price, they would also be required to pay Groupon a fee
equal to the discounted amount. (In
other words, if a merchant offers a $20 item at a 25% discount, after the cost
of sale they will only be reimbursed $10 for the item.) Value Hound on the other hand, doesn’t charge
the merchant to participate. They make
their money by selling memberships to consumers.
While the game is tough, the stakes are high and with the
economy still on shaky ground, I don’t see this model disappearing in the near
future. Over the long haul, we will see
how the concept evolves. For businesses,
the advantaged and perils of these sites must be weighed on a case by case
basis. For consumers, the thrill of
getting something for less will always hold a magnetic attraction that is hard
to beat either online or off.
If you want to explore
this idea in greater depth, go to http://blogtalkradio.com
and enter “Working the Web to Win” in the search box to listen to our live
online radio show at 4pm February
7. Or you can go to http://workingthewebtowin.com after
the fact to hear our broadcast, plus see a videotaped interview with Value
Hound VP Julie Morton. Carl Weiss’ other
sites include http://access-jax.com and
http://jacksonville-video-production.com
.
.
Gaga for Google
by Carl Weiss
If you are like most website owners, then you feel that you
haven’t made the mark until you can find your listing on page one of the world’s
most popular search engine, Google. The
problem is that with 360 million websites online and 130,000 new sites coming
online each and every day, it’s getting harder and harder to generate a page 1
result…or, is it?
As I pointed out in my past two blogposts, SEO Sorts ‘Em
Out, parts 1 & 2, the rules for SEO have changed drastically in the past 5
years. Of course, that’s the nature of
the SEO beast, in that the search engines change their algorithms regularly to
make sure that wily professionals like me can’t game the system. The bad news is that this weights the game in
favor of the big guys, since large companies can out-produce any mom and pop
firm when it comes to creating content by the boatload. The good news is that there are still ways
around the SEO bottleneck that every small concern can capitalize on.
Yahoo for YouTube
One of the best weapons that everyone can employ is
YouTube. The problem is the way in which
most small businesses employ it. By
that, I mean that all too many small concerns think that creating and posting a
TV-style advertisement is going to get them into the game. What they don’t understand is that there is a
big difference between viewing habits on YouTube versus the Boob Tube.
On TV, there are
people who will sit through a 30-minute infomercial without batting an
eye. On YouTube, short, punchy videos
that deliver 90 percent content and 10 percent advertisement is the way to
go. Want to sell a widget online? Don’t create a used car ad with a Billy Mays
look alike whose job it is to scream out your advertising copy. Online you are much better at coming up with
a series of videos that portray the lighter side of widget use.
Case in Point would have to be the Orabrush. This device at first glance sounds like a
toothbrush, but it’s not. What the
Orabrush is, is the world’s first tongue brush.
Invented by Robert Wagstaff, the device languished on the shelf until
his firm created a series of humorous YouTube videos that have currently been
seen by more than forty million viewers.
(Check out my video below for a better take on this concept.)
Make Them Laugh Til
They Buy
What works for the Orabrush can also work for you. Or, you can take the concept one step further
and create your own Web TV show that showcases your business. For instance, my firm currently
has a client that sells APC UPS backup batteries. More specifically, they sell the replacement
cells for these batteries. When I spoke
to the VP of marketing for the company, I asked him if they had ever done any
videos on the subject. “Only one,” he
told me.
Keying in the term APC Battery Backup into YouTube, I found
his video (which can be seen below) which shows the viewer how to swap out the
cell in a particular model. Sounds about
as interesting as watching paint dry, doesn’t it? Surprisingly, this video has racked up nearly
46,000 views in two years, which is not an insignificant number. Pointing this fact out to the VP, I told him
that there was obviously an audience to be tapped on YouTube. However, I also pointed out that while
viewers would not be averse to seeing the occasional how-to video, in order to
sustain interest and build a large audience, we would need to get a little more
creative.
Thus was born the idea for the APC Battery Boys, a web TV
series that is currently in preproduction.
(Stay tuned for the February launch of this series.) More of a gadgets
and gizmos show, the APC Battery Boys is going to investigate the world of
batteries and more importantly battery powered gadgets, some off the shelf and
some DIY. The sponsor will be able to
enjoy product placement shots in virtually every episode, plus promos by the
shows three cast members. Shot on a
shoestring budget, this is exactly the kind of grassroots programming that
makes for must-see online TV
.
YouTube to Google in
One Easy step
Not only can this concept be used to mine YouTube for a
growing and receptive audience of prospects, with a little tweaking it can also
generate a page one result on Google. Since
Google owns YouTube, it is always searching for what is known as “mixed media,”
not the least of which are YouTube videos.
And since Google only puts one or two videos on the first or second page
of most web searches, if you can get your video picked up by the search engine,
then you more or less own this search, since it is a fact that people are five
times more likely to click on a video than a website link.
So if you, like billions of other people worldwide, are gaga
for Google, go the extra yard and start producing videos that can go a long way
toward generating more exposure and building a receptive audience online for
your growing business.
If you are looking for assistance in shaping and shooting a promo or
web TV series for your growing firm, give Carl Weiss a call at
904-234-6007. Carl Weiss operates http://jacksonville-video-production.com
a leading producer of web-based video programming and marketing. He can also be heard live every Tuesday at
4pm at http://blogtalkradio.com with his
Working the Web to Win online radio show.
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