By Kory Gorgani
Video directories such as YouTube provide an excellent opportunity to promote your brand online and market your services. It provides one of the best, fastest and least expensive ways to drive targeted traffic to your website and generate leads.
As you may have noticed, the way people consume content is evolving. What once was the world of radio, TV and print is now being consumed in some type of digital format. With the constant advances of mobile devices, you’re seeing content that ranges from videos of a few minutes to full-length movies being watched in someone’s hand.
Active mobile video users grew by 57 per cent from the end of 2008 to the end of 2009, from 11.2 million to 17.6 million. Much of this increase can be linked to the strong growth of smart phones and PDAs. So why not market your brand and services online?
YouTube is the largest video sharing site, with the most traffic and the most users. It is the definitive place for getting your videos published and marketed. Currently YouTube is the second highest trafficked site globally, and estimates show 60 million unique viewers per month.
If you are already sold on this concept, you must also know there is a right way and a wrong way to use video marketing. Here are a few tips:
– Be relevant and provide valuable content. While some of the videos you post should be commercial and related to your services, it is important to post videos that provide solutions, answers and help for the issues your clients are experiencing. Videos that are humorous, edgy, share a testimonial, inform and educate often get better responses than videos that simply push your service.
– Get endorsed by viewers. Ask the viewer to rate your video or leave a comment. The more comments and ratings your video accumulates, the higher it will be ranked by YouTube for the purpose of their search results.
– Optimize your video description. Before posting your videos online, it is essential that you plan your strategy for getting additional exposure. To make the most of your video marketing efforts, first pay attention to the name of your video file. Be sure to include your keywords in the name. For example: “John_Doe_Thornhill_Home_Selling_Testimonial_01_29_2010.mp4.” When deciding on a title for your video, be sure to also include your keywords to help with search engine optimization. You can use the same title as the name of the file but this time you can include spaces. Your primary keyword should appear near the beginning of the first sentence in your description. It is wise to also try to include the primary keyword a couple of times in your description if it is possible. Using your keywords in the tags for your video will also boost your chances of ranking well in search results.
– Another way to gain additional visibility is by submitting your videos to social bookmarking sites. Sites like Digg and StumbleUpon will help you gain additional visibility and exposure for your work. If you have a Facebook page, don’t leave it out. Users see your content on these sites and if they like it they can vote it up the charts, which bring you even greater visibility and traffic to your sites.
It costs almost nothing to use video marketing to promote your brand, your services or your listings, and if you apply these simple strategies and consistently upload a few videos per week, you’ll quickly begin to generate new leads around the clock, even when you are sleeping. Enjoy.
Kory Gorgani is a Realtor with Re/Max Hallmark in Richmond Hill, Ont. He holds an MBA in operations management and has an extensive IT background. Email [email protected].
