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Video Helps You Reach Customers Posted: 24 Oct 2011 10:00 AM PDT Courtesy of MBTrama at Flickr.com You don’t need me to tell you: Video is big. Whether it’s on YouTube, Vimeo or other video hosting sites, people are sharing video about all kinds of things, from cooking techniques to car repair to search marketing. Heck, AboutUs has its very own search engine optimization (SEO) videos available on YouTube. Why are so many people marketing with video? There are a few reasons: Most people read very little on the Web (though you’d never guess that from the sheer amount of content most companies produce). People scan articles and blog posts very quickly, missing out on a lot of information. But many people actively enjoy watching video, so they’ll stick with a clip that’s a few minutes long….if it’s reasonably interesting. Video is easy to share, and it does get shared. A good video has the potential to spread quickly from one friend or colleague to a huge group…and beyond. (Notice I said a “good” video.) Search engines notice videos, and notice which ones are searched for and clicked on. YouTube is now the second-largest search engine in the world, after Google (which owns YouTube, by the way), and its search data is used not just by Google, but probably by other search engines to help determine what’s popular. Remember, links and clicks on those links are like votes for a website. So videos linking back to your site are potentially powerful drivers of both traffic and improvement in your search rankings. This morning I found a few useful articles about video for business owners I thought I’d share: Anum Hussain of HubSpot points out the nine video marketing mistakes we should avoid. My two favorites: forgetting a call to action (why did you post this video, anyway?) and making videos that are too long. ReelSEO published a guest article by Neil Davidson in which he challenges five marketers to come up with a business that wouldn’t benefit from online video. For the record, they couldn’t….Neil tells you how each business, however unlikely it may seem, could promote itself effectively through video. And, backing into some useful tips, Cindy Ratzlaff of Business Insider offers the Top 10 Reasons Not To Include Video in Brand Marketing. Sure, it’s tongue-in-cheek, and you’ll find a few good tips here to get you going with your own videos. AboutUs has published a few articles about video marketing as well, all of them targeted to small business: Video Marketing 101 - Eleven tips (just because 5 or 10 or whatever seems awfully random to me) for making videos efficiently, and making sure they’re useful to people. Planning Your Small Business Video – Things to think about if the very idea of making a video is just too daunting, by videomaker Amy Dubin. How To Add Your Logo to Your Video – Practical help from Scott Olson, a veteran marketer and entrepreneur. Record Video Interviews with Skype – More practical help from Scott, who’s built a business out of video interviews at FounderBuzz.com. You’ll find plenty of clearly written, helpful articles about SEO and search marketing for small business and entrepreneurs in the Learn section of AboutUs.org. Looking for help with something we haven’t covered yet? Write to us: Editor@AboutUs.org.

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