Promote Your Company with How To Videos

I’ve been on the soap box for months now telling my con­trac­tor clients to start record­ing, pro­duc­ing and publishing/​sharing videos NOW. Videos online are also called ​“video blog­ging.” Why? Because videos can be opti­mized for search engines, just like a blog. The videos don’t have to be a hol­ly­wood pro­duc­tion either. All you need is a good high qual­i­ty Flip Cam, Smart­phone or HD Cam­corder, edit­ing soft­ware such as iMovie or MovieMak­er and a YouTube account to get start­ed. YouTube is free and owned by Google, so it is a great place to begin. Once you start see­ing some fruit from your labors, you can upgrade to some of the more pow­er­ful video host­ing sites: Vid­dler, Squidoo and Vimeo to name a few. What Kind of Videos Should I Be Producing? You can pro­duce many types of videos. To start things off, pub­lish a few how to videos and a few before and after videos of jobs you are doing. Keep them short 1 – 3 min­utes as vis­i­tors get bored after 3 min­utes. The only way you can get away with a longer video is if you are doing more of a ​“Web­cast” edu­cat­ing folks live. Oh and don’t be afraid of How To Videos. If you have not fig­ured it out by now, the web is pub­lic, very pub­lic. If you post some­thing online, your com­peti­tors might see it. You just have to be the leader, the com­pa­ny peo­ple look to as the experts in remod­el­ing, paint­ing, HVAC, and so on. Post those How To Videos: the more the bet­ter! Also, con­sumers like them. You might get a few peo­ple look­ing to do things them­selves, but many con­sumers use the web to research and edu­cate them­selves so they don’t look like an idiot when they talk to a con­trac­tor. Think about it, how many times have you been in a prospects home dis­cussing their kitchen remod­el or paint col­ors and the home­own­er seems to know a lot about the lat­est prod­ucts, appli­ances or paint brands? The web is mak­ing peo­ple appear smarter. So give them what they want. You’ll become their edu­ca­tion source. Your goal is that they will book­mark your web­site, Youtube Chan­nel and/​or share with their friends. One final piece of advice about videos: make sure they are halfway decent and that you are proud of your work. I’ve seen a few videos online recent­ly that were done well but the work was not so hot. Videos can help or hurt your brand, so choose your videos wise­ly. If you want to learn more about why videos are good for pro­mot­ing your busi­ness and get­ting leads, read or lis­ten to Crush It! by Gary Vayn­er­chuk. A few videos done by BIG com­pa­nies (there is a rea­son they are invest­ing in videos…so watch and do like­wise) Cus­tomer Feed­back by Out­back Steakhouse Prod­uct Suc­cess Video & Case Study (Toro) Behind the Scenes Look at Design­ing a Car (Ford Motor Company) Fies­ta Prod­uct Demon­stra­tion (Brand­ing to The Right Audi­ence) This one was fun­ny How To Remove Acoustic Ceilings No Ugly Doors (Good How Tos)