If pictures
speak a thousand words, imagine what a video could say about
your business.
Over the last
couple of years video has become a popular marketing strategy,
as it can quickly generate traffic and interest. Unfortunately
many people are still afraid to use it and think it's difficult
to do. So now is
the perfect time for you to get ahead of your competition.
One of the
major advantages of videos to traditional written marketing is
that it saves your visitors a lot of time understanding what is
being offered and there isn't much effort required on their
part. Start the video and everything is explained to them right
there and then.
Hearing and seeing you tell them about your products or services
has more credibility and allows you to connect to your visitors
on an emotional level.
Another great
advantage of video marketing is that if you use the right
keywords in your video's tags, you have a much better chance of
reaching high rankings in many search engines.
According to
www.masternewmedia.org
“Video search engines - just like Google - index specifically
all videos available online, independently from the source. On
the other hand, video directories differentiate themselves from
video search engines because they list videos according to
specific categories (such as "entertainment", "sport", "fun",
etc.)
Some video
search engines and video directories automatically detect and
index the videos published online, while others also allow you
to directly inform them of the existence of a video. There are
also several video search engines that let you upload your
videos, just like you can do on video sharing sites.
However, it
is important to distinguish between video search engines and
video sharing sites, since the might appear very similar at
first glance. All video sharing site feature a search box on
their homepage, but they allow users to search only within the
video sharing site directory, and not elsewhere. On the other
hand, video search engines collect material from multiple
sources, included the above mentioned video sharing sites.
Several video search
engines and video directories let users review, rate, recommend,
categorize, and " tag" the videos that they watch. These functions
facilitate the cataloguing and organization of content so that
users can easily discover new videos based on other users'
recommendations. “
Another great advantage of using videos is their ability to go "viral" and
spread your message quickly.
David Ogden
of
www.theviralsanctuary.com says "A viral video is a video clip that becomes
extremely popular and is spread across the Internet through
users sharing it in email messages or through an IM service. A
lot of these videos are funny and are often shot by amateurs who
happen to catch something funny on their camera phones. There
have been many viral videos that have caught fire in the cyber
world."
Did you know
you can have a simple video designed for under $300? You can either feature it on your website or post it to
Video Search Engines and Directories.
Video
marketing is so popular due to its ability to engage directly
with your audience and it adds a new dimension to other forms of
online marketing. So don’t be afraid to try it … you have nothing to lose …
except a lot of traffic to your website, if you don’t do it!
Here is an example of one such
video.
Once you have your video, you
can upload it to the many Video Search Engines, Directories and
Video Sharing Sites, such as