If I asked you when you last watched a video online, I bet it wasn't that long ago. Nielsen reports that online video viewing on social networking sites was up by 98% in 2009 and studies show that including a video on your website even helps improve its organic rankings on search engines. The following graph by eMarketer illustrates the alarming growth.
The surprising statistics only further my belief that online video should be a vital component of your online marketing strategy. It's all part of the larger goal of increasing your online presence and promoting your business and yes, even financial advisors can jump on board. So how do you begin?
Here is a 3-Step Guide to help you choose your content, upload your work, and promote your video socially.
Step 1: Choose your content and make your video
As a member of the financial industry, you'll want to keep your video professional and relevant. I've come up with a quick list of topics you may want to consider:
- Behind the Scenes (Video tour of your office?)
- Quick Interview (Find someone interesting like a CEO or public speaker and ask them 3 questions)
- Record your favourite speaker at a conference, or just embed their video (with permission, of course)
- Educate by making a how-to screencast or product review (Bonus: You'll position yourself as an expert in your field)
- Answer questions (I'm sure you get asked quite a few, try answering some popular ones!)
Step 2: Upload your video
Now the next thing you're likely wondering is where to put these videos. Besides your own website, try top video-sharing sites like YouTube and Facebook to start, it's fast and easy to upload your video. More than 20 million videos are uploaded to Facebook each month and it's the third most popular video viewing destination online. Not a bad start. If you plan to upload your video manually to a lot of sites, it can get tiresome. Try using TubeMogul, a site that allows you to upload your video to multiple video-sharing sites.
Optimize these videos so they can be found easily by search engines. Factors that will increase their popularity include the title and description, tags, popularity and number of views, inbound links, comments and your videos ratings.
Step 3: Share and promote your content.
Once you've uploaded your video, you can't just stop there. Make sure people know about your video by sharing it with all your contacts and on all your social networking sites. Tweet the video link, let your Facebook fans know, post a link on LinkedIn and add to social aggregators like digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon.
4 Extra Tips for successful online marketing:
- The goal is to get people to interact with the video. Allow and encourage comments.
- Help search engines find your video. When you upload on Youtube, include a title, description and tags.
- Keep it short. The average length of an online content video is between 3-5 minutes.
- Include a URL in your video so viewers can go to your site if they wish.
While seeing yourself on video may seem odd at first, don't be afraid of incorporating video to your social media routine. By engaging others and having them interact with your brand, you'll be one step ahead of your financial competitors. Don't believe that the financial industry is using online video to promote their business? Check out the videos of these financial professionals.
http://www.youtube.com/user/jeffroseCFP
http://www.youtube.com/user/Ameriprise
http://www.youtube.com/user/EdwardJonesVideo
What do you think: Is making your own online videos a successful marketing tactic?
