4 Reasons to have an Online Video Profile

No matter how much written content and photos you have on your website, they can’t convey as much about you and your services as a video profile.

Our Online Profile is a short 1- to 1.5-minute video featuring owners, staff and customers in a “real” documentary style format.

The Age of YouTube and Reality Television
While the idea of using video as a marketing tool is not new, in the age of YouTube and Reality Television most people are now accustomed to seeing ordinary people talk about themselves — sharing their knowledge and expertise, or creating their own ”reality TV” show. The benefit of these self-promotions is that potential customers get to hear from you — the business owner.

Doing Business with  People You Know
An Online Video Profile Video helps customers to feel like they know you, even before they’ve met you! If they like you on video, they’ll  probably like you in person. People prefer to do business with people they know, like and trust. Video can go a long way toward building those qualities into your relationship with virtual strangers.

Yellow Pages No More
Long gone are the days of the yellow pages. Your customers likely go straight to the Internet to find you and to learn more about you, all before calling you.

Be Yourself
Your online profile will help distinguish you from your competitors and build a local presence, just by being yourself. A promotional video is great for nearly any type of business owner; lawyers, accountants, web designers, physicians, realtors, dentists, mechanics, restaurant owners, contractors, just to name a few.

And keep in mind that maintaining the momentum with new, helpful videos will leave your target market wanting for more.

Top 5 Benefits of Online Video Marketing

Online marketing can play a crucial role in promoting your business. Video has become a very cost-effective form of communication allowing you to demonstrate your products and services in ways that photos and text simply cannot.

1 – Show and Tell
Statistics show that 65% of people learn visually, while 30% verbally. Most people will skim through written material on a website, looking for clues to make a fast decision. A video production will get your company message out there in the way that YOU want it to be seen, enhanced though the use of a web video. Your show and tell video will use images, music and voice over.

2 – Make your Website “Sticky”
Because of their increased level of interest, your visitors will spend more time on your site learning about your services and products. Your goal should be to keep prospective customers on your website for as long as possible, learning about your products and services.

3 – The Emotional Connection
Have you ever seen a celebrity, politician or local business person on TV and then seen them in person? Did you recognize them, maybe you just felt like you knew them? Well, that’s the power of video at work. Video helps customers to feel like they know you, even before they’ve met you. Share your passion and knowledge of your product in a way that establishes you as an expert.

4 – It’s Your Video – On Demand
A web video showcases your product and services to the world. Anyone interested can visit your website to view your video time and again – and of course, there’s viral reach; Share, Email, Link . . .

5 – A Thousand Words
They say a picture is worth a thousand words . . . video contains 30 pictures a second! That translates to 1,800 pictures a minute!

As communication technologies change, businesses need to adapt. Most people now have high-speed Internet and expect complete multimedia content. An out-of-date web site can immediately turn away potential clients. What better way to impress them than through a web video?

A Formula for Video Production Success in Oakville

There’s a concept in business that people don’t buy products, they buy the expectation of benefits. It is characterized by Leo McGinneva’s famous explanation about why people buy quarter-inch drill bits: “They don’t want quarter-inch drill bits. They want quarter-inch holes.”

In other words, we want to know what’s in it for us. Internet search, and its ability to help people find what they want, when they want it, has been revolutionary for the way we do business. And what better medium to propel this new wave of marketing than a video production? Video production is one of the most effective mediums for marketers in Oakville and elsewhere. But creating content is only one part of the job. The other part is to make captivating content – content that gets people talking. But how should you make your content more sharable, and get more people to see it?

Is there a magic formula to creating a captivating video? Well you can certainly maximize your chances of success by first identifying the factors that appeal to your audience. Study the techniques used by top marketing teams. Scan social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Plus, etc.) and think about which posts you would be likely to share and/or leave personal comments?

After analyzing all this, you will get to realize that you would obviously share the content that seems to be most interesting, humorous, positive, emotional, cheerful, trendy, informative, helpful, motivating, and inspiring… right?

Some posts resonate with your personal and professional experiences and you instantly hit the like button. Some posts reflect reality and make you want to hit the share button, while some posts are so exciting that you have to leave a comment about it. This is what we do daily on our social media accounts.

This analysis will put you in the right path to producing videos that will engage your social followers. We all know that video production marketing is an absolute must in today’s Oakville market. But the content must be engaging otherwise you’re wasting your efforts. Use this social media research formula to maximize engagement for your videos.

Get YouTube to Recommend Your Video

Most of the viewership on YouTube is driven through the “suggested videos” column on YouTube watched pages. This is important to know when developing a YouTube channel for video production with your Oakville based company. In the video production and marketing realm, dominating this section can drive massive viewership and ensure your audience is not lured away to someone else’s video channel. However, dominating the suggested videos column is not easy. It starts with creating great content and is accelerated by proper programming and attaining an engaged audience. The YouTube suggested videos column is made up of three categories:

1) Suggested videos are the 4 videos featured from the creator and are selected by the YouTube algorithm
2) Related videos are other videos that are similar to yours
3) Recommended videos are based on the viewer’s YouTube viewing history

To determine where they will list each video, YouTube uses metrics such as “watch time”, relevancy, viewership history, and engagement. After creating quality engaging video content, there are a number of ways to influence these metrics and dominate the suggested videos column. Here are four essentials for dominating this column:

1. Encourage “Engagement Actions”

YouTube’s algorithms look favourably on videos with lots of likes, dislikes and comments. YouTube has stated that it utilizes comments as a form of metadata around video production. Encourage comments from your viewers by replying to many of your viewers’ comments, but also by posting your own questions with each video. Post a question in the comment section whenever you post a video. This will generate more comments which will influence the keyword algorithm into moving your videos up the list.

2. Optimize YouTube Video Titles

The first step in generating watch time is to get someone to click on and view your videos. But in addition to that, titles are used by YouTube as a main source of metadata. The title shows the YouTube algorithm how all your videos are relevant to each other in your channel which can also aide in optimization and in your videos making it to the suggested videos column. When developing your video title, always remember to include the following:

– The name of your show
– The number of the episode
– The name of the channel

For some additional information, click on this link: https://groovyconcepts.ca/video-title-optimization/

3. Optimize Descriptions, Tags and Closed Captions

Descriptions, tags and closed captions are all vital aspects of your metadata and will also dictate whether your videos make it into the suggested videos column or not. Here are some important guidelines for maximizing this metadata:

– Descriptions should be a minimum of 3 sentences and placed at the top of the description section
– Using the default tool in Youtube, always include a generic 3 – 5 sentence description of your show and channel at the bottom of the description
– Descriptions & Tags should focus on one primary keyword
– Limit the number of tags to 12, focusing on your primary keyword

4. Upload Compelling Custom Thumbnails

Custom thumbnails are one of the most important essentials in getting someone to click on your videos. The thumbnail is the first image anyone sees of your video and gives the first impression. Many marketers of video production in Toronto still fail to take advantage of this feature.

A custom thumbnail image that properly represents your video, your channel message and your brand is extremely important. Oakville companies should follow these basic guidelines: https://groovyconcepts.ca/5-steps-optimizing-video-thumbnails/ when creating optimized thumbnails.

Extra Step: Scheduling

An extra step is to communicate your schedule. If your audience knows when you’ll be posting new videos, they’ll keep coming back to tune in.

Conclusion:

These tips are only a part of your overall programming and audience development strategy. Although video SEO on YouTube is not an exact science, by following these tips, you’ll be launched in the right direction. Remember, you’ll need to stick with it to see results. If you continue on in this direction, the Youtube presence of your Oakville company will begin to grow and flourish. Remember that the cornerstone to any successful video production campaign in Oakville is quality content. Without quality content, all of the steps listed above are null and void. Always hire a professional video production company (there are many here in Oakville) to create your video production content.

5 Steps to Optimizing Video Thumbnails

Today video marketing in Oakville is highly competitive. Creating effective custom thumbnails can make all the difference when it comes to a viewer choosing to watch your video, or deciding to watch another. The thumbnail acts as a first impression for your video… it’s the first image anyone sees of your video, but so many companies in Oakville fail to take advantage of this optimization feature.

Nothing beats a custom thumbnail image that ties in with your video, your channel message and your brand. Apart from making quality videos that viewers want to watch, companies should follow some basic guidelines when creating optimized thumbnails.

Here are 5 ways you can optimize your thumbnails:

#1 Make the Best Use of Colour

The brighter the colours, the more chance the thumbnail will stand out from the rest of the competition. Of course, that doesn’t mean to go completely overboard. Do just enough to differentiate your video from the others. Don’t settle for the existing colours in your image. Through graphic design software, boost the saturation in the thumbnail image just enough to make the colours stand out over other thumbnails. Even small adjustments to the hue and saturation can attract viewers directly to your thumbnail instead of others. Consider applying a filter to your thumbnails. Even something as simple as sharpening the edges can have a subliminal effect on thumbnails.

#2 Include an Image of a Face

Make sure that your thumbnail image has a close up of a human face whenever possible. This will help your image stand out on whatever device it’s being viewed on. Emotional facial expressions can also go a long way to engaging viewers to watch. The added emotion will capture the viewer’s attention and make them want to watch the video to see what caused this emotion.

Buzzfeed has this down to a science.

#3 Use an Action Shot

Another way of capturing attention is to use an action shot as the thumbnail (if possible). The added sense of motion will encourage viewers to click on your video to see what it’s all about. The Slow Mo Guys are known for conducting crazy experiments, and along with optimized titles, they almost always include the main action shot from their videos on their thumbnails. The amount of clicks they get shows just how effective this approach can be.

#4 Create Custom Branding for Your Thumbnails

Giving your video thumbnails some brand consistency is an excellent way to build awareness for your content, especially if your videos are in a very competitive category online. Lowes does a good job of this using their branded colours to tie all their content in.

#5 Test and Analyze

One last tip is to test your thumbnails. YouTube still doesn’t have a native feature so you’ll need to rely on resources like TubeBuddy for this. A well-planned testing strategy can improve the performance of your videos and channel almost immediately, so don’t overlook this valuable strategy. Also, stay open to replacing thumbnails if you you can see it isn’t working for your video.

Remember to choose thumbnails that are accurate to the content within your video. Although in the past it was indeed possible for companies to build an audience on Youtube using misleading thumbnails, it doesn’t work like that anymore. Now that Youtube is much more focused on watch time than on simply driving clicks and views, you have to make sure that whatever is on your thumbnail is indeed what your video is all about. If you can follow these guidelines for your video marketing strategies, you’ll create thumbnails that not only accumulate viewer clicks but you’ll also build your Oakville audience.