YouTube For Business

YouTube is well known as a popular social networking site. It has become more than this by offering easy-to-use video services. It is now the leading personal video Website; according to YouTube Company Profile the site’s unique visitors increased from about 45 million in August, 2007, to over 60 million in August 2008. That does not include off-site uses of YouTube’s services. Read this article and see how YouTube can be used in many ways to support and increase your entrepreneurial activities.

Video sharing is the service that sets YouTube apart from other networking sites. This company began in 2005 and was quickly acquired by Google in 2006. Users who have not registered can view most of the videos, but registration is required for some. Registered users may upload unlimited videos, except porn, harassment, and similar undesirable content. YouTube encourages viewing similar videos by showing information about them in the right sidebar. An indication of the site’s popularity is recent searches that show over 83 million videos.



YouTube allows individual videos up to 10 minutes long that use no more than 1 gigabyte of bandwidth. They have a method of uploading multiple videos using Multi-Video Upload, a program available on the site. Most formats are accepted, including WMV, .AVI, .MOV, MPEG, .MP4, DivX, .FLV and .OGG. You can upload directly from your mobile phone using 3GP. More general information is available here.

A significant reason why social systems are so important is that networking is the art of building alliances. It's not exactly what happens when you contact everyone you know when you are looking for a new job and ask if they know of any job openings, or when you ask people to buy your product or service. Networking starts long before you make any of these requests, and you probably don't even realize you are doing it. It’s not possible to say, “I need a network to help me accomplish this important goal.” Relationships have to be nurtured in order to be useful. Networks can be built, and should be, if you aren’t a member of such a group. You must realize they won’t be useful until all the members feel they can trust you and the other members. They will not do business with you, nor will they refer others to you, until they are absolutely comfortable around you. By using videos, your personal network can be better established, because people can actually see what you are about.

The Internet gives small entrepreneurs an advantage they have not always had. It allows even very small businesses to boost sales of whatever they’re selling by presenting an aura of being a very large company. This can be accomplished with excellent customer service, prompt answers to questions, and a professional presence on the Internet. All this has taken effort, but it has been a little easier because we generally can hide behind our Websites. Nobody actually has had to see us, other than maybe a small picture. Now, however, we have to be aware of much more because of the rising importance of Webcams and now the videos of YouTube. These new devices expose you to the universe and carry a lot of responsibility for their use.
YouTube and other video sites allow users to post all manner of personal information, pictures, and video segments about themselves and their businesses. The problem is, most don’t really think about what they are doing. Several national beauty queen contestants, a number of movie celebrities, and who knows how many other people have been compromised by pictures or video clips posted on Websites like these. When you are young, maybe in college, any kind of activity may be a lot of fun at the moment.

 Even older people occasionally let themselves go without considering consequences. So you post it on YouTube and everyone gets a lot of laughs out of it, but how long does the fun last? As a responsible entrepreneur running a small business, you should always be careful of what may happen in the future from an indiscriminate video.

This article is about ways to promote your business using YouTube videos, so what better way to begin than viewing an actual business use of a video? This one shows how a small bicycle dealer uses containers to help his business grow. Look at this.

Let’s now see how you get to publish your own video. They are really forms of the mashup, a current buzz word describing the combination of things like images, music and text into something like our videos, in order to vividly convey some business idea to a group of viewers.
Video and photo mashups are usually implemented by social networking and picture-sharing sites so that music may be attached to a picture as well as people and place names. News articles may also be told in pictures as well as words. And there are search and shopping mashups that have been around much longer than the current designation of “mashup.” Price and availability comparisons like Google Shopping, PriceGrabber, and BizRate were used by all sorts of shoppers before any of this new stuff became a talking point. They are still a kind of mashup. These ideas are now commonplace on the web, and those not promoting with videos are losing a very large number of online surfers who could be attracted to your site. One way to get streaming audio and video quickly on your site is TalkStream, available at $19.95 per month or $199.50 annually. Read on to see how to produce your own videos and how to use them.

When you looked at the bicycle video you may have been thinking, “How in the world can I do anything like that?” Don’t panic! It’s not too hard to do, and there is inexpensive equipment to get you started. Like everything else that’s new to you, spend the least money you can to start and, as you get better at it, you will see more expensive resources that will help you. The point is, don’t jump overboard in the beginning; find out what your are doing first. The basics are an inexpensive camcorder like the pocket-sized Flip Video available from Amazon for about $125. You also need someone, or something to hold it and make pictures of you. A tripod is the best solution, but some kind of chair or table rigged for the camcorder will do. After you shoot your images you can use the free editing software available on your computer: Windows Movie Maker (under Accessories in your Program list), and iMovie on Macs. After that, just establish an account on YouTube and share your video with everyone you know and post it on your social networking sites like Facebook and all the others. You should see this is not all that difficult.

You can also spend a lot more for professional editing software. Low end programs are about $100 USD, midrange cost is $300 to $500 USD, and most expensive is more than $1,200 USD. These systems allow a whole lot of tweaking and bells and whistles; great stuff for fancy entertaining videos, but you really don’t need this for business purposes. All the marketing advisors say to keep your presentations simple and straight to the point. Above all, get it done as quickly as possible. Viewers normally have short attention spans, so say what is important right away and quit! Two to three minutes is optimal.
All the experts seem to agree on using a camcorder, as suggested above. A Webcam is not flexible, it is difficult to move, and resolution is not as good as even an inexpensive camcorder. There is no reason to cut down on quality footage by using a cell phone or still camera; there are too many inexpensive camcorders out there.

If you are serious, you need to know the basics of lighting which are taught early in every basic video production course. Many experts encourage using something called a “sun gun” mounted on your camera; if you use one, bear in mind they run off your camera’s batteries, so check your power source often. You can get these from B&H Photo Video and search for “sun gun.” Sun guns can be quite expensive, so drill down until you find a reasonable price, if you feel you must go this way, and check other sources like Google Shopping.

You may want to take a video production course. Check the Internet for online courses, and don’t forget your local Community College.

You must remember your video contains audio information as well as visual images. If there is no clear sound, your video is useless and you lose your audience. The microphone on your computer won’t do the job, nor will your camera mike. You need a microphone that can be held or carried around to the source of your sound. You can find several wireless clip-on models under $200 USD at Audio-Technica. Others are available at Sennheiser which offers more expensive equipment.

While you are setting up the ways you can use YouTube videos in your marketing program, here are a few tips. When you embed a YouTube video on your company Website, or on any of your sites, remember you are using YouTube’s bandwidth, not your own. This could be very important if you succeed in getting a lot of traffic. Another thing you should do is devise and install some means for visitors to leave comments. It’s easy to do this if your Website is built on a blog platform like Wordpress or Blogger; most of their themes have built-in comment areas.

As a business entrepreneur you are going into this video program with every intent of making money; videos are a business move for you, but it is wise to look at videos like those who use YouTube strictly for entertainment but would like to make some money from advertisements on their Website. They don’t really expect to make anything, but there are several ways they try anyway. After advertisements, you can try selling some of your own products like e-books or CDs, and, finally there is the marketing power of a catch phrase printed across a nice T-shirt or other apparel. If you do this last thing, be certain to include the URL of your site on everything. This process of adding a catch phrase is known as “plinking.” Even though you are deliberately designing videos to promote some business purpose, it will pay you to pay attention to these little details, as well.

The home-based lifestyle is desirable for many reasons, a primary one being the casual way you must dress. We mentioned the ability to act like a very large company while letting the Internet hide the fact you are very small; this means most of the time, you can work in pajamas or underwear, if you wish. When you add a Webcam, however, that whole idea changes; Big Brother is watching you for all the world to see. When you produce a professional-looking video, appearance becomes even more important. You are branding your little company and yourself as well. Research indicates well-presented people have all these qualities that you want people to think you and your company have:

• You are thought of as more likeable and trustworthy.

• You seem to have better social relationships.

• You get more opportunity offers.

• You can get money and physical assistance with less effort than others.

Recognized professional dress categories are:

• Baseline casual requires denim, cotton, and corduroy.

• Mainstream casual indicates higher quality khakis, gabardine, wool, blend, polo shirts, pull-over sweaters, cardigans, and vests.

• Executive casual means formal business attire with relaxed attitude, wool trousers, long-sleeved shirts, fine-gauge sweaters, sports coats, or high quality pantsuits.

• Traditional business speaks of darker color wool suits, tie, or tailored separates.

• Boardroom attire says you’ve made it, requiring the highest quality wool suits from luxurious fabrics.

I’m pretty sure most of you aren’t going far into these last dress codes. The point you should remember is to dress in a way you are comfortable and that you feel will not be offensive to your audience. You can’t buy love, and if you are uncomfortable dressing to impress, you will probably fail there as well, no matter what the experts say. If you feel better dressed up, by all means do it.

There are many ways to use videos to promote your business. You can make videos that are really blatant advertisements, infomercials, how-to videos, motivational lectures, or anything else that will promote whatever you are doing. Use videos to establish your professional status by discussing your area of expertise and so helping to establish your personal brand. You can include excerpts from books, e-books, and CDs which may help you make sales.

We have mentioned embedding a YouTube video on one or more of your Websites. All you need for this is a YouTube video or two and a free subscription to Google AdSense. The key to this approach is to generate revenues from your own website, from traffic driven by embedded YouTube videos. The more interesting the videos, the more traffic you'll attract; the more traffic you attract, the more clicks for you and the more money you will make. All this is explained in more depth here. PC World talks about some other uses for YouTube videos. Some of them are:

1. Give executive presentations.
   
   
2. Training videos are excellent for training people to work on anything including using software setting up equipment, or making a great sales pitch.
   
   
3. If your help desk gets repeat calls from users requesting assistance on the same problem, videos may be the answer to this problem.
   
   
4. For marketing, you can show off that new hardware to prospective customers or demonstrate new software, provide product data, statistics, or other information.
   
   
5. Videos are perfect for showing off special events like anniversaries, unveiling new products, or recognizing special employees.

Things you need to do when preparing a video campaign using YouTube:

• Put your URL on every video.
  
  
• Make three or four videos before your first posting.
  
  
• Be sure important dates like holidays are met with your holiday video campaign.
  
  
• Make favorable comments on other people’s videos being sure to leave your URL with your signature.
  
  
• Choose the best images for thumbnails.
  
  
• Name your video in an easy-to-understand way that is friendly to search engines.
  
  
• Use your blog to promote your videos.
  
  
• Use your social network to let everyone know about your videos.

For more information about how to use YouTube see the following three resources:
Here’s a simple tutorial to go with these ideas about using YouTube as a business resource.
Use New Tools to Promote Yourself.
PC Magazine—How to Become A YouTube Star.
A new service recently introduced is called Google Video for Business; it’s similar to YouTube. You can get it in the Google Apps section. It requires a fee of $50 per year after a free 30-day trial.
Don’t fear YouTube. Post some videos and watch your business grow quickly.