Video: How to Actually Get Started

Are you a small business owner who is thinking about incorporating a video strategy into your online marketing?

If you’ve been considering creating a video strategy to promote your blog or business, there is no better time than now to start planning. Lets be real though…it’s not the easiest medium to master. This article will give you some golden nuggets so you can get started in the quickest and most efficient way.

Preliminary Work: Get Clear About the Focus of Your Video Strategy

I know what you’re thinking…I’ve already got a focus. I thought the same. I had already brainstormed more than 30 topics, but it takes a lot more effort than that to nail it. Before you get started, I recommend taking some time to answer the following questions:

1. What sets your blog or business apart from others? Write down a few things that make you different. You’ll need this in the introductory section of your video, but zero in and be able to articulate what you do in just 5-10 seconds. No really….I'm not kidding. This seems obvio but you've got to be able to state with confidence exactly what you do in 5-10 seconds flat. Great video is not just a screen capture, in order to nail it, you've got to pretend like you're a news anchor.
2. Who do you serve? This question is vital to understand who your audience and your target market is. Here are a few tidbits to get you started thinking clearly: How old is your ideal customer? What do they do for a living? What are their hobbies? What brought them to your blog? How can you help them? The truth is, producing engaging content for your blog or video strategy is not about figuring out who is reading it or watching it…it’s more about deciding who you want to be your target, and then producing content for them.
3. Who are your competitors? Before you launch your blog into a business, and your business into a video strategy, it’s imperative that you know exactly who you are competing with. Give me a name and URL, not just a broad “I’m competing with people who blog about making money online.” This is not going to be about looking at what others are doing in comparison to you, it’s about looking at what they are doing that is working well and how you can capitalize on that knowledge.

Once you get through the initial stages, planning a collaboration with your competitors is ideal, but not at the very beginning. When you focus on relationships and building each other up instead of competing, you both win! There is more than enough space online for everyone, so don’t feel that your nîche is too saturated. There will always be room for your own personal expertise, and your personality with inevitably resonate with someone better than a competitors.

After you’ve done some soul searching with these questions above and conducted some hard core research and competitive analysis, you’re ready to get started with the actual video production strategy. Keep in mind, though, you will not reach your goals if you spend too much time checking in on what everyone else is doing and trying to replicate it. Instead, do your research, decide what works for you, and then create
your own plan.

The Methodology: A Video Strategy that Works

There are 4 parts to this video strategy. Although they may seem somewhat obvious at first glance, don’t get all rockstar on me…pay close attention, because there are some critically important factors that you’ll need to understand completely that accompany each part:

1. Research the Video Topic Thoroughly
2. Scripting, Recording, Editing
3. Publishing and Optimization
4. Engagement & Sharing

Research

Lets dive into research first. Yes, you’ve got to do some competitive analysis (i.e.: take note of what is working for your competitors) to see what others in your nîche are talking about, but you’ve also got to understand how to do proper keyword research so that you’re choosing the topics and keywords that will actually benefit your ranking ability based on the size of your blog (or the size of your YouTube channel).

By the way, I would love it if you'd Subscribe to my YouTube Channel…I post a new video each week, and if you love learning about tips for bloggers and small business owners, you'll enjoy my channel!

One of my biggest pet-peeves I have is the nîche blogger who decides to tackle an unrelated topic when they don’t really understand it. This is what promotes the stereotype whereby most digital agencies and corporate online marketers don’t take bloggers seriously. (I can attest to this first hand, as I spent 14 years of my career working in corporate and agency marketing before starting my own blog in 2006).

I admit, I used to be guilty of stereotyping bloggers…there was a time when I thought bloggers didn’t know what the heck they were talking about. Not ironically, it was because most of those writers (and some vlogers too) went off track for the low-hanging fruit. What do I mean by that?

When you have a nîche blog about a topic that you have an expertise in, such as a finance blogger, and then you suddenly gain some perspective on SEO so you decide that you’re qualified to write a blog post about it, that is going off track. So when that happens, here’s what the rest of us are left with…instead of actually getting some good advice by reading the blog post with a catchy headline about SEO, you get one or two regurgitated tips that are not helpful because my goodness you’ve already updated your alt-tags and meta-data descriptions with keywords and you’re still not ranking in the search results.

…So you and me…we spend hours reading blog posts that offer nothing new on the topic we're researching. We fall victim to clicking on those catchy headlines, yet we're lucky if we come across a blogger who actually knows what Schema means.

Just like Mr. Finance Blogger spent 15 years working in finance before starting his blog, keep in mind that a truly qualified digital marketer likely spent 15 years performing and implementing SEO research on hundreds of websites, and might even remember what life was like before Penguin. Ok this rant is over.

If you are curious about what the pros say, read this to learn about SEO and the proper way to update your markup.

The moral of this story is stay in your nîche. When you really focus and stay on point, with your writing and your video, you will grow your audience and thus your revenue much faster. When you chase low-hanging fruit and deviate from your expertise, thinking that it’s working for others so you might as well give it a try, then you’re just fooling yourself. Stay in your lane, capisci?

Here’s a quick example of how to do keyword research (the right way!)

Lets say you are writing a blog (or producing a video) about how to do affiliate marketing. Let's assume your email list has less than 1,000 subscribers and your following on social media is around 100 to 500 per channel. You already know that using a free Chrome browser extension, keywordseverywhere.com will allow you to look up the keyword phrase “make money online” which returns a result of 201,000 results per month (as of the date this blog is being published). Do you think that seems like a good keyword phrase to use in your meta-data?

I mean heck, TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND people are searching for that phrase every single month, it must be good, right?

The answer is a resounding “NO!” You will never rank for that keyword with the stats above. No matter how many times you type the words “make money online” into your meta-data, your foundation does not support enough of the other ranking factors to get you on the first page of Google. In fact the first organic search result is for Entrepreneur magazine. Is that magazine one of your competitors that you identified above? Not likely. In order to get the strategy right, you’ll first need to clearly understand how to conduct keyword research the right way.

PRO TIP: How to get Keyword Research Right

To rank a small blog or small channel, you need to focus on long tail phrases that offer a search volume of less than 100 per month. Here’s an example long tail phrase that is more focused on one are: how to make money online using your phone

There is much less competition for this phrase (the volume is only 40 per month) because it is much more targeted.

How can you zero in and get crystal clear about your topic to make the search volume much less? Start with the keywords everywhere free browser extension.

If you would like a more advanced technique to do both competitive analysis as well as research video specific topics, I highly recommend both SEMRush (a tool used by digital agencies to perform SEO services for their clients) or TubeBuddy (less expensive option). Click here to start a free trial of TubeBuddy today!

Scripting, Recording, and Editing Video

So it’s not like you’re going to just sit in front of the camera and start talking about your topic! If you did that, you’d have a completely failed video strategy, kind of like I did back in January. I literally sketched out 30 topics and planned a rough outline of what I was going to talk about. My thought was that I did not want to read from a teleprompter because I wouldn’t look natural and relaxed. Well, I muddled through it, but I can tell you it was not effective in building my business one iota. I was about to give up, but instead I invested a substantial sum of money and hired a very specific, niche, video mentor.

I was determined to get it right. I learned that there is a specific script formula that needs to be followed in order to get it right. The short description is “Hook, Story, Offer” but unless you’re a superstar sales person, that might not make complete sense. (By get it right I mean monetize….in other words, grow your subscriber base and your revenue with an evergreen lead magnet that plays off the video).

Want to watch a webinar on the “hook, story, offer” strategy? Click here. (You can schedule a time to watch it, doesn’t have to be right this moment).

Once you’ve got your script written, there are some tools you’ll need to deliver it well. I started out by stacking my laptop on some books and recording myself in front of a white wall. I still do this because I think it’s less distracting for viewers than having a messy office behind you.

Here is a list of some of my favorite tools and resources that I use personally. (Please note: I do not recommend products that I do not personally use, so if you have any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to ask me.)

Editing Software (for Mac): Screenflow
Webinar Software (if you are seeking an all-in-one solution for a lead magnet): Webinarjam
Landing Page Builder with ECommerce Functionality Built in: Clickfunnels

Cameras:
Canon Powershot Elph – from $150
Logitech HD Pro Webcam – from $200
Canon 70D – From $650
GoPro Hero 3 – from $115

Microphones:
Rode Lav Mic
Rode VMGO Video Mic
Boya By-Mic

Tripods:
Livestream Gear
Ravelli

Lighting:
Lumee Light Case for iPhones
Cowboy Studio
Diva Light
Fancierstudio

Publishing and Optimization

On to the third step. Publishing is not as simple as clicking Publish…at least not if you’re going to do it right! It’s important to pay close attention to the tags you use in your videos. One way you can begin is to research the tags that your competitors are using, (again, use TubeBuddy because that will highlight exactly which tags you can rank for). You can also enter those tags into a Google search bar to find out the search volume. Using Google’s Keyword Planner is another way to give you an idea of long tail phrases and search volume. As you prepare to publish your video, you’ll pay close attention to the title, description, and tags. These should be repetitive, and since voice recognition is increasingly important, you should also repeat these key words and phrases in your actual video script.

PRO TIP: Meta-Data is much more than just Title and Description

Other places you can incorporate these tags are within the subtitles, the featured image meta-data, and by using hashtags. Adding hashtags anywhere inside the description box will allow your hashtags to show up right under your title.

Want to learn exactly where to add your meta-data for video SEO? Watch this video.

Tip: If you don't know how to lookup the Source Code to find Keywords inside your competitors videos, you can use TubeBuddy to do it more easily and efficiently.

Engagement & Sharing

Lastly, the methodology of sharing should be done in a strategic way so that you can get as many eyes on your video as possible when it goes public. The first 24 tho 48 hours of publishing a video is the most important, because that indicates to the YouTube algorithm that people are genuinely interested in your video and it allows your video to rank in the search results. Assuming you’ve followed the protocol with tags, descriptions and optimization, this will help your video get as many eyes on it as possible.

Plan to send an email to your list encouraging them to watch your video. Also post or schedule on your other social channels such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to drive even more views to your video.

PRO TIP

Create multiple Pins for your video as well, as Pinterest is a great way to drive traffic to your videos. Did you know that Pinterest now attracts 150 million people per month? If you’d like some additional tips on using Pinterest to drive massive amounts of traffic (to your blog or your videos) check out my Free Pinterest Business Plan Checklist.

Boost your Engagement!

By the way…if you're interested in boosting engagement for your own blog or video, I provide share opportunities for all nîches inside my private Facebook Community, the Digital Collective, where we come together for the purpose of connecting and sharing, and growing each other's social media and blogs! I currently post share threads every Friday (since the group is still small) but we are growing…and as the group grows I will move the threads to more often with a goal of once a day! Click here to join!

Have you tried video yet in your marketing strategy? Let me know in the comments below!

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