How to guide to create great YouTube Content

YouTube has changed the way people consume content. Before YouTube, all companies had to think about when developing a commercial is “will it get people to go out and buy the product? Will it make us money?” When YouTube hit the scene, suddenly you had to factor in “Will someone share this with other people?” And not only that but it opened the door to creating video that you couldn’t do with T.V. For example, Old Spice did a campaign where they had their Twitter Followers tweet in questions for The Old Spice Guy and then created video responses for some of them that they posted to there YouTube channel. Here are some of those videos. 

This type of campaign could never have worked on T.V. if for no other reason it would have cost millions, if not billions, to pay for all the commercial time needed. The types of video content we as marketers/advertisers can produce and share is virtually limitless with YouTube. James Wedmore, Video Marketing Advocate and author of the YouTube Marketing Book, wrote an article for The Social Media Examiner about five styles of videos that will get you the results you’re looking for on YouTube. They are:

1. Turn New Viewers Into Subscribers With a Trailer Video: This is your chance to make that first impression to potential consumers. When a viewer shows up to your channel and isn’t a subscriber, you can have a trailer video appear for them. This is your chance to tell them about your brand and what to expect from your channel.
2. Share Stats That Matter to Benchmark Yourself: People love statistics and they love them even more when it’s in a video instead of a spread sheet. And they really love to SHARE statistics with others. Gather the facts about your industry, make it visual and eye popping, overlay a catchy tune and your sure to have a hit on your hands. 
3. Share a Customer Success Story to Establish a Good Reputation: If your brand has helped impact someone’s life for the better, share it. People are more willing to trust a real consumer then a paid actor. Share the good you do with your audience. These don’t have to be studio quality videos. You can take them with you phone or even record them on a Google Hangout.
4. Answer Questions to Demonstrate Your Knowledge: If you can help answer a question someone has, you will become their best friend. Find out some of the commonly asked questions in your industry and create some videos that answer those questions. If you do this well you can become peoples go-to source for questions they need answered.
5. Teach People Something to Create Top-of-Mind Awareness of Your Services: For example, if you are a company that sells ties, then a good thing to do would be create a video on how to tie a tie (like the one below). This shows your viewers that you have foreseen some problem/difficulty they could experience and given them the tools to solve it. This shows you care enough to help. Always do a video how to over a written one because people prefer video, on average, to written ones.

On that note, here is a video recap by James Wedmore on these 5 types of videos. 

Thanks for reading and be sure to check back next week for the latest Social Buzz.

  

Does your Mobile App make the cut: What you need to keep in mind

Recently, one of my teachers, Lindsey Fair, gave a lesson on Mobile Marketing and within that lesson, she mentioned that often times when customers download an app, they often only use it once, and then it’s forgotten about or deleted. But why is that? Well, as Lindsey put it, if the only thing on your app is store hours or locations, people already have an app for that. It’s called the Internet. People want an app to fill a need that your mobile website or Google can't (Not an easy task). And this isn’t even the BIG problem. Research shows that people prefer apps to mobile sites. The number one reason people leave your app is some sort of in-app problem.

Research conducted by Compuware showed over 56% of users stopped using or deleted the app because of some sort of problem in the app itself. What’s more is that most users delete 90% of the apps they download. One small hiccup that causes us even the smallest inconvenience and it’s into the virtual trash with that app and we move on. Gone are the days were people tolerated inconvenience. We want everything five minutes ago. So how can companies make sure their app doesn’t hit the virtual trash heap?

Jatin Sapra, Social Media Executive at TechAhead Software says to keep these 5 things in mind (listed below with my take on each one):

1. Get into the shoes of end-users: You can’t just look at it from the perspective of the developer or business owner. Get in to your consumers head and find out if meets their needs. Are they going get the information they came to the app to get? Does it do what they thought it was going to do?
2. Experience is also very important: As I mentioned above, 56% of people delete an app do to a problem or negative experience. If the app loads to slow (see the cart below for peoples expectations on load time), or crashes or some other negative experience occurs, you wont get a second chance. You need to give the users the best experience possible.
   
   

Does Google +1 help your page ranking in Google search?

Every companies or brands goal is to be number one on Google. But how does one do this, and do it right. How do you get to the top of the Google search ladder without getting blacklisted? How do you make sure that you show up in the right search categories?  Well, your page ranking depends on a number of factors that Google’s computers analyze. Keyword density, anchor text, metadata… the list goes on. But in a recent study done by Stone Temple Consulting, one thing is for sure. Google +1 have no effect on your page ranking in Google.

 

Many companies and brands assumed that Google+ shares would prove their brand influence, therefore improving its page ranking in Google. So when Google's Distinguished Engineer Matt Cutts politely said that, no, Google +1 in fact did not help your page ranking, it sparked serious discussions in the industry. And when Stone Temple Consulting released the findings of its study, many were shocked that Cutts was indeed telling the truth.

In terms of discovery and indexing, Google +1 do help. But when it comes to your page ranking, Stone Temple Consulting found that they had no effect that they could see from the 6 articles they tested in the study. "We saw no evidence of Google+ shares driving ranking," Eric Enge said, President of Stone Temple Consulting.

Well, there it is. While Google +1 will help Google search find and index your website, it will not help increase your page ranking.

To get more information on the study, see New StudyFinds Google+ Shares Don't Cause Higher Search Rankings or join the Google Hangout hosted by Eric Enge entitled "Documented Google Plus Impact on Search Rankings" this Thursday (September 19^th) at 4 p.m. ET when he will discuss the study's findings. Joining him to discuss the study will be an all-star panel that includes Mark Traphagen of Virante, Pete Meyers from Moz, Joshua Berg of Google Plus SEO and SMO, and Marcus Tober of Searchmetrics.

Who uses Google? (Infographic)

Thats a weird question. Doesn't everyone use Google? Well, yes, but who is the average user? What do they look like? What are they searching for? Well, according to data collected by Google in 2006, the average Google search user is male, has graduated college, makes on average 77, 000 dollars a year ... well you probably don't want to sit there and read about it. So here is a fun info graphic  depicting the average Google search user.

Who uses this search engine? Does my products/services target market use this search engine? This is the kind of information that companies would want to know when they are looking to optimize their websites for search engines and making it the number one search result.