R. Scott Hall asked:




It’s hard to believe that YouTube is only three-years-old. In such a short amount of time videos have changed the way we market products and communicate with friends and family. If you look at Google Trends you’ll see that as many people search for videos as they do shopping and news. So if you are an internet marketer, then, for social media marketing tips purposes, you absolutely have to include videos in your mix.

YouTube is the #1 video site, of course. It receives more traffic than Google and, because Google owns YouTube, the videos rank well in Google too. You shouldn’t limit yourself to YouTube, however. New video sites pop up every day and some of them might reach a target audience that matches well with your niche. Let’s take a look at some of them:
YouTube caters to a younger audience (18-24). Half have an income of $60K or more and half have attended college or grad school.

Metacafe is the second largest video site in the US. It focuses on creative videos from emerging talent and also established Hollywood performers. It gets 27 million unique visitors each month and attracts a heavily male audience with an average age range of 25-34.

Vids.Myspace.com has 10 million monthly unique visitors and is slanted more to females (57%).

Video.MSN.com reaches an older audience – more than half are over the age of 45. It gets 2.7 million unique visitors per month.

Google Video attracts a slightly younger audience than YouTube and the audience is mostly white (71%) and male (53%).

Dailymotion is set up for larger videos: 150 MB, compared to YouTube’s 100 MB and has a video limit of 20 minutes compared to YouTube’s 10 minutes. It appeals to a male audience (60%).

If you’re not sure which video sites to use, there are video uploaders that will upload your videos to all the main video sites. Look for software or

membership plans that have testimonials and customer support. All you do is create the video and the uploading service will take care of the rest for you. Each video site has different requirements for tagging and descriptions and file size so it will save you a ton of time if you use a service like this.

If the thought of making a video intimidates you, remember that you don’t have to appear in the video. You can place an ad in Craigslist or look on elance to hire someone else to appear in it. Or you can do a Camtasia or PowerPoint type video that is a slide show of screen shots.

No matter what type of product you sell or what type of market you are in, video will work for you. Please feel free to let us know how videos have worked for you.

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Dan Dimit asked:




One of my favorite ways to get free targeted traffic to my websites is through video marketing. It’s not how many views you get, it’s WHO is watching. This is how you rank well on the search engines and drive traffic to your website.

When adding your “description” to the video, implement these in the following order…

First, type in your capture page address (or whatever website you want them to go to)… http://www.whateversite.com (Your Own Domain or affiliate link recommended.) The http:// and then the www. is very important particularly on YouTube because it turns the domain into a clickable link.

Second, on the next line after your website address…your phone number (EEK! YES, this is a business. That means you may have to talk to someone that has a question..stop hiding behind your website!) and name. Then write a few paragraphs describing your video…it’s kinda like a mini-article. what is it about? What are you going to cover? What are you helping the viewer find out? What problem are you attempting to help them solve? Don’t make it about YOU, make it about solutions to THEIR problems.

Third, after your description… add your whole related keyword list… this can be as long as it needs to be, as long as it fits. This is a keyword list you might use if you were providing a business opportunity…
MLM, Network marketing, (Top Producers Names so you can piggy-back off their success and popularity), (Other Home Business Company Names), Home Based Business, Entrepreneurs, Multi Level Marketing, Internet Marketing, MLM Training, Saving money on taxes, debt elimination, (your competition’s company names), Your own name, of course. You ARE trying to become your own BRAND, right?)

I’ll will admit that the keyword technique is a bit lazy, but it still works fine. In the future, we’re sure that the algorithms will catch this and you’ll need to make the whole description all real content, which is better anyway. You will hear us preach about this a lot. You should always keep your real name as a tag/keyword(or if you have a normal name, like Eric Green, turn it into a brand-able name, like digitalgangster-there’s a plug for a great guy…love and respect DG). This is how you can establish yourself as a brand on the internet.

Plus, when you end up on the phone with a prospect (What?? Talk on the phone?? You act like this is a legitimate business with work involved!!-duh!) and they don’t seem to know for sure if you’re an expert in your field, tell them to type your name into the Google search engine and see what happens…your name pops up with all kinds of articles, blogposts and videos…don’t worry, it won’t all be from you, either. Other people will pick up your great content and use it for their blogs, etc. I find my videos and content in the craziest places – Korean, Arab, and Polish websites! The main point is that you will be associated with multitudes of sites in your niche market. That looks really good in the eyes of your prospect.

Now back to why you want your competition’s company names as your keywords as well. There are thousands and thousands of people looking online for what you provide, we guarantee it. They may or may not have heard of you yet…They may have heard of your competition before hearing of you. What does any smart consumer do when they’re not sure exactly what they want yet?

They GOOGLE IT!

Let’s have an example: Okay, let’s say you’re an affiliate for the The Free Traffic Formula (congrats! You’re in a good spot!), and we have some really famous competition, like “Traffic Secrets VII”, or “Best Dang Ol’ Traffic Drivin’ Program” (Neither are real and we don’t want to front off our expensive and inferior competition. You know who they are, anyway) You make a title for your video like: “Is Traffic Secrets really the best program for you?” Or how about this one-”Why is that ‘Best Dang ol’ Traffic Drivin’ Program’ so DANG OL’ EXPENSIVE? Are there alternatives?”

Of course, someone will look up one of those programs on Google…what will they find? MY video comparing the two (mine and their’s) side by side.

We’ve used this technique countless times and it is still one of our best sources of people calling us with buying questions. Get creative to make it work for you!

Williger.com

Chris R Dale asked:

Social media when used as part of an internet marketing strategy is a very effective tool. But social media does have a branding issue. If you talk to many CEO’s about using Facebook, Twitter and YouTube (among others) as part of your marketing strategy you may come up against some resistance. This is because:

• many CEO’s perceive social media as a business distraction and not a business tool
• many CEO’s find it difficult to see how you can generate sales using social media
• and many CEO’s don’t understand how consumers use these tools as they don’t use them themselves.

In order to sell a social media strategy to your CEO, we have listed three key areas that you must address as part of your pitch.

1. Make the connection between your ideal customer profile and social media usage

The first part of the sales approach is to connect your ideal customer profile to social media usage. It’s quite simple. For an effective social media strategy to work, your ideal customer must be a high user of social media. It’s the same principle you use for any other media. You wouldn’t place TV ads in a program that is not viewed by your ideal customer so you need to prove that connection first. Some other key points are:

• Your ideal customer must use the internet as a primary source of information when making purchase decisions.
• Your business must have a website that is a key marketing channel for product sales, customer inquiries, product information and data capture for direct marketing.

By making this connection first, your CEO should identify that social media can target the right audience.

2. Understand your key website analytics and metrics

Metrics and website analytics are the second piece of sales puzzle. Through web analytics and sales analysis you must show a correlation between website visitors and sales. In simple terms, if your web-based sales increase when there is an increase in website traffic then you have established a correlation. Your goal is now to increase website traffic which should (based on your analysis) result in an increase in product sales. Once you have this established connection then you have a basis of measuring return on investment.

A key point to make here is than numbers of Twitter followers or Facebook fans are not metrics that you should use for this sales pitch. It is near impossible to directly related them to product sales. Having 20,000 Twitter followers is in many cases of no more commercial value than having 1,000 followers. It is follower quality that is important and your ability to engage with them to visit your website.

3. Have a clear strategy to increase website traffic

This really is the “how to” of the strategy. As you have identified website traffic as the key metric, you should now outline how you will meet it through the various social media platforms. Your pitch should consider how consumers use each medium and how you will use them to drive traffic and sales. Below are some examples of how three of the main platforms in Twitter, Facebook and YouTube can be used to increase web traffic.

Twitter is a sharing platform for links, text and pictures. Businesses can use Twitter to promote new blog posts, promotional offers, links to website content and as a customer service platform. All of these promote your website URL as the destination link which drives web traffic.

Facebook is a connecting platform. Users maintain personal relationships and use it to keep in touch with friends. Users can also connect with fan pages and events that are of interest to them. For a business, a fan page can be created to provide links, helpful tips and promote events among many other things that link back to your main site.

YouTube is also a sharing platform for video. Businesses can use YouTube to host TV ads, instructional videos and show conference footage that link back to a main website URL.

With this increased traffic, your website should also receive a boost in it’s Google page ranking which improves your visibility in organic search results.

4. Closing the deal

To close the deal, the key question you need to answer for your CEO is what is the impact on sales from an investment in social media? If you can connect your ideal customer to social media use. Correlate a connection between website visitors and sales with a well defined social media strategy you are well on your way to selling your CEO on the benefits of social media.

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