Expert Video Marketing Strategy – Spoiler Alert: Cat Videos Included #SESNY

Have you worked yourself to the bone on a video marketing campaign only to see the results fall flat? Do you have a wealth of video content but are unsure how to leverage it effectively to serve your marketing objectives? Can your presence on YouTube be summed as ‘well, we have a channel’?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, you’re not alone. Getting results through your video marketing efforts can be a challenge if you don’t have the right game-plan. However, you’re in luck! At day 2 of SES New York TopRank CEO Lee Odden moderated a panel discussion with leading industry video marketers.Their stellar tips and insights that can be found below.

Video Marketing Tactics – Mark Robertson

Robertson did an excellent job providing a nice comedic break during the session by showcasing a video that pokes fun at one inevitable truth about audiences: we love cat videos. If you haven’t seen the Catvertising video, take a moment to watch the video. It’s worth it.

Cats aside, Robertson shared some helpful and often overlooked SEO tips for YouTube that can help your video be found more easily through search.

• Titles-Be sure to include a relevant keyword at the start of the title to help the video be found through search.
• Summary – The summary serves as the meta description in the SERP. Start your summary with your keywords when possible to set expectations with your audience about the content in the video.
• Tags – Per YouTube’s own instructions, include as many relevant tags as possible.
• Playlists -They offer appear in search results and can keep your audience engaged with other relevant videos. Create playlists and include 3rd party content. Per YouTube, a videos ability to funnel traffic to other videos is factored into its search algorithm.
• Close Captioning – When uploading videos, be sure to upload closed captioning. The text from closed captioning is indexed and can help the hearing impaired and search engines find your video.

Applying a Strategic Approach to Video Marketing – Aaron Kahlow (@omconnect)

Video marketing shouldn’t live on an island in your marketing program. To be successful videos can’t be a simple one-off project or after thought. Kahlow encourages marketers to apply their marketing strategies to video and incorporate video marketing as part of a larger holistic effort.

Here are some key strategic steps to apply to video marketing:

1. Determine Your Goal – What marketing objective should it serve. What is the desired outcome of the effort?
2. Identify How to Capture the Video – Should the video have a raw feel that can be captured through a handheld or does the message need to be shared through high-quality video and production.
3. Target an Audience – Who are you targeting with this video? Apply what you know about this audience to dictate how, when and where you promote the video.
4. Leverage Your Brand & Promote Links – Your video should not be a secret. Promote it through other established channels such as: website, blog, email and social.

Video Marketing Case Studies – Greg Jarboe (@gregjarboe)

Making a viral video is a lot easier said than done. Although planning that a video will reach viral status is a dangerous expectation, Jarboe helps break down some of the commonalities that widely successful marketing videos share. Through his research, he found that every video that found a large audience fell into 4 categories.

• Inspiration
• Entertainment
• Enlightenment
• Education

An Example of Inspiration – Positive vs. Negative

Given the current political landscape, one might expect that the Republican candidates vying for the party’s presidential nomination would be gaining a large audience on YouTube. Compared to the number of views and shares for videos promoting President Obama, the Republican candidates’ audience is just a fraction of that of that of the incumbent. Why would that be?

One observation Jarboe noted was the focus of the videos. Whereas 71% of the videos on YouTube by Republican candidates were negative or attack focused, a majority of the videos surrounding Obama have a positive message promoting things like ‘hope’. Interestingly enough, only 10% of Obama’s videos from the 2008 election actually featured Obama himself. The remaining 90% focused on Obama supporters.

The takeaway for a business is that videos that promote a positive message more often inspire sharing. As Jarboe put it, get your audiences thinking about ‘we’ and not ‘you’.

An Example of Entertainment – Consistency is Key

Ray William Johnson is an actor/comedian who reportedly makes over $1 million dollars a year. What makes that so unique is that you’re not likely going to find Johnson on a major network when you’re flipping the channels. Instead, Johnson found his audience through building his presence on YouTube.

Now it should go without saying that Johnson invests time and energy into putting together creative content – and without those funny videos the next point is moot – but one way Johnson has been able to stand out amongst the flood of videos on YouTube is through consistent publishing. Posting new videos twice a week and always at the same day and time, Johnson has taught his audience to expect new content on a regular schedule – and he delivers.

 Next Steps

This session packaged information well and when looking at the guidance from a cumulative perspective, there’s a comprehensive plan to glean from these experts. Between incorporating Kahlow’s strategic steps, following Jarboe’s guidelines for the type of video that inspires sharing and leveraging Robertson’s SEO tactics, you should have a good action plan to take your video marketing to the next level.

Do you have some expert guidance to share? What video marketing tips would you add?

Stay tuned for more posts from #SESNY, with additional updates on Twitter at: @toprank, @leeodden,@azeckman, @bslarsonmn.

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