Marketing With Video

Marketing With Video was first published to Power To The People

With my new job I have been thrown into another area of marketing that I knew existed, but had no idea how powerful it was. My new job, or part of it, video marketing for our company. To be quite truthful, I was skeptical about how well it would work, much less where to start. I was scared that if I failed, I may lose my job. What if nobody watched? Well I'm glad to tell you that it has been a huge success! As with a lot of things, you can learn a lot about a topic if you just search the web, and that is exactly what I did. It turns out my boss was right, we needed to expand our online presence, and video did just that and increased our sales. So as usual, I wanted to share my experience with you and give you some tips if you are thinking about using video for your business. A great place to start is a making a game plan. I found this article that gave me some great advice for getting it done:

Five Habits of Successful Video Marketers

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Video marketing requires a certain amount of discipline, attention to detail, and rigorous focus on analytics to get right. Yet, it remains as much an art as it is a science. In this post, we look at five habits that separate the few from the crowds when it comes to delivering on exceptional video marketing campaigns. 1. Plan Ahead Try to avoid common roadblocks and pitfalls that will otherwise prevent you from capturing video and creating new content to share with your audience. This means thinking ahead, creating a content schedule, and incorporating trends and local events into your planning. Consider when and where you’ll be able to shoot video, and factor in extra time to do so. You might even want to scout out locations before getting there so you’ll already know the shots you want to get (or avoid) when you’re on site. Other key steps to take would be to ensure you have all the necessary equipment, and that it’s all in working order. Meaning, your batteries are charged, your cables are organized, and everything is packed securely and ready to go whenever you are. It could also mean that your video recording studio (using the term lightly - it’s ok if this is just a tripod) is always setup so that when inspiration strikes, you don’t have to spend half an hour on setup while your ideas run away from you. 2. Stick to a Schedule Committing to a regular cadence for sharing new videos helps build and maintain momentum with your audience. Hitting it out of the park with a viral video is relatively unlikely to happen, meaning you’re much better off creating more videos that drive engagement and reach on a regular basis. Producing lots of video is easy said than done, right? Actually, it doesn’t have to be. Keep your clips short and sweet, get to know some animation tools like Animoto, GoAnimate or Powtoon, and invest in some simple products that will make your life easier, like an iPhone tripod and a decent microphone. Seek free or reasonably priced stock footage, images, and music sources to mix things up. Commit to an easy schedule at first, such as once or twice a month, and go from there. If you still think it might be too much to produce videos on a regular basis, try thinking creatively about how you create and reformulate other types of content. Throwing an event? Film it. Got a cool client in the office? Ask them a few questions about recent trends relevant to your business. Read a cool article recently? Record a short video with your personal take on the matter, or offer an interesting and related fact pertaining to the key points that were made. Finish reading...

Great advice, and I have actually learned a lot from Sprout Video for making and getting my videos found on the net. In my testing I did find some interesting results. My videos that were shorter in length tended to do better. Videos that were 10 minutes almost never were watched all the way through. I wish I had found this article before, and it would have helped me out a bunch, so I'm including a little of it here:

5 Important Lessons on Video Ad Length for Demographic Targeting

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Today’s essential read comes from the Interactive Advertising Bureau, Tremor Video, and Millward Brown Digital. The three collaborated on a free report called Multiscreen Video Best Practices that offers timely data on video ad effectiveness. NideoScreensTo create the report, researchers tested three different video ads in two lengths each (10 seconds and 30 seconds) on desktops, phones, and tablets. The ads represented three verticals: automotive, CPG, and quick casual restaurants. They were shown to 1,800 18- to 54-year-olds in the U.S 1. Size Doesn’t Bother Millennials The screen showing the ad matters, the report finds, but not equally for every demographic. Millennials (age 18 to 34) were impacted by both smartphone and tablet ads at roughly the same extent: Their scores for brand appeal and persuasion were close for both types of devices. 2. Go Bigger for Older Viewers For older adults (age 35 to 54), however, tablet ads had far more impact than phone ass. That group showed markedly higher brand appeal and persuasion scores after seeing an ad on a larger screen. Older viewers were also more likely to rate tablet ads as interesting, unique, or involving. 3. Go Short for Millennials So how can video marketers best reach millennials? With shorter ads. The report finds that young adults scored 10-second ads higher than 30-second ads for brand appeal and persuasion whether they watched those ads on a smartphone or tablet. Read Entire Article...

Great stuff. It is very important that you keep in mind your audience's age when planning your videos. There is so much information on the web that you can find about video, video marketing and video seo. If you are interested in learning more, for FREE, check out some of my favorite blogs on Video Marketing - Video Brewery Reel SEO MD Internet Marketing Solutions Enjoy - and I hope this really helps you -  catch ya on the flip side!

Abolish Bail Bonds?

The post Abolish Bail Bonds? is republished from http://PowerLiftingCA.com

I recently had a not so fun experience. My little brother came to visit here in Georgia and was out on New Years Eve and got into trouble. I got a call around 5 a.m. with him informing me that he had been arrested and need me to get him out. I had no idea what to do, so I went to the internet to find out. I found a lot of information and a great bail bonds service - Get Outta Jail GA, to help me post bond. His bond was 10k, and I had to pay the bondsman 1k that was non refundable to get him out. I was fine with that because my only other choice was to go ahead and give the court the full 10k and have to wait until his trial was finished, at which time I could get back the money. For me I would rather just pay out 1k and not get it back than tie up a full 10k and not know how many months it would be before I got it back. I also know that my brother could pay me back the 1k and not be able to do the 10k. But in my searching on line I came across something that I thought was kind of ridiculous. There is a push to abolish bail bonds, and I think it is not a really good idea, since I just had to use the system and it helped me. The gripe of the law suit is that the bail bonds service industry is for the rich and penalizes the poor. I really don't think this is a fair assessment. Their thought is that the poor have to come up with the money to post bail while the rich that have savings can post bail and keep moving on with their lives. I understand there are some bad apples out there in the bail bonds industry, and one bad one can give the entire industry a bad name. But to me it's also like used cars. There are a lot of shady used car dealers out there, but should we abolish all used car dealerships. The heart of this law suit is about a woman who was arrested, had to post bail and then within a day the DA decided not to press charges, while the bail bonds company still insists that she needs to pay the 10% of the bail the they put up to get her released. This is kind of a sticky situation here, I understand the young woman's point of view as well as the bondsman's point of view. Here is a short snippet from the article -

SAN FRANCISCO —

Crystal Patterson didn't have the cash or assets to post $150,000 bail and get out of jail after her arrest for assault in October. So Patterson, 39, promised to pay a bail bonds company $15,000 plus interest to put up the $150,000 bail for her, allowing to go home and care for her invalid grandmother. The day after her release, the district attorney decided not to pursue charges. But Patterson still owes the bail bonds company. Criminal justice reformers and lawyers at a nonprofit Washington, D.C., legal clinic say that is unconstitutionally unfair. The lawyers have filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of Patterson, Rianna Buffin and other jail inmates who argue that San Francisco and California's bail system unconstitutionally treats poor and wealthy suspects differently. Wealthy suspects can put up their houses or other valuable assets — or simply write a check — to post bail and stay out of jail until their cases are resolved. Poorer suspects aren't so lucky. Many remain behind bars or pay nonrefundable fees to bail bonds companies.

Click Here To Read The Full Story So my take on it is that the system should not be abolished. It does help. What it really comes down to is that once again the "rich" are being made a scapegoat. Just because someone works their ass off and makes a living it makes the whole thing unfair. I'm calling BS! What will happen if they abolish the system? Will they just let people go on their own promise to show up for court? I don't think so. And who is going to make sure they show up? I think the bondsman are doing the courts AND TAXPAYERS a great service by doing this and making sure they show up for court. They should be paid for their services. If the bondsman didn't do it then the government would have to use government employees to get the job done, which in turn would probably raise taxes. Really I think in the story above that Patterson's beef should be with the DA and the officers that arrested her in the first place. The bondsman did their job and should be paid. With me,  Get Outta Jail GA Bondsman for Cobb did right by me and I can't thank them enough. They were extremely friendly and helpful. I would hate to see great people like this that do such a great service for the community to be put out of a job. Lawyers should stop and think about what they are doing before they start throwing law suits around. I guarantee that if they were to be arrested and need a bondsman they would change their tune. The system probably wouldn't be unfair then!  

How to Grow a Writing Career

Writing careers are not like many other careers, where there is at least the appearance of order and predictability. For the nurse, the lawyer, the software engineer there are degrees to earn, résumés to write, and finally companies to be employed by, where a ladder of sorts can be climbed to more money, more responsibility, a better office, and perhaps a prestigious title. There is something so reassuringly tangible about a company that existed before you were employed there, a garden already planted in which you need only do your small part to grow with it.

Of course writers have their own ladders they dream of climbing, the tippy-top of which many a quiet hour is spent imagining. There at the higher rungs are the bigger advances, the higher Amazon rankings, the prestigious awards. But unlike in a company, the way up that ladder is not so clear. On the one hand, the answer is always the same: sell more books! On the other hand, the books you want to sell more of -- yours -- have never been written before. Your career is your own garden, and while it may resemble others, its originality is as inescapable as your page is blank.

This reality can be daunting to the beginning author. Punching a time clock may not be an inspiring start to the workday, but you know every minute translates to dollars in your pocket. There is no such certainty for the writer. Or, I should say, the certainty is found elsewhere. It is found where few are taught to look for it, where, in fact, we are often taught it simply doesn't exist.

Ironically, every writer who has ever finished a single scene, whether it was published or not, knows exactly where to find the certainty they often spend many idle hours fretting will never be theirs. We do not start a scene knowing every single thing that's going to be done and said in it. Maybe we know where it will begin and how it will (probably) end. The rest we'll just figure out. The rest we'll let come to us. The rest we'll imagine, we'll hear, we'll discover. That's the fun of writing.

A writer cannot see the last sentence of a scene before it is written, anymore than he or she can see tomorrow before it is lived, but once you've written a few scenes, you don't worry much about how you'll get to the end of a scene when you start it. You may worry about your book if you've never finished one, but for those shorter sprints, you've learned to trust that all the necessary but undiscovered details will come. They always do. Every time.

To learn more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-kenower/how-to-grow-a-writing-career_b_8845478.html

To see how it can payoff: http://www.fredericksburg.com/features/health_living/popular-blogger-gets-personal/article_159a9801-9385-5977-95aa-88eeebb15aec.html