Has it really been over (2) months since I gave this talk at the San Francisco and Los Angeles Green Festivals? I guess so, because the calendar doesn’t lie…
In today’s post, I am happy to share with you a brand spankin’ new version of The Green Media Way: Grow Visibility & Leads Using Audio + Video, a talk I was lucky enough to share with attendees at the 2012 SF + LA Green Festivals this past November while exhibiting as a Media Partner for the events with AudioAcrobat. Thank you to so many of you for coming out and hearing/seeing it given live, and for those of you who’ve been waiting for a replay, it’s finally here!
This new video can be seen by clicking the player/image above or by visiting this direct link, and focuses on how using Audio + Video in the cloud to grow visibility and leads for your product or service can be much greener than previous offline methods.
In this video, viewers will learn several important facts about growing visibility and leads through the use of Audio + Video in the cloud, without being bored to death (I promise), including:
- Who can benefit from using Audio + Video in the cloud
- What LMFAO are doing in my presentation
- Where to begin broadcasting your online Audio + Video
- When is the best time to publish your Audio + Video content
- Why Audio + Video on the web is GREEN, and
- How to target demographics with your Audio + Video
Feel like reading words on a screen instead of rotting your brain with moving images? If so, I’ve made the transcript of the video available for those of you who consider yourselves, as Bill Hicks would say, “readers”, right here:
Welcome to The Green Media Way: Grow Visibility and Leads Using Audio and Video!
When was the last time you watched a YouTube video? Was it earlier today? Yesterday? Last weekend?
Did you know, that if you were to watch YouTube for three days straight, you would be consuming the same amount of energy as it takes to manufacture, package and ship a single DVD? True story. That research comes directly from the Google Blog at GoogleBlog.Blogspot.com
In today’s presentation we’ll be touching on many important facets of using audio and video to grow visibility and leads, such as:
*Creating High Quality Audio and Video Content by first identifying your audience and then structuring your message to target your audience.
*Branding your audio and video content through incorporating brand awareness techniques and exciting newcomers about your brand.
*Broadcasting audio and video content on the Web through personal sites and blogs, in your email and newsletter campaigns and on your favorite social networks.
*Generating leads from audio and video content by cultivating organic discussion and nurturing the online relationships which sprout up along the way.
*We’ll also cover why audio and video in the cloud means green along with how your own personal experiences with using audio and video can be made as green as possible.
Let’s talk a bit about creating high quality audio and video content. Identifying your audience is quite possibly the most crucial component of creating your content. Without identifying a target audience, your message may not reach its intended destination, or even worse, it may convey a different message than originally intended, which could easily mislead listeners or viewers.
How does one identify their target audience? We like to begin by asking the following questions:
What are you selling?
Is it clear what your product or service does?
What is the idea or message you wish to communicate?
…and most importantly, who is the buyer?
Remember, the goal is to effectively communicate with your audience and their peers. This may require a bit of research within the specific demographic or demographics you wish to reach.
The next step in creating high quality audio and video content is to structure your message to target your audience. Tailoring your message for each individual demographic you wish to reach is the absolute best way to reach your audience.
If you have a single demographic, this may be a very easy step. If you have many demographics you’re intending to reach, this will require a bit more customization.
A great example of a campaign reaching out to dozens of different demographics comes to us in the form of Motown legend Barry Gordy’s Son and Grandson, better known as popular music group LMFAO and their debut single “I’m In Miami Trick”, which was released in 2008 with over 50 different versions created for individual cities, festivals and countries. To accomplish this amazing feat, they recorded the name of the city, festival etc. and replaced the word “Miami” in the chorus with the specific demographic they were intending to reach. Needless to say, this level of customization garnered them massive amounts of radio play, concert tours and aided in their rise to international stardom shortly thereafter.
When thinking about branding your audio or video we’ll always want to put ourselves in the place of our listeners or viewers by making sure that the brand resonates with our audience during each and every step of the process.
Because brand recognition affects listeners and viewers on a subconscious level, the best branding will always be instantly recognizable through combinations of audible tones, colors, fonts and shapes.
There are several easy ways to consistently reinforce your brand within audio and video content, such as:
Creating custom audio and video players or themes which represent your brand. Inserting your logo or brand imagery either within or near your audio or video and including custom branded short links leading back to your site. A really great service for this last step is bit.ly b-i-t-dot-l-y.
Remember, the majority of sales are made when buyers are excited about a brand.
How does one excite newcomers about their brand? Start by connecting with them on a personal level. These personal relationships are most likely to occur between peers, when your audience is laughing or through expert testimonials. Running contests and offering free gifts are also great ways to enroll and excite newcomers about your brand.
When broadcasting your audio or video, taking advantage of your current web traffic is the easiest way to begin. Placing dynamic, brand-reinforced audio and video to a website, blog or landing page is an essential first step in connecting with your current web traffic. Make sure to place audio and video players above the fold to ensure maximum visibility. If your audience has to scroll or click around to locate your audio or video, you’re guaranteed to lose a percentage of potential plays.
It’s also important to note that placing audio or video on the home page of your website which plays automatically is a big deterrent. Doing so will turn many visitors away and can cause embarrassment or potentially bigger issues if your visitors are in public or at work. Instead, allow your visitors to make the decision to press play for themselves, on their own terms.
Next, bring your message to your audience. No one visits every website on a consistent basis. If you have a new audio or video to share with your audience, make sure to include links to listen or download when sending out your next email or newsletter mailing.
Social networks are another great place to have your message heard by people from all around the world. Each network is different, and so should be your method of delivery. The best way to ensure that people click through to play your content is to include written prompts in your update to watch and listen.
Here’s a really great example of a video I recently shared on my Facebook timeline. Notice how there is a direct prompt urging my friends and subscribers to watch the video? Also, if people don’t see an image or player on Facebook, they’re a lot less likely to watch or listen. Make sure your message is tailored for each specific network form maximum engagement and speaks to the specific media type.
When thinking about how to generate leads from audio and video content, we must first turn our attention to cultivating an organic discussion with those who are consuming our content. In order for your audience to engage with your content, there must be an easily accessible, familiar way to do so.
Begin on your Website or Blog by enabling comments for discussion and including social media sharing tools. Take it a step further by letting your audience share their voice by using personalized reply or testimonial lines. Through the latter of these options, you can easily let your audience hear the excitement in both your own and others voices.
Remember, as each new audio or video comes to life, make sure to engage with your friends, fans and followers by sharing your content on the social networks you’re currently active within, and make sure to ask for feedback.
After cultivating organic discussion the next step is to nurture the online relationships which sprout up along the way. The number one thing you can do to engage with your audience is to be a good listener. Do not push your own agenda first. Do follow-up when someone comments, shares your links or retweets you. It is important to respond in a timely manner and thank them for spreading the love. Always remember to return the favor when possible.
A good policy is to lead by example. Connect with your audience via their platforms and they will be infinitely more likely to do the same for you and your business. If this were a college class, it would be titled, “How to Get More Followers 101”
A great example of this is to follow twitter users who follow you. Like facebook fan pages which have liked yours. Help out in promoting events and causes which you believe in. A little interaction goes a long way!
Does audio and video in the cloud mean green? Absolutely.
In all fairness, there has been much discussion as to whether or not cloud computing is actually greener than user-side processing, mostly due to the fact that many large companies, Google, we’re looking your direction, hadn’t yet released vital energy consumption statistics. This is changing quickly and to put restless minds at ease, here’s an extremely insightful quote on the subject:
“To provide you with Google products for a month — not just search, but Google+, GMail, YouTube and everything else we have to offer — our servers use less energy per user than a light left on for three hours.”
That comes to us from Urs Hoelzle, Senior VP, Technical Infrastructure at Google
When thinking about how using audio and video in the cloud compares to earlier forms of networking and marketing of a product or service, the real advantages come to light. Here are some very simple, yet important points to consider:
Time. Less time spent equals less resources used.
Paper. Creating online information products reduces the amount of snail mail or loose literature being thrown away and saves countless other resources.
Energy. Work online from home or wherever you may be to reduce your daily impact on the environment.
In today’s presentation we’ve touched on many important facets of using audio and video to grow visibility and leads, such as:
*Creating High Quality Audio and Video Content by first identifying one’s audience and then structuring your message to target that audience.
*Branding audio and video content through incorporating brand awareness techniques and exciting newcomers about your brand.
*Broadcasting audio and video content on the Web through personal sites and blogs, in email and newsletter campaigns and on your favorite social networks
*Generating leads from audio and video content by cultivating organic discussion and nurturing the online relationships which sprout up along the way.
*We also covered why audio and video in the cloud means green along with how your own personal experiences with using audio and video can be made as green as possible.
We understand that there may still be a lot of unanswered questions at this point, and we’d like to briefly cover a few that we are often asked after giving this presentation, such as:
Q: Why would I choose to investigate a paid audio/video service when there are so many free services available?
A: First of all, question everything. The old adage that there’s no such thing as a free lunch came about for a reason. While the main benefit of using a free service is to maintain a low budget, you may be surprised by what you’re really giving up in trade for using a service for free.
Many free services inject advertising. Free services will also display your competition prominently next to or immediately after serving up your content, while paid services are more professional and offer more robust branding opportunities and feature sets.
Q: Should I wait to create my video until I can afford the costs associated with professional production quality?
A: Absolutely not! As more and more video is created and shared online, consumers consistently reinforce the fact that they are more likely to engage with their peers much faster than with over-produced videos from large corporations.
A prime example of this is YouTube star Jenna Marbles, who started with a $0 budget and scored a massive 5.3 million views within a single week of posting her video “How to Trick People Into Thinking You’re Good Looking”. Since its release, this video alone has over 28 million views. Her YouTube channel now has over 4.6 million subscribers and has received over 821 million views in total, making it the 4th most popular channel on YouTube, ever. Jenna Marbles is now a professional speaker and is estimated to be making a 6-figure income…all because she chose not to wait and to simply get her content out there for people to see.
Q: One final question we’ll leave you with is, What’s the difference between On-Demand streaming and Live streaming?
A: Live streaming requires your audience to be available at the exact moment you are streaming. If your audience isn’t available, they’ve missed the opportunity to connect with you and your content. Also, many live feeds aren’t yet easily accessible on mobile devices, which now outnumber the global population.
On-demand streaming is similar to Netflix. It’s what you want, when you want it. If your audience is busy, they can consume your content when they have the time to do so, whether it be morning, noon or night.
Thanks again for joining us for The Green Media Way: Grow Visibility and Leads Using Audio and Video!
Did you find the above video/transcript helpful? Were you inspired to use more audio + video in the cloud? Please let us know!
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