There is a very important piece of the video marketing opportunity that people tend to overlook. YouTube, Vimeo, Viddler and all the other video portals can do wonders for your brand over and above the vast social media exposure opportunities.
What can they do?
Establish a direct connection with you. I had a meeting the other day with a healthcare company where we agreed to create a pilot program to, among other things, start creating video bios for their doctors. This may appear on the surface to be a mildly important project goal. However, if you take it from the perspective of creating a comfort zone for your company’s prospects while they are in the purchase process, it takes on a whole new meaning.
Beyond the potential of getting you into the search engine rankings when using the video portals correctly, and beyond portraying your expertise in a very direct and personal manner, is the opportunity to actually start to establish a connection.
So many times when I am speaking in front of an audience, people will come up an tell me that they feel like they already know me. Why? Because I have made really great use of video on my websites. More than text content, an audio file or a picture, a video can actually represent body language, personality, warmth, compassion or a host of other really important attributes about you are others in the company.
For a primary care doctor, it is common practice to conduct “meet and greets” to get to know that doctor better before making your selection. Video can be the next best thing to actually meeting the person. And that is what social media is all about. Making connections and relationships. So take advantage of this great new medium. The production quality doesn’t have to be equal to Hollywood. In fact, that would loose authenticity and integrity. You need nothing more than a cheap hand-held camera from Costco with a video mode and some good lighting near a window.
Make video a bigger part of what you do.
And then put it front and center on all your sites. If done well, with an engaging headline, it will also engage your visitors from the start! Just remember that your bio or any other type of video that you create must let your personality shine through as well as answer that one important question for prospects…”What’s in it for me?”
