Have you ever wondered about all that stuff that goes into video intros (and outros of course)?

Like…when do you use them? When do you not use them? How do you make them? What do they really do for you? Are they just a big waste of time?
Well, today you can get answers to almost all of those questions. Along the way I’ll show you both what to do and what not to do. (it was kinda fun shooting the “what not to do” part).

Speaking of questions, we had dozens of them last night on the Q&A call. I want you to understand the depth and kind of support you can expect from a BrainyVideo course. Right now our flagship program is open for enrollments and the early-bird special is active.

If you’ve been following BrainyVideo and still haven’t stepped out to grab this video tiger by the tail, you owe it to yourself to at least check it out.

This is a great way to get your questions answered every day.
http://www.videomarketingcoaches.com/abb

If you want your videos to be discovered by Google on your website, you’ve always had to create something called a video site map. But now, a change that Google is working on will not only allow your videos to be discovered, but let them be discovered everywhere, and without the sitemap.

Why This is a Gift
But before you can understand how great this is, there are two other things you need to know. First is the sheer power of YouTube. When we say things like 200 billion videos were watched online in a month, that takes into account all web properties. YouTube’s share of that is about 43.8%, but 99% of all views found on Google come from YouTube.

I know there’s Bing and there’s still Yahoo, but for your video marketing, the biggest bang for your buck is YouTube, by far. But there’s always been a big problem with YouTube in terms of what they call discoverability, the way people find your video. For one thing, you couldn’t really make a sitemap because there was no way to know where your video actually was in the vast YouTube warehouse.

Was This a Mistake?
But all of a sudden, something has changed over at YouTube and they’re not even talking about it. Over at ReelSeo, their intrepid researchers found an anomaly, something that shouldn’t have been there, namely their videos showing up in places where they should only have shown up if they had a sitemap of their video on YouTube, which is not really possible.

What they found was that Google will index your YouTube video wherever it may be found; on your website or anyone else’s website for that matter. Expect Google to make an announcement about this in the coming months. But for now, it seems that having a video sitemap for a YouTube video is no longer necessary, which greatly simplifies the process of discovering you online.

This means you can spend more time creating great content and less time fiddling with technical junk.

Gift #2 – This is Major!
But there’s more good news out of YouTube. Up until now they have been an organization that couldn’t really decide how they wanted videos to be found. They said that sharing and other social aspects of getting videos seen was their most important metric, but they didn’t act that way. They gave more priority to videos with fake views and fake links and any other fake thing that a black hat marketer could devise for gaming the system.

Well, they’ve now put a stake in the ground and said that the quality of videos and the natural sharing of those videos will, from now on, be the single most important factor in how they help people discover your videos.

Not to toot my own horn, but I’ve been yelling about this to anyone who would listen for at least the last two years. So I’m glad to see them come right out and say it.

We Have a Level Playing Field Now
These two bits of news from YouTube work together to make your life better. Now you can focus on making great content for your audience and worry a lot less about getting found.

Yes, there are still things to know about using Google to help yourself be found for the exact ideas you want to be known for. We teach those simple tactics and strategies in our classes.

But the good news is that we can now work together with YouTube and Google. They both want you to do a better job of communicating with your audience, and when you do they’ll reward you with higher visibility. And then our training will be able to help get you a first page ranking more easily.

Either way, expect video sitemaps to start being phased out over the short term, at least when your videos are hosted at YouTube.

So go make a video your audience wants to see. And if you need a little help, we’ll be here. There are some big helpful announcements coming soon, so stay tuned!

Even though white screen is mucho popularo, black screen can be very dramatic and compelling when you use it the right way. Plus there are some very cool side benefits!

It uses less room space than what you need for white screen
It uses less lighting than white screen.
You don’t need a fancy camera; sometimes not even manual controls.

There are just a few little “gotchas” to watch out for. That’s why I made this video. So now you don’t have to worry about it. You can just implement!

But please watch the video first

Just when we thought we had the quality question answered, along comes comScore to throw a monkey wrench into the works, but in a good way!

We now know what the exact relationship is between a professionally-produced video and its user-generated counterpart. Right down to the tenth of a percentage point.

We do need context, and that’s the aim of this article, so let’s define our terms first.

“Professionally-produced” means attention to quality in the branding, scripting, composition, lighting, audio, backgrounds, and on-camera performance. “User-generated” translates to a hastily shot but enthusiastic video with poor lighting and audio, no script and generally sub-standard image.

Now let’s get to the good news.

comScore finds that user-generated videos help an advertiser get far more mind share than by just using a professionally-produced video. How much more? Well, let’s break the numbers down here.

The pro “how-to” video gave a 24.7 point “lift” in choice of that product, while the user-generated video did 18.7 points. Pro video wins hands-down, right? Well, not so fast.

When the pro and amateur videos were used together in the same campaign, they provided a 35.3 point lift for that product and 28 points for the entire line.

How does this work? Well, here’s the really useful part of the study. What they found was that the pro video was more believable in perceived feature benefits; in other words, when the information about what the product does and how it works came from the company itself.

The user-generated videos had more credibility when it came to verifying product claims, such as superiority and convenience.

You might say simply that the company gives you the nouns and the customer gives you the adjectives.

So how do you produce with this information?
Well, I’ve been telling you for a while now that when you want to reach your viewers with good information, make your video the best way you can. You’ll simply be more believable.

What this study also proves is that you don’t want to deploy a user-generated video to sell anything. It’s kind of a waste of effort.

Roughly translated, this means that when you sell, make a nice cleanly-produced video, and leave out the superlatives like “we’re the bestest you ever saw!”

Leave that to your clients and customers.

How would you like a way to learn anything quickly, including video, while defeating the demons that would like to keep you in the dark?

Well, all you have to do is know the difference between “overwhelm” and overwhelm. Not super clear yet? I don’t blame you.

This video should make it clear…

What You Can Learn From NASA About Moving Your Tribe to Action

“Things are tough all over,” so they say. Most of us deal with this economy by ignoring it. But there’s a better way. It has the benefit of being conscious and open and will position YOU as a leader. Not surprisingly, it requires video.

Please watch this special presentation of the BrainyVideo Broadcast and learn how to take a stand for your community and help lead them out of the mess which poor management at the highest levels of our world-wide culture has left us to deal with.

And please let me know if you agree or disagree. Is it better to address it or ignore it?

Google ranking secrets are closely-kept by Google, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do some pretty simple things with our videos to get them to the top of Google’s search listings.

It all has to do with knowing what you really want and a clever use of long-tail keywords.

To find out exactly how to make your videos rank highly, even without a huge number of views, just keep watching!

It isn’t often that I push myself out of my own blog, but today I’ve got two exciting things to tell you about two extraordinary friends who are about to impact your life in a wonderful way (if you’ll allow).

First up, Danny Iny of Firepole Marketing is doing a webinar for us on Thursday. It will be worth your time, I can promise you that.

If you’re unsure if you should join the webinar, please have a look at this page:

http://www.firepolemarketing.com/blog/2012/02/08/marketing-questions/

The first thing you’ll see is the 3 teaching videos Danny made for his new program, Marketing That Works. You’ll enjoy those videos very much. And right below that, you’ll see the amazing blog post where Danny answered 37 questions he received from his readers in 37 different videos.

Watch two or three because that will help you decide if Danny is the kind of person worth learning from.

If you see what I’ve come to know – that he’s not only knowledgeable and successful at what he does – but a great teacher, sincere and caring, then make sure to join us for the webinar on Thursday.

Feel free to send me some questions and I’ll get as many of them to Danny as possible.

This is a great opportunity. Go for it.

Register for the webinar here:

http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/?Clk=4621209

(There will be cool surprises, too!)
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Second item is a major announcement!

As you may know, our approach to video marketing is to help you present a full and clearer picture of the value and uniqueness you offer. Underlying that is our deep desire to help people with a bold vision of the future communicate that to a wider world.

There aren’t many other video marketing people I know of who share this vision. That’s why it gives me great pleasure to introduce you to my friend Lon Naylor. Lon’s mission dovetails perfectly with mine, so I’m delighted to bring him on as a guest faculty member at Video Marketing Coaches.

Lon’s goal is to “Rid the world of lousy Camtasia marketing videos.” His successful ScreencastProfits.com membership site and product set the standard for high quality, highly effective sales and marketing videos using Camtasia and other top tools. He’s also
worked side-by-side with the biggest names in the video marketing space.

Lon’s first lesson on our public site is a tour-de-force on translating Video Geek into Simple English. This is a wonderful lesson in the basics. If you’ve ever been confused by some of the technical concepts in this area, Lon’s multi-part lesson will set you right.

Take a look:

Lon Naylor teaches simple video settings

http://www.videomarketingcoaches.com/2012/02/video-terms-demystified/

Oh, and leave a comment so we know what kind of content you’d like to see from Lon when he visits.

Thanks guys, and don’t forget to sign up for the webinar on Thursday!

http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/?Clk=4621209

What the heck is the “Chain of Conversion”?

We’re breaking from my videos today because I would like to send you to someone else’s. Stay tuned…
In marketing we get exposed to all sorts of crazy ideas, most of which don’t work…or do if you’re a one-armed Armenian circus clown who works with poodles. It’s all so one-off and dressed up to make it look like it will work for everyone.

That’s why I like video. Nowhere to hide. (Heh) But I digress.

There’s a fellow from Canada who’s been on my radar for several months and whose approach is a gentle shot in the arm I’m always on the lookout for. I’ve watched him come from a place of doing OK to exploding his business in just about a year. And we’ve become buddies, even though he’s been dubbed “The Freddy Krueger of Blogging.” (Honestly, I’m not sure how The Vanilla Chai Video Guy would fare going up against the Freddy Krueger of Blogging. So I’m glad he’s on my side.

Anyway, back to this chain of conversion thing. I thought maybe it was just another way of saying marketing funnel. Boy, was I wrong. Before I tell you what it is, let me introduce Danny Iny (pronounced eeny), the creator of this cool concept.

Danny is the proprietor of Firepole Marketing. They call it Marketing That Works. What he and his partner do is take you by the hand and walk you through the Chain of Conversion and other common sense ideas that remove the overwhelm brought on by too much information and not enough strategic thinking.

Such a simple benefit. And so profound.

So what’s Chain of Conversion? It refers to the scads of numbers you’ll want to categorize in terms of who actually becomes your client. So imagine the following scenario:

(from Danny’s blog)

5 sales for every 25 presentation is a 20% conversion rate.
25 presentations for every 200 prospects is a 12.5% conversion rate.
200 prospects for every 500 leads is a 40% conversion rate.
500 leads for every 1,000 strangers is a 50% conversion rate.

That’s a mass of numbers that can get really complex, right? Well, this is where Danny comes in. He shows you how to look at these numbers to simply and clearly find the best way to improve your results without killing yourself by trying to do too much or thinking in circles while not getting anywhere.

But here’s why I really, really, really want you to listen to Danny. He’s using video; effectively for the first time. And I think he deserves some encouragement. You can give it to him and get a lovely Valentine’s Day gift for your trouble. You see, Danny has just created 37 videos where he answers subscriber questions about marketing. 37 videos!

Holy smokes! The videos are remarkable for their pithiness. They’re a little rough, but he gets right to the point and that’s great, because once you start you’re not going to want to stop. It’s like opening a box of chocolates.

So why do I want you to see what Danny has to say? Because he’s got a big heart and he’s making a difference. I want you to be able to make a difference. Ipso facto I think some of what Danny is doing will rub off on you; help you get out there and use your video expertise to with his simple concepts.

Danny’s going to give us his best advice in a webinar on Thursday February 23 at 9PM EST. He does have a program opening at the end of the month, which is why all the hoopla. I want to introduce you to him because I love his uncomplicated and easy to implement approach, and I’m really excited to introduce you to him in this webinar. I’m confident you’ll have a number of little explosions of insight and that you’ll be able implement right away.

Hope to see you at the webinar.

Authentic Video Marketing. What does that mean? Is it just another gobbeldy-gook statement? Not at all. It’s nothing less than the key to getting everything you can out of video. It’s the secret to connecting with your ideal prospects. And it’s the cure for the common video.

Authentic video marketing means being yourself, but it means much more than this. In this video, you’ll go down the winding path that leads to clarity in what you’re doing on video and how you’re doing it.

Along the way you may recognize a few characters. One of them may even be yourself.

Authentic video marketing is not just a nice-sounding statement. It’s going to be a major element of your success in 2012 and beyond!