I was recently reading, in the NY Times, about a small business owner- Ed Davis. He wanted to change the direction his California based manufacturing company, Ceilume was heading. He had started it out as a custom job shop and wanted to put his energies into becoming a maker of vinyl ceiling tiles. His plan was to begin selling directly to consumers. He also wanted to change how people thought about ceiling tiles. He wanted to show how vinyl ones were much different.

So how do you go about changing a market’s perception ?

He decided to try online video.

So for several years, his company has been producing videos. The best known place to put videos is on YouTube – with these videos embedded in the company Web Site, customers, by the droves, have been able to search for them on the Web.  They have created videos of their products and have created step-by-step how-to instructions. This has turned into a very low cost form of advertising.

Online video has become the number one option for many businesses.  Many small and medium businesses, 10 years or so ago, had first created a competitive edge by putting up a Website that would introduce prospective customers to their products and services. Many could not afford the cost prohibitive advertising that big businesses did and this gave them a way to attract customers and talk directly to them on a large scale.

So what is the next step in the evolution of low cost, online advertising?

Many have come to realize that, although YouTube is well known, it is not the best place to put your videos. Have you ever gone there to look at a video? Just to the right of any video you have on there….is a whole line of videos from your competitors! I don’t mean just competitors in the sense that they sell the same thing. Often it is your competitors from the standpoint of time and attention.

For example:  I once was directed, by a motivational speaker, to check out her video on YouTube. I went there….her video popped up on cue, but…….before it started playing, my eye was grabbed by the video in the column next to her video. In this thumbnail of a video was a woman- scantily dressed in a bright Santa outfit!  I don’t remember exactly what the title said, but it was something like Naughty Santa…blah, blah, blah.  Now, as hard as I tried, and I tried real hard, my eye kept stealing over to that Santa thumbnail. That poor motivational speaker had no chance!

Did you also know that if you put your videos on YouTube, that they are no longer yours?  They become the property of YouTube and they can put them wherever they want and do with them what they want.

So, if it isn’t YouTube, then where?

Many businesses are coming to the realization that the best choice for them, is to create a “video channel” that is all theirs. When people come looking for them and land on their videos- that is all  they will see. Just your video content on your own video channel. No competition from anyone else!

So what should I have on my video channel?

The first thing a business/individual has to do is to sell itself. Don’t come across “salesy” or make it obvious that you are trying to push a product. Offer something of value that your prospective customers can use or learn about that will move them along in your  selling process.

Several ways to do this are:

• Give them information on how to do something. Whether it is putting up ceilings themselves or how to make a birdhouse- it doesn’t matter. Create videos that demonstrate this. Find something that goes along with what you do, or sell, and give them some information. Educate them.

• Show them the products that will help them get the results they want. If you have shown them the “how”, it is time to show them the “what”.  What type of products do they need?  Obviously, it is your product they need. If you can make it easy for them, through the use of video, to know what the product looks like- they will have very little resistance to using yours. Most people want to keep things simple, if possible.

According to Mr. Davis, more Ceilume customers place orders without requesting samples because video helps them find what they want.  At Ceilume, video helps customers choose among 30 different styles of ceiling tiles. Ceilume, a 40-person company that has about $5 million a year in sales, produces its “Ask the Ceiling Tile Guy” videos for little expense with internal tech staff and Mr. Davis as narrator. The videos have attracted more than 500,000 views, and Mr. Davis says he believes that video has been a crucial factor in increasing sales 15 percent a year.
*Figures stated in the NY Times

• Have your customers send you videos and display these on your video channel. They can be videos of your customers using the product…or even more powerful, videos of your customers telling about the products in the form of testimonials !

If you can create an atmosphere that your video channel is a place to come for information and solutions, it will attract viewers who will be much more likely to buy from you. Your conversion rate will go up considerably.

And that…is the name of the game.

Attract, Convert and Retain.

Contact us to learn more about how simple it is to set up your own, personally branded video channel.

by Adrian Schleis

MyvideoTalk announced a new product at their first annual conference in Las Vegas on April 16, 2011.  It was a product that many of us could benefit from every single work day, or meeting day, or project day, or “get-together”….a video conferencing tool known as MyVideoBoardroom.

The video conference tool can host up to 16 attendees in high quality video and audio, with other cohesive conferencing tools like Desk Share, Computer Share, File Sharing, Polls and Surveys, White Board Tools, and more.

With more and more online businesses being created every day, and the need to work from home and still develop relationships, personal video branding has never been more important.  The MyVideoBoardroom tool makes it simple to maintain relationships; business or personal, and do it with “personal branding” style!

Enjoy the video and let’s create your own Video Boardroom experience. Contact us to invite you over for a Boardroom tour or a Live Video Broadcast  today.  We can be on a video conference with you in minutes!

If you have been using video branding (and who isn’t?), to set yourself apart from the crowd- then you probably have noticed, when you post to your FaceBook page, that not all your friends and fans are seeing them.

I think you’ll all agree that we have worked too hard to acquire our friends and fans to be leaving them unaware of our offerings.

FaceBook friends have been circulating a tip that I thought would be a benefit to all of you:

Have you noticed that you are only seeing Facebook updates in your news feed from the same people lately? Have you also noticed that when you post things like status messages, photos and links, the same circle of people are commenting and everyone else seems to be ignoring you?

Don’t worry, everyone still loves you and nobody has intentionally blocked you. The problem is that a large chunk of your friend list can’t see anything you post and here’s why:

The “New Facebook” has a news feed setting that by default is automatically set to show ONLY posts from people who you’ve recently interacted with or interacted the most with (which would be limited to the couple of weeks just before people started switching to the new profile). So in other words, unless your friends commented on one of your posts within those few weeks or vice versa – you are now invisible to them and they are invisible to you!!

HERE’S THE FIX: On the homepage click the “Most Recent” title on the right of the Facebook Newsfeed, then click on the drop down arrow beside it and select “Edit Options”, click on “Show Posts From” and change the setting to “All Of Your Friends and Pages” (you can also access the “Edit Options” link at the very bottom of the facebook homepage on the right)

The good news is: now you can now view all of your friends and fans again. The bad news is: YOU ARE STILL INVISIBLE to a large portion of your list. You must get the word out to ALL of your friends and fans they can read the post and adjust their settings.

You can put this message on your Facebook  page by sharing it here with the Share button below, tweet about it here, bookmark this  blog post or send out an email (a video hopefully) in hopes of reaching them all.

If you haven’t made the leap to video branding yet, and know it is time, you can check out the tools that we are currently using by attending a Live Video Broadcast that showcases the video branding tools.  Contact Us.

I hope this helps keep you in touch with all your friends and fans.

Your MyVideoTalk Team

MyVideoTalk is a 9 year old company that hasn’t launched yet.  Yes, you heard me right……MyVideoTalk already has created 20+ millionaires in several countries overseas but has yet to officially launch in the US.

It’s all about to change April 16th when:

MyVideoTalk rocks Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas at the first MyVideoTalk National Convention in the US.

Big News!!: Just in time to celebrate the Launch and First National Convention…..the Business Builder package has a $100 Discount for the next 15 days!

The Business Builder Discount will only be in place for a short while and then back to the regular price.  You can take the extra $100 savings and join us at the Vegas Convention while the ticket is just $99!  What a sweet deal!

(You already know that the reps that show up for convention are dedicated, motivated, and make the cash…..)

If you haven’t seen a Live Video Broadcast yet, contact us (our contact info is all over this blog) and we’ll set you up to watch with your feet up at the best time for you.  Watch in Hi-Def soon and save $100!!