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September,
2009
Greetings
and welcome to the September edition of Servant-Leadership
Solutions. Around here, we've been in full Foodstock Mode
as we prepared for the Second Annual Foodstock Fall Festival.
The festival was held Saturday, September 12, and I left
the very next day for a two-day business trip. That's why
this issue is a little later than usual.
Last
week, as part of the lead-up to the festival, I visited
a local radio station (WITY 980AM) for a live interview.
I was very pleasantly surprised that DJ Laura Jacobson allowed
the segment to run almost twelve minutes! That's about a
year in radio time. I took along a video camera, and posted
the resulting pair of videos on You Tube. You can watch
them by clicking the links below:
WITY
Interview 1 | WITY
Interview 2
If
you'd like to know more about Danville Foodstock, please
visit the Danville
Foodstock web site.
You
may have noticed that the web site now has a Video page,
AKA LaneB TV. I am in preproduction
for a series of self-made videos similar in intent to Simple
Logic. Adding the page to the site now gives me further
motivation to begin taping and editing quickly. In addition
to Simple Logic, the page includes a sample
of videos from the Danville Foodstock collection, both to
promote the organization, and to perhaps encourage others
to involve themselves more deeply in their own communities.
This
all pertains to this month's topic, so let's move on to
some thoughts on low-cost advertising in a downturn - specifically,
how you can use videos to promote your business or organization.
Look,
Ma! I'm on You Tube!
They
say a picture is worth a thousand words. If that's true,
then moving pictures are worth ten thousand. There are several
ways to share video with others. First, you can upload them
to your own web site. Each time a viewer watches a clip,
the bandwidth is charged to your account. Second, you can
pay a third party to host your videos. This conserves your
bandwidth, but can be quite costly. Third, you can host
on a free third-party site, such as You Tube. This is the
method I use to host videos for Danville
Foodstock, Deeper
Blues, and now for this web site.
You
Tube is without doubt the largest video sharing porthole
in the world, garnering more than 100,000,000 video views
per day. Folks, we're talking more than 70,000 new video
starts per minute! This, and the fact that it's free, make
You Tube the leading candidate for hosting videos.
The
advantage of using You Tube is that, instead of accessing
only your own audience - those who visit your web site -
you have access to hundreds of millions of viewers. This
gives you an opportunity to introduce yourself to potential
new customers.
Getting
started is not as difficult as you might imagine. All you
need is a video camera, a firewire card, and a video editing
program. Windows users already have a basic editing program
- Windows Movie Maker. No, it can't do everything a full
featured program can, but it does enough to help you create
simple videos.
On
the web, content is king. So the questions is: What's your
content? The key point to remember is that your content
must be of value to your viewer, or at least of interest.
For example, while working with Eden Electronics, a bass
amplifier manufacturer, I did many product demonstration
videos. They are not prime-time quality productions, mind
you. Many of them were taped using consumer-level equipment,
and most were taped during noisy trade conferences. And
yet they have been viewed on You Tube more than 100,000
times.
Another
important aspect is to use keywords to help drive visitors
to your videos. Whenever someone watches a video on You
Tube, the page also contains a list of related videos, which
are chosen based on key words. Here, the more really is
the merrier, as long as the keywords are relevant.
Resource
- Book
The
Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools and Strategies for Business
Success
by Lon Safko and David Brake
An
all-in-one overview of social media, including You Tube,
Twitter, Facebook and hundreds more. An excellent place
to being your study of the new social media phenomenon.
Quick
Tip - Learn from your competition
Large
corporations spend a lot of time checking out their competition.
It's not just about pricing, either - although that's part
of it. The other part is to see how the competition is capturing
sales. Take a look at your direct competitors' web sites,
with an eye towards learning what they are doing that you
are not.
In addition,
look at larger companies, as there are often ways to adapt
their ideas to your smaller business. I learned in the business
of music that to reach a higher level, you had to work as
if you were already there. This meant learning from others
- whether it be bands, managers, studios, or other participants
in the field - that were operating several levels above
your current one. There is a lot to learn from companies
of all sizes; don't limit your research.
You've
Got Questions
Q:
I'm building my own business while I continue to work a
full time job. But I never seem to have enough time. What
can I do?
A:
Someone once told me that, when you are building a new business
you should follow this formula: work your job from
9-5; work your business from 5-9. For many, however,
this is not possible due to family commitments. If you share
this problem, you can still find time by getting up an hour
or two earlier in the morning (Turn off the TV and go
to bed!), or by staying up after your children go to
sleep (Turn off the TV and go to work!). You can
also carve out some time on the weekends using both techniques.
Thought
for the day
The
best ad is a good product.
Alan H. Meyer
End
of Servant-Leadership Solutions V2009, #7, a publication
of:
Lane Baldwin Servant-Leadership Solutions
My business is improving yours.™
Copyright
by Lane Baldwin Servant-Leadership Solutions, 2009. Reprinting
or republication of Servant-Leadership Solutions is prohibited
without prior approval.
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