If you’re ready to make online video part of your marketing mix, we now offer personal, one-on-one coaching to get you totally up and running with video. Work directly with Lou Bortone and add the power of video branding to your business!
If interested, please email Lou directly at lou.bortone@gmail.com. For more information on brand development coaching or “Book Yourself Solid” coaching, please visit: http://www.BrandsCoach.com.
By Lou Bortone
Are you a Twitterholic or a Twitter newbie? Are you using Twhirl to update your Twitter tweets? Whether you’re just dipping your toes into the water or diving in head first, there’s no doubt that Twitter has become the latest darling of the social networking scene. Aside from the ability to post your own, brief, 140-character updates, Twitter offers a few fun surprises. By now you may be wondering how you can use this neat, little tool to connect and communicate with the rest of the online world. Well, here are five new ways you can use Twitter (and Twhirl) to maximize your connections and boost your business…
First, a quick heads-up on Twhirl (www.twhirl.org): Twhirl is a Twitter “client,” or desktop application, that makes Twitter even easier to use. Twhirl sits on your desktop and basically mirrors the Twitter interface, so you can post updates and monitor your friends’ posts without having to log-in to Twitter. Twhirl also gives you the option of replying to your friend’s “tweets,” or sending them a direct (private) message.
As for new ways to use Twitter, consider the following:
1. Your own personal search engine – You can use Twitter like a private search engine by asking your friends and followers to point you in the right direction.
2. Instant feedback – Twitter can also act as your own, personal focus group. Just post a quick question and use Twitter to solicit surveys, opinions or ideas.
3. Links in a blink – Use Twitter to link to your latest blog posts, sites of interest, etc. Twitter will even shorten the URL for you.
4. Continue conversations – As mentioned above, Twitter and Twhirl make it easy to communicate with your friends via their direct message and individual reply tools.
5. Instant Info – Use Twitter to sign up for updates or breaking news from your favorite websites such as CNN.com. (http://twitter.com/cnnbrk)
In the spirit of Twitter brevity, I’ll leave you with a few Twitter do’s and don’ts (All less than the allotted 140 characters!)
DO:
• Find and follow people you admire. Chances are, they will “follow” you back.
• Add your photo to your profile.
• Go to Twitter’s settings tab and customize the appearance of your Twitter page.
• Set up your Twitter posts to feed directly to your Facebook status updates.
DON’T:
• Blatantly promote your own agenda or products.
• Go overboard with your links and URLs.
• Be dull!
Lou Bortone is an author and entrepreneur with extensive experience in marketing, branding and promotion. Before starting his own company, Lou was an award-winning marketing executive in the media industry. Lou served as National Promotion Manager for E! Entertainment Television, and later as Senior VP of Marketing and Advertising for Fox Family Worldwide, a division of Fox, in Los Angeles. Today, Lou helps entrepreneurs and solo professionals navigate their online businesses with services such as copywriting, video production and creative services. Sign up for Lou’s free mini audio course about using Online Video at http://www.TheOnlineVideoGuy.com.
Check it out here: http://tinyurl.com/6h2lg6
Online Video is here to stay, so it’s time for you to join the party! Fortunately, with the proliferation of free video hosting sites like YouTube, Blip.tv, iFilm and Veoh, today anyone with a camcorder and an Internet connection can produce a video and share it with the world. Best of all, you don’t need to be Martin Scorsese to create a video for the web! Online Video viewers are very forgiving…
Producing video for the Web can be a powerful marketing tool for your business. Some benefits include:
• Free or low-cost publicity and exposure for your company
• Instant access to a worldwide audience on the Web, 24/7
• The ability to use your video hosting site’s HTML code to add the video to your own Web site
Here are 4 simple steps for getting your video on the web:
1. Produce a short video “Short” is the key word here, for several reasons: First, online viewers have a much shorter attention span when watching video on the Web. Second, longer videos mean larger file sizes. Most free video hosting sites have a 100MB limit; some even less. For great, do-it-yourself, online video tools, visit Serious Magic and look at their inexpensive “Vlog It” software. You can use a webcam, an inexpensive camcorder or, my personal favorite, the ultra-cool Flipcam.
2. Output your video for online viewing
Once you’ve got your video, it still needs to be encoded and compressed to make it “Internet-friendly.” Video files can be enormous, but compression software shrinks the video file size so it plays more smoothly on the Web. Remember to save or export your file to an online-compatible size, which is 320 X 240 resolution; and compress it so it’s under 20MB, if possible. Be sure to save your video file in a format that most video sites accept, such as a Quicktime movie (.mov), a Windows movie (.wmv) or Flash (.flv) file. QuickTime Pro (for Windows or Mac) is ideal for compressing your video and transferring it to whatever file format you prefer (Windows, Flash, MPEG). Of course, if you’re using the aforementioned Flipcam, you just flip open the USB connector, and plug the videocamera directly into your computer.
3. Upload to several free video hosting sites
Now comes the fun part – You get to upload your video and share it with the world! Most of the popular video sites have relatively easy upload instructions: First, you’ll have to create an account for each site. The video hosting sites usually have a two or three step process that allows you to browse for your video file on your computer; add a title and description; and then click “upload” to post your video file. Most sites will also give you options for adding a thumbnail photo, selecting your genre or category or, in some cases, signing up for revenue sharing. I suggest that you go beyond the obvious sites like YouTube and Yahoo, and upload your video to some of the other, more feature-rich sites such as Revver, Brightcove and Stickam. Visit the individual sites for easy upload instructions.
4. Promote and share your new “online TV channel”
After you’ve uploaded your video, the video hosting sites provide the option of “sharing” your video by giving you a link/URL that you can e-mail to your contacts. Most sites also include a great feature that allows you to copy the HTML code and “embed” the video right into your own website or blog. Simply cut and paste the code provided into your own site.
Follow these four steps and you can have your own video on numerous video websites and on your own website or blog – quickly, easily and inexpensively!
Lou Bortone is an author and entrepreneur with over 20 years experience in marketing, branding and promotion. Before starting his own company, Lou was an award-winning marketing executive in the media industry. Lou served as National Promotion Manager for E! Entertainment Television, and later as Senior VP of Marketing and Advertising for Fox Family Worldwide, a division of Fox, in Los Angeles. Today, Lou helps entrepreneurs and solo professionals navigate their online businesses with services such as copywriting, video production and creative services. Sign up for Lou’s free mini audio course about using Online Video at http://www.TheOnlineVideoGuy.com.
As a former television producer and video editor, I’ve got some deep-seated beliefs about video quality. After 20 years in TV, old habits die hard. To me, a “jump-cut,” or video where the scene or frame “jumps” or cuts without a smooth transition, is the cardinal sin of video. In traditional television, jump cuts or bad transitions are simply unacceptable. That’s why we use devices like cut-aways and B-roll (background footage)
But online video is totally different. Anything goes. Quality takes a distant back seat to content. Even those dreaded jump cuts seem to be tolerated. I can’t fight back the tide any longer. I give up! I guess I was wrong to insist on broadcast quality when it comes to online video. After all, sometimes I just use a $35 web cam. And my only “real” video camera is a cool, little $150 “Flip” cam. (OK, so my video partner has a professional $15,000 camera!) Still, I’m finally willing to drop the quality argument and join the online video masses.
The thing about web video is that it’s easy and accessible – so anyone can play! The medium is the message, as sixties scholar Marshall McLuhan once said about traditional television. And when it comes to online video, only the message matters.
It’s not easy for a former TV producer to say this, but don’t worry about the quality of your online video. Just fire up your web cam and join the party. Jump in. Upload to YouTube. Put your face on facebook. Online video is guerrilla marketing at its core: Fast. Easy. Inexpensive. And driven by imagination more than technology.
Want an even cooler, easier way to send and receive video postcards at the click of the mouse? Stay tuned and watch this space for a really big announcement about a new environment that leverages the best of Web 2.0 innovations like online video. It’s going to change the way we collaborate and communicate!
Lou Bortone is an author and entrepreneur with extensive experience in marketing, branding and promotion. Before starting his own company, Lou was an award-winning marketing executive in the media industry. Lou served as National Promotion Manager for E! Entertainment Television, and later as Senior VP of Marketing and Advertising for Fox Family Worldwide, a division of Fox, in Los Angeles. Today, Lou helps entrepreneurs and solo professionals navigate their online businesses with services such as copywriting, video production and creative services. Sign up for Lou’s free mini audio course about using Online Video at http://www.TheOnlineVideoGuy.com.
My friend and colleague Wayne Kelly just released a great new audio product.
It’s “success interviews” with 52 of the best and brightest motivational gurus in the biz!
You can see for yourself here:
Check it out!
Lou
Lou Bortone, The Online Video Guy, helps entrepreneurs create compelling video for the Internet. Click over to www.theonlinevideoguy.com now and grab your FR^EE Special Report “7 Secrets to Boosting Your Business Using Online Video!”
Click here for more info..
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www.TheOnlineVideoGuy.com/home/ – Online Video Home Page
http://theonlinevideoguy.com/home/index-webcam.html – Webcam Buying Guide and Videotaping Tips E-Book
http://theonlinevideoguy.com/home/index-maxopp.html – Maximizing Opportunities with Online Video E-Course
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www.BizBoosterSeries.com – Compilation of Marketing “How-To” Reports
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Veteran television producer Lou Bortone, The Online Video Guy, has released several new products and services to help entrepreneurs produce online video for their websites or blogs.
The Online Video Guy’s signature products include a step-by-step e-course entitled “Maximizing Opportunities with Online Video,” as well as a new, low-cost e-book, the “Webcam Buying Guide and Videotaping Tips.” Both products are available online as PDF downloads at:
http://www.theonlinevideoguy.com/home/
In addition to Online Video “how-to” e-books and self-study e-courses, The Online Video Guy also offers video production and editing services, as well as design and production of full-motion video graphics. Samples are available at:
http://www.theonlinevideoguy.com/home/
For entrepreneurs who prefer one-on-one coaching and assistance in getting videos online, Lou offers monthly e-coaching programs. Visit the website or e-mail lou.bortone@gmail.com for more information.
