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Online video marketing is attractive to many businesses and individuals today for numerous reasons. Making videos and posting them online is fairly inexpensive. Plus, online videos stay online forever. If you spend the money to record once, your video could still be getting views a year from now.

In addition, social media sites and video go hand in hand and most sites encourage video posting and sharing. The viral video opportunities are endless when you use the right strategies to create and post your videos online.

In a recent article on SocialMediaExaminer.com, Amy Porterfield provides an extensive list of tips for marketing your brand through a video, especially if you’re new to video, or have been thinking about flipping on your camera for the first time. Here are several that can help you get started.

• Make your title count Just like a headline to a blog post, video titles can pull powerful traffic. There are two main reasons why the title is so important. One, a great title can instantly grab a viewer’s attention. Two, when you use the appropriate keywords in your title, you are more likely to show up on search engines when people are searching for your topic. And remember Google owns YouTube, so there’s a story connection between video and searching.

• Provide excellent content Take some time to think about your ideal viewer. What do you know that they’ll find valuable? What can you teach them? “How-to” videos are extremely successful because not only do they offer great value to your viewer, but also you’re able to showcase your knowledge and skill, thus positioning yourself as an expert. This is key as you continue to grow your brand. Also, no matter how good your content is, it won’t matter if your video is too long and you lose your viewer’s attention. Try to keep them short. In late 2009, ComScore reported that the average video was 3.8 minutes in length.

• Include your URL in your video When you edit your video, take advantage of the different editing features. One easy feature is to add a text box to your video. This is where you can display your website address and it’s a great way to get exposure.

• Always provide an HTML link When you post on YouTube, you have the option to write a short description of your video. Always start with the link you want to drive your viewers to so you don’t miss this key opportunity.

• Go beyond YouTube Most people post their videos on YouTube. In addition to this, make sure to always embed your video on your own personal website. This will increase the amount of time people spend on your website and help grow a captive audience. Also, Google’s algorithms consider how many times a video is viewed, and embedded video views you receive get added to the ‘views’ tally on YouTube. This is important for showing up in Google search results!

1. Brand yourself in a sentence. Effective brands are defined succinctly and competitively in a single sentence. The sentence should declare what's different about you and why it matters. It should be short enough to write on the back of a business card and definitive enough to describe the brand's purpose. For example, Google defines its brand this way: "Google organizes the world's information and makes it universally accessible and useful." When you are composing your brand sentence, think of how you can label or position yourself differently.

2. Get feedback on your 60-second elevator speech. Brands hire experts to create their ads, then test them to get feedback. There's an easy way for you to get feedback: Just grab a video camera and record yourself giving your elevator speech or your answer to the most popular interview question, Tell me about yourself. Then sit down and evaluate your performance. The only way to get good is to practice, make a video and rate your performance.

   Your personal commercial should elaborate on your brand sentence in an interesting way. Take another page from the branding playbook and include a memorable phrase that embodies your brand purpose, like an ad slogan does for a brand. Try an analogy: Put two different ideas together to express who you are, such as "I'm a cross between X and Y" or "I'm like A meets B.

   Even though you've practiced and videotaped your delivery, your elevator pitch shouldn't seem wooden and rehearsed. The key is to practice, but to avoid memorization so you don't sound like you're scripted.

3. Create branded marketing materials that break through the clutter. Every brand has marketing materials: advertising, a website, brochures, business cards and other collateral that are all designed with a distinctive look and feel and a message focused on the brand vision--the best brand story possible.

   You should do the same. Your marketing materials are your personal website, social media profiles, blog, business card, cover letter, email address, voicemail message and résumé.

   Make sure that all your marketing materials have a similar look (they should use the same fonts and colors, for example) and tell your best brand story. You can take another page from the branding playbook and get endorsements or testimonials in your marketing materials.

4. Develop an e-mail "Stalking" campaign. CNBC "Street Signs" Anchor Erin Burnett got her start on television after writing what she called a "stalker letter" to anchor Willow Bay. Of course, Burnett wasn't literally stalking Bay, but a clever email and letter campaign to companies and hiring managers can brand you as someone with initiative and get you noticed.

While the probability is that most of these prospective employees are on Facebook, now is the time for them to graduate to a professional social network and beyond.

In today's competitive market, a well-designed, content rich, personal website might be just the edge needed to help your son, daughter, grandchild, niece, or nephew stand out from the crowd and get a jump on fulfilling their career goals (and start paying back those student loans).
Friday, January 29, 2010 - 7:56:49 AM by Chris Bilotta

In many ways, writing your résumé is analogous to a news reporter writing a story for tomorrow’s edition. News reporters are taught to start their stories with the most important information. The first sentence, called the lead, contains the most essential elements of the story. A well-written lead can convey a lot of information. After the lead, information is presented in decreasing order of importance. Journalists call this the inverted pyramid structure – the most important information (the widest part of the pyramid) is at the top.

The inverted pyramid is great for readers. No matter what the reader’s attention span – and in the case of your résumé, it may be no more than 15-25 seconds – the inverted pyramid maximizes what matters. Picture the alternative. If news stories were written like mysteries, with a dramatic payoff at the end, then readers who broke off in mid-story would miss the point.

Journalists constantly obsess about their leads because it’s the most important investment they can make in their story. Typically, after crafting a good lead, the rest of the story flows easily. This is no different from writing your résumé. Creating a compelling lead that leaves your reader wanting more should be the main focus of your attention as you build your career story.

If writing a good lead makes everything else easy, why would a journalist fail to come up with one? It’s like getting caught not seeing the forest for the trees. It’s getting so steeped in the details that they fail to convey the core message. This problem of losing direction is so common that it has its’ own name: “Burying the lead.” Burying the lead happens when the journalist lets the most important element of the story get lost somewhere else in the story structure.

The process of writing a lead is a great metaphor for the process of writing your résumé. Your résumé should follow the inverted pyramid model and start with a well-written, riveting introduction or what I call the “Branding Summary.” A successful branding summary contains the essence of who you are, what makes you different and demonstrates the value you can deliver. It helps separate you from your competitors.

As you develop your résumé, concentrate on delivering your core message. Invest your time in creating a memorable branding summary that doesn’t bury the lead, but puts it front and center.

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