A Time Before Blogs

Before blogging, many people would never have seen themselves publishing content for the web. You’d probably get objections like these:

• I’ve never written for a book, magazine or newspaper.
• I have no connections or expertise to get my content on the web.
• My writing style is too casual

All of those objections went out the window with the advent of blogging. Now anyone can open up a blog and share their thoughts with the world without any previous publishing experience. Sites like Blogger, WordPress, Tumblr, Moveable Type, etc. removed the technical barriers. And when it comes to blogging, many people prefer a more casual, personable writing style.

Thanks to blogging anyone can be a web publisher!

Video Blogging is Blogging + Video

Today I believe people have similar objections when it comes to online video:

• I don’t have an expensive video camera or production studio
• Online video is too difficult or time consuming
• I have a weird face

While I can’t really help you on the third one, the other objections just aren’t true. You don’t need expensive equipment or an outrageous studio in your home, and you can create compelling video content just as quickly (if not quicker) than text content.

Video blogging is more about having a conversation with your audience than fancy special effects. So if you’ve ever had a conversation with someone (please tell me you have), you can video blog.

Getting Started with Video Blogging

I started following the video blog of Gideon Shalwick after noticing that he was linking to my YouTube channel (a great way to get my attention). Gideon pumps out helpful video content that not only engages his audience but keeps people coming back week after week.

If you are interested in learning more and possibly starting your own video blog, I’d highly recommend downloading Gideon’s free rapid video blogging guide.

Gideon’s ideas will take what you think about video blogging and turn it upside down (or right side up since he’s from Australia). He even outlines the basic equipment and software that he uses, how to draw viewers back to your site, and so much more. I just finished reading it myself, and I’m fired up. Check it out for yourself and let me know what you think:

Free Rapid Video Blogging Guide

Full Disclosure: This session will be great.

On Thursday 7/22 from 6-8pm, Resolution Media will be hosting an evening of free food, drinks and engaging discussion at the Foundation Room in the Chicago House of Blues (329 N. Dearborn St., Chicago, IL).

Come hear Matt Spiegel (CEO of Omnicom Media Group Digital), David Gould (President of Resolution Media) and Dave Tan (VP of Product Development & Innovation at Resolution Media) discuss specific ways to maximize your digital marketing efforts across this ever-changing landscape.

Resolution Media will also be giving away a new iPad to one luck guest.

If you’re interested, please email your name, company, title, email address and phone number to Kiley Peters at KPeters@ResolutionMedia.com to receive an invitation (and tell them vidiSEO sent ya!). Please note there is limited availability.

…and here they are in an in-video ad (on one of my videos):

You can’t go anywhere on YouTube without seeing Tony Hayward’s mug. That’s because one month ago (May 18th 2010) BP opened up a YouTube account and has since dumped 55 videos onto the tubes in the past two weeks.

YouTube and Reputation Management

YouTube is great for reputation management. When Domino’s Pizza wanted to respond to some booger centric employee made videos, President Patrick Doyle took to YouTube to keep the situation in check a mere 7 hours after the offending video went public.

Their quick response was crucial, but the important detail that many people don’t take into account is that Domino’s had an active YouTube channel for over a year before using it for reputation management purposes. That means they actually had real subscribers and friends that were fans of their brand.

BP, on the other hand, entered YouTube with no subscribers, friends, or existing relationships and relied on paid advertisements to quickly grow their subscriber base:

Sure, it looks good to be one of the most subscribed to channels on YouTube, but when I checked last week I couldn’t find a single video above a one star rating:

The next thing I noticed was that BP had disabled comments on every single video they uploaded. They didn’t want an open dialog, they wanted a platform to force feed videos to the masses. That might work on television, but that isn’t how YouTube rolls.

BP Comes Clean on YouTube

I was all ready to discuss how BP doesn’t get it when it comes to online video, but when I revisited BP’s channel today I noticed a few welcome changes. The first thing I noticed was that comments have been turned on on all the videos I checked. They also took a play out of my Community Pillar and began responding to comments:

I know it’s a canned message, but it’s still better than just letting comments hang there (or not allowing comments at all) and it appears to have an impact on the rating of the video as well:

So it looks like BP is quickly learning how to use their YouTube channel in more effective ways. The real test will be if they continue to upload videos after this spill is cleaned up. Be sure to check back in 10 years !

YouTube Reputation Management Takeaways

• Don’t wait for a crisis to open a YouTube account
• Disabling comments hurts your reputation more than nasty comments
• Actively respond to comments when appropriate

From here you can add up to 7 clips into the time line. To edit a clip down, simply hover over it and click on the scissors icon:

This pulls up the video you selected along with a timeline and two bars. Drag the bars to the in and out points that you want to show and then click save:

Once you have your clips the way you want them you can add some music to your creation:

YouTube may show ads on your video depending on the music you select. Then simply title your new creation and hit publish:

Pretty cool stuff. I actually hope this catches on because I’d love to see the feature set grow. Right now you can only have 7 clips, so if you want a bunch of fast cuts you’re out of luck. Also, if you decide to add music to your new video, it completely replaces the original audio instead of layering it in. Lastly, there are no transition effects or titles, so you’re stuck creating very simple remixes.

That being said, I kicked the tires a bit and created a little remix of my video SEO pillars set to the tune of P.I.M.P… cuz I’m a Mutha F@$*in C.M.P.C:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qwq3KTYM-F8

UPDATE

I received an email from YouTube with the following message:

We regret to inform you that the audio in your AudioSwapped video My Mutha Fu@$*n CMPC is no longer licensed for use on YouTube. As a result your video has been muted or blocked.

Well ain’t that a bunch of bull.

Here are the specs so far:

• full 720p at 30 frames per second
• tap to focus
• built-in video editing for trimming your clips on the phone (iMovie)
• LED flash
• One touch sharing

Some really exciting news for video content producers since you can now shoot high quality videos, edit them, and share them all from one device ! There isn’t anything on the market that can compete with this combination of features.

My question: Will the iPhone 4 work with external mics plugged into the device ? If that’s the case. I’m dropping my current cell phone provider AND Flip video camera. No wonder AT&T got rid of their unlimited data plan. Online video could really bring their network to its knees (or further to its knees)

I’ve already talked about the benefit of using captions as part of my Meta-Data pillar of video optimization, and proved that YouTube captions are used in ranking videos on YouTube. Now with interactive transcripts, YouTube is making the content inside your video even more accessible (and searchable).

Clicking on the interactive transcripts button pulls up a teleprompter like interface that automatically scrolls along with your video as it is being watched:

You can click on any line of the transcript and be magically transported to that part of the video, and you can even do an old fashioned Ctrl-F to search for a particular word or phrase to jump to. You can check it out yourself in my video SEO presentation.

So far this feature doesn’t appear on auto-transcribed videos, so if you want an interactive transcript you’ll need to upload one yourself. Thankfully, YouTube makes adding a transcript a breeze. All you need is a text file with the video’s text and Google’s speech to text technology times the text with the audio automagically.

What Do You Think?

Let me know what you think in the comments below !

Related Articles on the Web

• YouTube’s Interactive Transcripts (googlesystem.blogspot.com)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBYFZuOfmCY

I’m kicking off today’s video marketing news with the exciting announcement that I’ve hit the 400 subscriber mark this week.

For those viewers who don’t have a YouTube account I recommend checking out my 3 Reasons to Open a YouTube account …even if you don’t make videos.

Next, I go through the latest videos I’ve uploaded this week which include:

A vidiSEO Welcome

How to Edit Videos

Google Webmaster Central

Lastly, I let everyone know that my video SEO YouTube group is officially open and can be found at http://youtube.com/group/videoseo
If you’re interested in learning more about video SEO and would like to join in on the conversation, please join.

Thanks for watching !
If you like my videos, be sure to subscribe. If you don’t, then I don’t need you in my life.

Have a great weekend !

Matt

Here is an amazing service I used to learn fast and edit even faster:

Disclosure Policy

The Moderator Module was previously used for interviews with President Obama and the Canadian Prime Minister, but are now available for all YouTube users !

What can you use YouTube Moderator for ? Here is the scoop from YouTube:

Here’s how it works: You set the parameters for the dialogue, including the topic, the type of submissions, and the length of the conversation. Watch as submissions get voted up or down by your audience, and then respond to the top-voted submissions by posting a video on your channel. The platform operates in real-time, and you can remove any content that you or your audience flag as inappropriate. You can also embed the platform on your own website or blog.

To start using YouTube Moderator on your YouTube Channel, head on over to the ‘Modules’ tab of the edit channel bar and activate Moderator:

I’ve set one up myself at YouTube.com/vidiSEO that allows visitors to my channel to leave a question about YouTube:

After complaining about YouTube Bulletins not allowing viewers to respond back, YouTube Moderator get the job done.

One feature I’d like to see incorporated would be the ability to only allow subscribers to participate in a Moderator module. Right now anyone with a YouTube account can participate. Still, I think this is a cool new feature and I’m excited to see how the community at large will use it.

Related articles on the web…

• Google Moderator on YouTube Enables Real-Time Feedback from Your Audience (searchenginewatch.com)
• YouTube Integrates Google Moderator (techcrunch.com)
• YouTube Adds Real-Time Discussion Support with Google Moderator (readwriteweb.com)
• YouTube Launches Platform for Crowdsourcing Suggestions (mashable.com)