Crank Up the Volume: Video in Your Google Local Business Listing
Video is the ultimate killer app for Local businesses.. and it starts with adding video to your Google Local Business Listing.
Here are the reasons why you want to seriously consider adding video to your Google Local Business Listing, and spread your videos to other sites online.
1. Everyone has grown up in the TV, video game, multi-media World. Most of us like and prefer our information and entertainment served up in video- pictures, audio, and context.
2. Online video, while inexpensive and relatively simple to create and upload online, is technically more challenging to create and do. This narrows the playing field. Many Local businesses will not get involved with video.
3. Video has viral potential. YouTube is now the Number 2 online Search Engine behind Google, and the 4th most visited site in the U.S.
4. Online video is now more accessible with increased broadband connections, and 3 and 4G mobile access with more and more people using smart phones, such as iPhones and BlackBerrys.
Carving out your place online with video for your Local business is getting easier.
You have two simple and inexpensive ways to get started with video for your Local business.
1. Use Screen Capture software or still Photos, Audio, and Text to create a Video Slide Show.
You don’t need tons of expensive equipment- video cameras, lighting, and software to create and edit video. It doesn’t take lots of time or any special “film school skill” to crank out interesting, compelling videos. In fact, you don’t even need a video camera to create videos!
You can create effective videos that showcase your Local business. You can tell your unique Local business story simply with photos, audio, and text. With programs already available on your computer such as Power Point and Windows Media, you can pull together videos. Or, check out onetruemedia.com, stupeflix.com , or animoto.com- free online sites where you can take your photos, audio, and text and create “instant videos”.
One of the easiest Free online Screen Capture tools to use is the Picnik Firefox add-on. You can grab it here.
2. Flip Video Camera
For now under a $150 you can get an easy-to-use, take-everywhere, pocket-sized simple Flip Video Camera. With the Flip Video Camera, upload to YouTube is a simple “one-click”.
While a Flip Video Camera isn’t going to deliver professional grade quality video, it does put in your hands a simple, easy-to-use tool, to capture authentic, real moments about your Local business- your staff, demonstrating a product, describing a service, interviewing a client about their experience working with you.
Today real and authentic trumps slick and ad-agency produced. People online can smell a slick, produced sales pitch a mile away nowadays. Folks are looking to plug into a community, to be part of something important to them and their lives. Capture unguarded 30 second to 3 minute moments in your business. Share your Local business moments with your prospects and clients using video and you have a powerful way to build community and naturally draw sales towards your business.
Post Your Video to your Google Local Business Listing
To post your videos to your Google Local Business Listing, you must first upload them to YouTube.
Go to YouTube.com and set-up your account. Pick the best name possible for your YouTube Channel, your Local Business name. Make sure you complete the YouTube Profile information. You’ll be indexed and easier to find. On your YouTube Channel, you can customize colors and background to match your Local business identity. You’ll want to add keywords about your business and a link back to your website. Here’s an example of a customized Local business YouTube channel: BMW of Freehold,NJ
After you upload your videos to YouTube, simply copy and paste the video URL (website address) into your Google Local Business Listing form.
For Free Video marketing tips, and a 30 Day test drive of a site where you can syndicate (share and spread your videos far and wide) your Local business videos on the Internet, you might want to spend some time at Traffic Geyser. Traffic Geyser also has an easy to use, built-in slide-show creator. You can generate videos from audio (or an included toll-free phone number) and photo files.
The key with video is it doesn’t have to be Hollywood or TV grade quality. Lots of people get hung-up on this thinking this is what their prospects and clients expect.
It doesn’t matter if it’s good, bad, goofy, funny, or even lame. Start recording. Put your videos out there, starting with your Google Local Business Listing and have your online community spread ‘em for you.
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