Video is one of the best ways to get people’s attention. The combo of doing something you are passionate about and then filming it, can be rock solid in getting others to feel what you do about your creative gift.
Recently, I ventured out as an painter after not painting for at least 5 years. I was nervous as I have been a business coach and an online marketing consultant for the last 2 years. But the beauty of social media is that when you are authentic, it supports you… even if it means you are multi-passionate.
I filmed my artistic journey on this day as I painted. I turned on the camera and just let it roll as I let my creativity pour onto the canvas. Once I was done, I produced the following video:
Here are a few key points that make this a “marketing” video vs. just a video of me painting. Turning it into a marketing video means that once I send it out into the virtual world, I can have it “work for me” by driving people that like what I do to my website.
1. Marketing Video must be shorter than 5 mins… truly, it should be no longer than 1-2 mins if you are posting on Facebook or Twitter. If it is a family video, yes… go ahead and make it an hour. But besides your parents, most people don’t really want to sit through an hour made video (not even your friends!)…. unless you are offering popcorn and drinks!
2. It should be fairly fast moving. I am talking about the pace of your video. If you are speaking, cut to the points where you transform people’s hearts… if it is your craft or skill, then make it move quickly and have great music behind the video. The beat has to be quick and captivating.
3. Share a little bit about your inspiration. For me, it was DEFINITELY the people of Prince George (the city I live in). Sharing what has inspired you to do the work you do, gives people emotional “handles” to hold onto. Be vulnerable and share what’s inspired you.
4.Have a call to action. I just decided on Thursday that I was going to venture back into my art…that means I haven’t had time to really thinking about what I am “creating”. But I do know that the key components of building a tribe of followers is to engage with them, so leading them onto my facebook page is my first goal. So when I put this video together, my “call to action” was to have people join me on my facebook fan page Shauna Mae Artist and “Like it”. Click here if you want to check out the page.
5. Create the funnel. When people go from my video to the facebook page, my hopes is that they will surf around and stumble upon the link to my website. Even this early in the game, I made a VERY simple website to capture email addresses of people that might want to stay in the loop about my art. It is obviously best to have a “free gift” but I’m in the early stages… this means, imperfect action is better than no action at all. I set up a way to collect email addresses right on my website. To find out more about this funnel, you can download a free “marketing map” by clicking here.
6. Keywords and Posting on YouTube – Posting your video on YouTube and making sure you have the keywords attached. YouTube is one of the top 3 places online that people search for info. You want to be there! Keywords are words that I would like my video to come up under when people search. This video was painted at the Summerfest event in Prince George. I tagged the video with “Summerfest Prince George BC”, so next year, when someone Googled “Summerfest in Prince George”… it will hopefully appear. I also tagged it with the name of my city and what I do eg. “artist in Prince George”… this is important if you want to be known in your city. When you upload your video, you will be asked to put these in there. Make sure you put your name in there too.
7. Facebook- It is a MUST to have a Facebook Business page if you are a creative entrepreneur and especially if you are an ARTIST. I hate saying MUST… because I guess there are other ways of promoting yourself. And yes, there are some businesses that don’t need to be on Facebook. But as an artist, having a facebook business page means that people that aren’t even on facebook have a place they can search for you. For the other 700 million people on Facebook, it is the easiest way to be where the majority of people “hang out” online. Since sharing my video online, I had 4 other business pages share the video on their page. That kind of publicity is priceless. To read more about the benefits of facebook business pages (instead of personal pages), you can click here to get an article I wrote for one of my other sites.
8. Twitter – Last, but definitely not least… Twitter… my favorite place to send videos out to work for me. Twitter is the best way to get NEW leads. What I mean is people that have no connection to you or your friends. Now if you are new to Twitter, you need to make sure more people that don’t know you decide to follow you. Because once you are done your video, sending it out into the tweeting world is the best way to drive new business to your FB page that will in turn drive it to your website. I’m just in the process of finishing up a course that will be available very soon on how to use Twitter effectively for your business.. let me know if you want access. It will help you wrap your brain around the Tweeting World if you are not already hooked!
Don’t underestimate the power of Video. It is the closest way you can be right there with your potential clients. Post any questions you have below or better yet, if you have videos to share!
