Online Video Marketing: A Great Way to Educate Professional Tradesmen

Sometimes you’re better off using video to get your point across. It lets you demo your product and even have customer testimonials telling their peer groups how good your product is. Video works!

This may not be a surprise to some of you, but are you taking advantage of those videos by doing video marketing? Video marketing places them online, and hopefully you are doing a social media program that encourages posting videos.

One advantage of putting them online is that they will be there forever and will keep generating leads because of your key words and tags.

Forrester Research found that videos were 50 times more likely to show up on the first page organically than traditional texts.

I recently read a post from Amy Porterfield in Social Media Examiner, 16 Tips for Successful Online Video Marketing, that outlined some helpful hints when doing online video marketing. Here are 6 quick tips:

  1. Make your title count – make sure appropriate key words are in the title
  2. Content is king – make sure you give them good stuff
  3. Include your URL in video – give them a way to contact you
  4. Don’t forget branding – make sure your logo is prominently displayed on the screen
  5. Always provide an HTML link – lead with a link to where you want to drive them
  6. Go beyond YouTube – embed it in your website and blog

Amy also gives you 10 ways to supercharge your videos.

Don’t miss an opportunity to extend your credibility by using online video marketing.

If you like this article, you might like, Why Online Video Attracts Professional Tradesmen.

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Social Media Marketing Continues to Grow: Great Way to Reach the Professional Tradesmen

Social media continues to grow to no one’s surprise, and both B-to-B and B-to-C are utilizing this medium at a higher rate than ever before.

Different industries are adopting social at different rates and many haven’t positioned it as one of their top priorities to reach their customers.

I recently read a post by Amy Porterfield from Social Media Examiner, 3 New Studies Prove Social Media Marketing Growth that has some interesting information, a lot of which can relate to those of us trying to reach the professional tradesmen.

Here are some highlights:

Small business doubles social media adoption – from 12 to 24%, and 20% are actively using social media as part of their business strategy.

  • 75% have a company page on a social networking site
  • 69% post status updates or articles of interest on social media sites
  • 57% build a network through a site such as LinkedIn
  • 54% monitor feedback about the business
  • 39% maintain a blog
  • 26% tweet about areas of expertise
  • 16% use Twitter as a service channel

Nearly 20% of marketing dollars will go to social over the next 5 years.

  • Currently businesses allocate approximately 6% to social
  • Next year, they expect to increase it to 10%
  • And 18% over the next 5 years

A top goal of marketers: Master social media.

  • Top challenge is to identify ROI
  • 72% of companies are planning social initiatives in 2010
  • Most initiatives will be done internally
  • When selecting a vendor for social media, they look for those who influence over a target market and have networks already established

So what are your thoughts? Does your company fit any of these profiles? What are you doing new in social for 2010?

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How a B-to-B Marketer Can Make Good Use Out of a Facebook Fan Page

Facebook fan pages are the current rage. That’s all well and good as long as you have purpose other than “everybody has one.”  Just because you build it, it doesn’t mean they will come. You need to have a plan just like everything else!

I was reminded recently of that very fact when I read a post by Amy Porterfield, How to Create a Facebook Fan Page Editorial Guide, in which she outlines both defining a purpose and a guide to developing editorial.

Here are some highlights:

Defining your purpose:

  • Don’t do it because everyone else is.
  • How will your page be different from your web site? The more interactive, the better it will be.
  • What sets you apart from your competition?

Suggestions for creating editorial guidelines:

  • What’s your strategy? Is it going to be daily? Will it be in the morning?
  • What’s your content? Are they all going to be original posts or will some be guest posts?
  • Formatting – what will they look like?
  • Engagement – what’s your plan to respond to those who come back with comments?
  • Set rules – make a policy on what will and what will not be posted in regards to comments.

One of my favorite fan pages in the B-to-B space where we play is that on Snap-on Tools. They have over 44,000 fans and they do it right. They promote new products, upcoming events and even offer incentives for fans to buy their tools. Wouldn’t it be nice that every time you posted something on your fan page, all your fans were notified?

Can you share some other B-to-B pages that are doing it right?

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