Can Your Business Benefit From Buy-Local - YES, learn how

A customer mentioned to me today that she wasn’t sure if her business could benefit from our Buy-Local Video Profiles. She is a member of a local chamber – one that is a Buy-Local affiliate. Her thought was that since her work is not done in the area why place the video on the chamber website.

In a nutshell here is what I told her – first and foremost the videos we produce need to be on your website –One placed prominently on the home page, then others through out your site. The key is to keep people on your website as long as you can. Video does this.

Second, look at the big picture – place your videos on other video sharing websites like youtube, google video and more. We have just bought into a site that allows us to take one video and place it on a number of video sharing websites. Bottom line, I do not care how they find you, just that they do.

Third, the same video is placed on the local chamber sites that you are a member of. In her case she is well known in the area, people know her and her business. They can direct prospects to the chamber site to view the video(s). Again, the strategy is to place the video in multiple places on the web.

Fourth, the videos should be put on your social networking sites (facebook, myspace etc) – show your friends. Have them show others, this is referred to as video sharing. This is how the game is played.

Fifth, are you a member of other groups or associations? See if you can place the video on their site as well.

Sixth, lets not forget DVD’s. Ideal for trade shows, handing out to prospects, mailers.

Seventh, have an ipod, iphone etc. Place your videos on your hand held devices and you have them ready to go for your next sales presentation.

And eighth, the video can also be used for TV commercials.

Finally, the types of videos you should be producing: Buy-Local Video Profiles (one for each key person within your business or organization – call me on this one, I have ideas for you), New Product Introduction Videos, Training and How To Videos, Testimonials – this one is huge, Promotional Videos, Company Image, President Reviews and the list goes on.

So as you can see, one video, so many uses. Lets not forget that on-line you have a 24/7 sales presence. Contact me today 231 937-5420. Your business needs video on-line.

Reasons to use Facebook for your Business, Part 2

Here is part two from an except from Mari Smith's article Top Ten Reasons Businesses should use Facebook.

6. Develop your personal brand.
The lines between business and personal have become blurred. You can reveal as much or as little about yourself as you wish, allowing you to personalize your brand.

7. Target your niche.
Users volunteer vast amounts of information about themselves that you can readily access. These kinds of demographics, psychographics, and technographics would previously have cost fortunes to access. Author, John Battelle, calls Facebook a “database of intentions.”

8. Get rapid top Google placement.
Create a Page for your business and share information with your fans. Pages (for business) and Profiles (for personal) are indexed for optimal search engine positioning. Facebook has a page rank of #5 according to Alexa. Related post: On Facebook, Profiles are personal. PAGES are for Business.

9. imagePlace targeted ads.
With Facebook Social Ads, you can test out extremely targeted advertising for minimal cost.

10. No cost marketing.
Aside from paid ads, Facebook is totally free to use and with regular activity you’ll end up with more traffic, more subscribers, and more paying clients. Related post: Ten Steps To Leverage Your Blog Posts With Facebook Notes.

Follow DW Video and Buy-Local Video Streaming on Facebook.

Reasons to use Facebook for your Business

Here is an except from Mari Smith's article Top Ten Reasons Businesses should use Facebook.

1. Meet your peers.

Facebook is not just for college kids anymore. Members are typically older and more mature than on other sites, and there are more affluent and more educated white collar users.

2. Find business contacts.

With more than 100 million active users, and predicted to be 500 million by 2011, not only are your friends on Facebook, so are your prospects, your customers, your JV partners… and, of course, your competitors. You need to be on too.

3. Instant gate opener.

Facebook members are open to connecting. You can easily begin a dialog with highly successful—even famous—people who were previously otherwise unreachable.

4. Build relationships.

By engaging in conversations with your prospects and customers, you can better adapt your marketing and business services to meet their needs.

Turning to my expertise, putting multiple videos on Facebook about you, your business, products and services helps in a non-threating way to inform, educate and turn those prospects into customers. Contact me today about adding video to your website and to the wonderful world of social networking. More of the top ten in another post. God Bless.

Marketing more... All the time

When to advertise and when to cut back was going to be the title on my post. Then I came across this article and went "I can not say it any better. The info below is take from http://www.eccomeecgo.blogspot.com/. Thank you Earl.

When looking at the idea of marketing those who market make it, those who don't... According to Earl Chessher's blog EC Come, EC Go, "The same applied to low store traffic: "Not too many coming in, we'd better advertise more," or "We're having huge traffic, let's advertise MORE!" Get the concept?"

Earl continues, "It is also a known fact that while marketing is important year round, in lean, mean or great times, it is even MORE important during times like the current national and world wide economic situation. Ironically this is when many of us cut back on our marketing - marketing budgets, insurance and subscriptions to associations, organizations and magazines are the first areas to cut back. This, when you need to be doing it the most. Marketing works folks, no doubt about it."

Thanks Earl for those oh so true words. There are some items you can do right now.
1) Dust off your marketing materials, update as necessary, the brochures, postcards, DVD's and get them out to your mailing list. 2) Follow through with a Facebook, Blog account and post information about your business on-line for all to follow - show that you are the expert in your field. 3) Use twitter to drive people to your facebook and blog accounts. 4) Put links on your website to your facebook and blog accounts. 5) In your print advertising invite people to follow you on facebook and your blog. 6) Post your videos on social network sites along with chamber sites, your site etc. See a tread appearing here.

One cannot sit back and wait for change.... you need to go out and drive people to you while making that change.

My job is to tell your story. I do this with video, website and social networks. Contact me and lets get your story back out there for all to see. Go to my website www.dwvideo.com or email me - put in the subject line "Tell My Story". God Bless and have a great day!

Sorry for the delay

Wow, I guess the human ability to loose track of time has set in. Meaning, I forgot to keep my blog up-to-date. I need to to practice what I preach. Anyway, in an attempt to keep all my sites up-dated lets touch on social networking.

If you are going to do it - keep it current. Ok, now that I have broken that rule, lets remember when you get a following, you must keep them fed or they will wander.

No excuses but I have been working on getting on the social networking cycle. Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, Merchant Circle, You Tube (since we do video lets show off what we offer). This I have found to be time consuming at the least.

For now follow me on one or more of the above social networks. Have a great day and God Bless!
dw