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How to Make an Electronic White Board for Your Videos

Pat — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 22:32:17 +0000

A lot of people have been asking me for a more detailed explanation about how I create my electronic white board videos, so I decided to create a video that explains it better than any blog post or podcast episode could do.

If you’re not sure what an electronic white board video is, it’s a video that records a person drawing on the screen, which mimics the idea of a teacher drawing on a dry-erase board or chalkboard.

Here are some videos I’ve created in the past that utilize the whiteboard effect:

Electronic white boards (EWB) videos work extremely well because:

They’re more engaging. Unlike boring slideshow presentations, there’s more movement on the screen so they’ll hold an audience’s attention much better.
They’re different. Not everyone publishes videos like this, and even if they knew how most will not take the time to actually do it. This is an easy way to stand out of the crowd.
They’re a fantastic teaching tool. I hope we’re all in this for the purpose of helping other people achieve something, understand certain concepts or implement specific strategies. If that’s the case, the EWB is a great way to produce (and consume) content much easier than a regular blog post, podcast episode or video can do, depending on the topic of choice.

Below is a video explaining the exact process:

(Click here to view How to Create an Electronic White Board on YouTube)

Items mentioned in the video:

Gimp.org (Free photoshop-like software for Mac and PC)
The Bamboo Fun Pen and Tablet by Wacom (this is an Amazon affiliate link)
Camtasia Screen Recording Software
Screenflow Screen Recording Software
OmniDazzle Screen Writing Tool

Additional Tips

If you will be doing some EWB videos, here are some additional tips I can give you so you can get the most out of your effort:

Practice. Practice. Practice. It takes time to get used to drawing on the screen, and to talk while doing so is a whole new challenge. But, the rewards are there and after a few practice runs I’m sure you’ll pick it up in no time. The nice thing, also, is that you can edit these videos, so unlike a live chalkboard or dry-erase style presentation, you can mess up and just edit those parts out later.
Write big. The bigger the writing, the easier it is to see (duh!), so make it easy for your audience to see what you’re writing about by writing big. Don’t rely on them to go fill size with their screens because they’re not always going to do that.
Utilize layers in Photoshop and Gimp: If you’ll be writing on top of your background image on Photoshop or Gimp, then make sure you write on a layer on top of your background layer. This way, you can easily delete the images by just turning that layer off. You could get even more ninja by utilizing multiple layers for different parts of your drawings too.

Video Tricks

A quick sidenote:

I’ve been experimenting with some new YouTube video techniques to increase subscribership and views.

I’d like you to check out my special ending to the EWB video, which you can go directly to by clicking the link here.

I’d love to know if you think the annotation technique I’m using works or not.

I’m following my own advice and utilizing more video for 2012, so definitely subscribe to the YouTube channel here because there will be a lot more helpful videos to come.

And lastly…

Win a Free Pen and Tablet and some Screen Recording Software Too!

So, I have an extra brand new Pen and Tablet by Wacom sitting around (model CTL460) , and I’d like to give it away for FREE!

I’ll also throw in a copy of either Camtasia or Screenflow (your choice) so you can have the screen recording software that you need to get started.

In order to qualify to win, all you have to do is leave a comment on this post by the end of the week (11:59am Saturday 12/17/11) explaining what kind of videos you like to produce using the EWB technique, and why it would be beneficial for your audience.

That’s it.

One entry per person, and I get to choose the winner.

I’ll announce the winner on Facebook and Twitter the next day and email the winner for shipping information.

I’ll choose someone who I feel will actually put this stuff to good use.

Cheers, and good luck!

Update: Congratulations to Sarah Clark for winning the Pen/Tablet & Screen Recording Software! The selection was extremely difficult – so difficult in fact I put my favorite comments into a pool and randomly selected a winner from there. I’m sorry I couldn’t give more away – Congrats to Sarah, and thanks once again to everyone who participated!

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How to Make an Electronic White Board for Your Videos
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Reader Challenge Roundup: Creating a YouTube Video and the Next Challenge

Pat — Mon, 09 May 2011 15:48:27 +0000

“Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.” -Joshua J. Marine

Every few months, I offer a new challenge to my readers.

In November of 2010, I asked you to write a Pillar Article, which resulted in 51 posts, over 200 hours of writing, tens of thousands of additional visitors to your blogs and one person even landing a book deal.

In January of 2011, I then asked you to write a List Post, which yielded 1,003 “things” in a total of 63 posts that were shared and spread all around the blogosphere.

Two months ago, I then asked you to step out of your comfort zone and publish a YouTube Video, and the results are what I’m happy to share with you today.

Here is what a few people told me after participating in this particular challenge:

“It took me WAY out of my comfort zone, but it was actually REALLY fun. I plan on doing many more videos for my site, and of course getting better.”

“I wouldn’t say it’s a good video, but it was worth it just for the experience of realizing that even a pretty bad video isn’t really anything to be afraid of.”

“Pat ~ I am excited to tell you that you inspired me to (finally) create my very first video for my website! Wow. Terrifying is right! But I did it!”

And this is what it’s all about – taking bold actions, doing something different and having fun with it. I’m so proud of my readers who participated, and of course I’m happy to share some link love to all of them here on the blog for their hard work.

Below is a list of the submissions in the order that I received them. I don’t expect you to watch them all, but pick one or two that seem interesting to you and check them out if you have time.

Grown in the City: Urban Homesteading

How To Get The Best From Testimonials

Mobile List Builder Tutorial

How to Make Money Online from School, Books, and Magazines

9 Internet Marketing Mistakes to Avoid at All Costs

Sound Harvesting 101

How to Detect Nofollow Links

9 Ways To Recognize You Are Motivated And Excited About Something

How To Put an iPhone Voice Note on a WordPress Blog Post

Tools I Use – Blog Blueprint

Square Eyes or Genius? Are Online Educational Programs Good For Your Child?

Writing For InfoBarrel To Generate Passive Income

Foscam FI8918W Wireless IP Camera Demo

Top 20 Traffic Methods Countdown (Part 1)

Super Simple 10-Minute Binding for How to be Happy (No Fairy Dust or Moonbeams Required)

SHN-001 How to start learning Spanish

How to Make Change Easier

Elimination Communication How-To #2 – Pottying Baby On-the-Go (In the Car) / Timing

Don’t Do This (GoodFinancialCents.com)

What is Your Why? (Soldier of Finance.com)

To Multitask or Not

The Secret To Great GarageBand MIDI Drum Tracks

How to Navigate The SortPrice Website

Video for Search Engine Optimization Laid Bare Part 2: Competitive SEO Keyword Research

POWER Protein Balls Recipe

Drug-Free Headache Relief

Airbed Air Mattress Ozark Trail

The 5 Not-Secrets of Success

Bla Bla Bla Bla… Bla Bla Bla (podcasting 101)

Real Estate Investing Referral Network

Sidekick Seeks Superhero

Networking Like a Pro

How To Safely Move Your iPhoto Library to Another Hard Drive

How to apply blusher – makeup lesson by Maninder Krishnan Singapore

Fitness Motivation Today: Ab Circle Pro

How to use Clone Stamp to remove people and things from pictures using Adobe Photoshop CS5

The College Investor’s Guide to Screening Stocks

Baby Mermaid and Friends

How To Use Photoshop Ebook Cover Actions And Templates

Wedding Slideshow Tutorial – Getting Started Wtih Animoto

En sockerbagare (a baker) – från gladafamiljen.se

Creating Text Hyperlinks In WordPress

Canadian Free Flyer Intro

A World of Inspiration Intro

I do my best to keep track of all of the submissions myself, but as I do get hundreds of emails a day some submissions may have been accidentally missed. If that’s the case, please let me know and I’ll check my archives and make sure you get included.

Here are some interesting stats regarding the video submissions:

A total of 44 videos were submitted for the challenge.
The total playing time of all the videos combined is 3 hours and 36 minutes, which is an average length of about 4 minutes and 54 seconds per video.
The total views of all submitted videos (since publishing this post) is 5,538 views, which is an average of 126 views per video. Not bad for 2 months!
The most viewed video has 1,420 views.
The longest video is 14 minutes and 57 seconds.
Only 25% of the videos show footage of the actual speaker or narrator.
63% of the videos are “tutorial style” videos.

Again, a job well done on all of the videos, and a huge congratulations to those who published their very first ones!

I appreciate the few who just turned the camera on and spoke for a few minutes, unedited with no fear – I love that. I also must say there were a number of well edited videos as well. Two notable ones that come to mind are:

How to Safely Move Your iPhoto Library to Another Hard Drive by Curtis. This was his first YouTube video for his website, which is awesome because it’s really well done.
Grown in the City: Urban Homesteading by John. Even though the topic isn’t that interesting to me (no offense!) I could not stop watching because of the way it was presented.

And as promised, I randomly selected one person who submitted a video to the challenge to receive a $50.00 Amazon.com Gift card, on me. So, congratulations to Pavel for winning!

With every challenge I am more and more impressed at not only how much great work people can do, but how a lot of those people needed something like a challenge to get it out of them! It just shows you that you really can do whatever it is you want to do, you just have to find the right motivation to take action.

The Next Reader Challenge

This next challenge is a big one that could drastically increase your authority and status as an expert in your niche:

I want you to create a report, document, white paper, manifesto or mini-eBook about anything related to your industry, niche, website or business.

(Update: A few readers have asked if something like an e-Course in an Autoresponder series or a video course would be okay – and I say, for sure!)

This is obviously a project that is a little bigger than a blog post or YouTube video, so I’m going to give you a little more time. Also, I’m going to give away two (2) prizes:

One (1) $50 Amazon.com Gift Card to one random submission.
One (1) $100 Amazon.com Gift Card to the best entry, judged by me.

Here are the rules regarding this particular challenge:

You can choose any topic that you wish, one that you feel would best suit your audience. It could be a tutorial-style, how-to type document (like eBooks the Smart Way), or a thought-provoking psychological piece.

It’s up to you.

Here are a few specific rules about this challenge:

The final product should be the equivalent of a minimum of 5 content pages in length (i.e. title pages don’t count!).
It must be given away for free to your audience. Again, this project is a great way to get readers (new and existing) to read your content, demonstrate expertise and authority in your niche and hopefully virally spread word about you and your website through the power of sharing.
You may choose to give it away as a free gift or “lead magnet” for your email list, (similar to how I offer eBooks the Smart Way here on SPI after ), but it’s not required.
It must contain at least one graphic inside. I say this so you don’t just write and write, but you think about the presentation and how to break up the monotony of text with some interesting and relevant graphics. For proper use of graphics on the web, please see my Ultimate Guide to Finding and Using Image post.
It must go live for the first time on your site after the date of this post. If you had been working on it for the last month or so, but go live with it after today, that’s totally okay.

How and When to Submit

Submissions should be given to me by July 31st, 2011.

Send me a message via my contact form with a link that announces your report, ebook, manifesto (or whatever you wish to call it) on your site, and I’ll be sure to include your link in the roundup post I publish in August.

Again, you’ll distribute the PDF file yourself on your site, but send me a link so I can share it here on SPI.

Check out my eBooks the Smart Way page for an example, and I recommend you read the guide and use some of the tips to help you with your project.

Good luck, start planning now, and I can’t wait to see what you come up with! Cheers!

p.s. I’ll be participating in this challenge too, although of course I am not eligible for any of the prizes. You should see a new report from me sometime before July 31st, 2011.

p.p.s. If you send me a 2-D Image of an eBook or Report Cover, I’d be happy to turn it into a nice looking, 3D cover for you and your site, free of charge.

“Even when opportunity knocks, a man still has to get up off his seat and open the door.” – Anonymous

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Reader Challenge Roundup: Creating a YouTube Video and the Next Challenge
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SPI 019 : Everything You Need to Know About YouTube for Blogging and Online Business

Pat — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 09:53:26 +0000

In this session of the Smart Passive Income Podcast, I explore the world of video and start from scratch with YouTube to show you exactly how I make sure I give myself the best chance to get the most views and have the most impact for my business and blog.

As I mentioned in a previous article, Are YouTube and Podcasting Worth the Effort?, YouTube has been huge for me not only for traffic, but for engaging my existing audience and reaching brand new ones. I still get emails every day from people who say they have found me through YouTube, and it’s no wonder because 2 billion videos are viewed on YouTube every single day.

Whether you’re on YouTube already, or have yet to create your first video, make sure you listen to this session to get the most out of your efforts.

In this session, I discuss:

How 30 videos of mine have been viewed nearly half a million times.
How I overcame the fear I had when I first started uploading videos.
Why the first video I uploaded to YouTube still embarrasses me, yet continues to earn money.
The one question you should ask yourself if you ever get scared of doing anything.
How to piggy back the success of already highly viewed videos on YouTube.
How I record my “blackboard” instructional YouTube videos.
A recommended free piece of screen recording / capturing software.
The “sweet spot” time limit for videos.
Example calls to action to include with your videos.
What your Title, Description and Tag should really be.
How to Make Money on YouTube

Right click here to download the MP3

Items Mentioned in this Session:

Please subscribe below to the podcast to get automatic updates:

Thank you so much for your support, and if you have yet to leave a rating or review, please leave me an honest one on iTunes by clicking here. It will help the show and its ranking in iTunes immensely! I appreciate it!

Enjoy the show!

Cheers!

Transcript:

Click Here to Download the Transcript (PDF)

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SPI 019 : Everything You Need to Know About YouTube for Blogging and Online Business
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My Home Office Green Screen Setup and First Video

Pat — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 17:21:11 +0000

My green screen equipment had been collecting dust in a box for two months, but this past weekend I was finally able to setup everything and record my first chroma-key video!

Green screens are primarily used in the movie industry and by meteorologists (weather people) to put a subject in front of a background that isn’t really there, but a lot of internet marketers have also used the technology to enhance their videos when teaching or promoting something. Because I have a number of products coming out in the future and I love to record videos, I thought it would be a wise investment to buy a green screen for my business.

Another way to stand out from the crowd.

I setup my green screen in my home office, as you can see below:

The most important aspect of green screening is the lighting. I can’t emphasize this enough. The lighting in the background needs to be as even as possible or else you’re going to have a hard time replacing your background with any chroma-key software.

Typically, a setup will have a three point lighting system: 2 on the side to evenly light the backdrop and 1 in the front to light the subject.

Unfortunately, I did not have a front light setup yet (actually it’s being shipped right now), and you’ll be able to tell in the video I share with you below. Still, I thought it came out great!

For those of you interested, here’s a list of everything I purchased (amazon affiliate links):

Total price: $295.20

Definitely not a bad price, especially when you consider that studio space with a professional green screen setup could potentially cost several hundred dollars an hour to use. You could also save even more money if you decided to tack the backdrop on a wall instead of use a support system and clamps like I did. Green spray paint might work too, although I’d make sure to go with a flat sheen (as opposed to something glossy) if that’s something you plan on doing.

To shoot the video, I used my Kodak Zi8 pocket cam, and to edit and chroma-key I used iMovie on my iMac. I was really surprised at how simple the chroma-key process was – it literally took just a few seconds to put in a new background, but I think it helped that I had a nice evenly lit backdrop.

I’m sure there is chroma-key software available for PC, I just don’t know any off the top of my head. Anyone care to share?

My First Green Screen Video

Well here it is – my very first video (2 minutes) using green screen technology. Enjoy!

(Watch Green Screen Setup for Smart Passive Income on YouTube)

Now that everything is setup, I’m really excited to start shooting some more videos like this for you. Stay tuned, and thanks for all of your support!

And thanks to Perry Lawrence, Jaime Tardy and everyone who commented in my gizmos and gadgets post who helped me figure out how to make this work. Cheers!

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My Home Office Green Screen Setup and First Video
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How to Find Your Google Keyword SERPs Ranking

Pat — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 07:05:31 +0000

As many of you know, I’ve been doing my best to keep you up to date on the latest going-ons with my niche site challenge with Tyrone Shum. To make things easier for you, I recently created a niche site duel hub that will list all of the posts surrounding this challenge, from all of the competitors’ blogs.

Currently, it’s just me, Tyrone Shum and Mark Mason, but I’m happy to add anyone else’s case studies to the list who may be participating in this challenge too. All I ask is that you do not hide your niche and url in your reports, since the purpose of this challenge is to be as transparent as possible so our audiences can learn as much as they can.

If you’re participating, just contact me with a link to your first report and I’ll add it to the hub.

This post isn’t an official niche site duel update, but I am happy to say that as of 10:30pm PST on August 29th, I am currently ranked #186 in Google for my target keyword.

I definitely still have a long way to go to reach the first page, but for a brand new, one-week old site and 46,000 competing webpages, that’s not bad at all, and I expect to quickly climb much higher.

I’ll go over my exact strategy, in detail, in the next niche site duel update, but today, I wanted to share with you how you can track your website’s rank in the search engines for your target keywords.

It can be tough, especially right when you’re starting a new site, to know where you are on the radar. You don’t want to spend time flipping through each page of Google to find your site.

That’s why I recommend using one of the three methods I show you in the video below:

(Watch 3 Cool Ways to Find Your Google Keyword Search Engine Ranking (SERPs) on YouTube)

Items Mentioned in This Video:

Hopefully, we’ll all get to a point where we’re all sitting in the number 1 position for our target keyword, in which case, these techniques wouldn’t be necessary. But until then, I hope you find these techniques useful.

Thanks for your support!

Cheers!

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How to Find Your Google Keyword SERPs Ranking
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Are YouTube Videos and Podcasting Worth the Effort?

Pat — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 08:47:45 +0000

Last year, I made a conscious decision to turn my growing Smart Passive Income blog into the Smart Passive Income brand.

I knew nothing about “branding” at the time, except that I knew that successful brands utilized all different mediums to reach their audience. Stick to one medium, and you’ll limit your reach to only those who use that medium.

That’s why you see major brands on television and on the radio (and everywhere else it seems), or why you see many of the top bloggers syndicate and expand their written content with videos and podcasts too.

I wanted to do the same, and that’s why I have my YouTube Channel, and most recently, my Podcast.

So is it worth all the effort?

Before I get into the numbers, I can easily say that the experience alone was worth it.

I know how to do a lot more now than I could a year ago, such as properly setting up an optimizing a video, capturing screen recordings, speaking on the microphone with confidence, optimizing YouTube and iTunes as search engines, getting my podcast feed approved and ranked in iTunes, etc.

Beyond the experience (and what you’re probably more interested in) are the results.

Did I get in front of people who may have never seen me otherwise?

Did I get traffic flowing back to the blog?

Did I get new subscribers?

Let’s explore…

Did I Get In Front of People Who may Have Never Seen Me Otherwise?

Yes. Absolutely!

Many people don’t actually use written content as their primary source of information. (GASP!)

Many people prefer to listen or watch videos to absorb information, and they stick to that medium no matter what. There could be are a ton of people out there who are in your target audience. The trick is to produce content in the way that they want to get it.

Since starting my YouTube Channel on September 26, 2009, I’ve accumulated a total of 93,515 total views. Of that total, 21,622 were found via the search engines in YouTube and Google combined. Obviously, there may be some overlap between the two and between people who have already connected with me before, but these are really impressive numbers as far as people searching for certain pieces of information and ending up watching a video that I uploaded.

And here’s an email someone just sent me a few days ago:

And the podcast? Well, I don’t have any concrete numbers because iTunes is terrible at reporting (i.e. they don’t), but I do have a few more messages. And remember, the first session was published a little over a month ago:

Again, the purpose of this is to show you that you can reach more people by expanding out of your blog and into the realm of audio and video.

Oh, and I almost forgot! This is something I’m really proud of.

In the overall business section of iTunes, I was ranked the top #8 podcast, right next to Suze Orman, Jim Cramer, the Wall Street Journal, and Dave Ramsey – right in the front where everyone could see. I know for sure that I was put in front of the eyes of people who would not have found me otherwise:

Thanks to all of you for your support to help make that happen.

Did I Get Traffic Flowing Back to the Blog?

Yes.

Here is a screenshot of Google Analytics showing the numbers coming from YouTube:

Although YouTube is not my top referring site, it does show some pretty decent numbers, at 2,660 clicks from YouTube since I began. These are coming from the links I put in the description of my videos only. Of course, I could have gotten more if I had made more videos, but with only 18 videos live at the moment, I think that’s pretty good.

From the podcast, again, it’s tougher to track traffic flow. But, I did notice quite a large influx of traffic coming around the same time I started going live with the show:

I can’t say for sure that all of that traffic was coming from listeners, but I’m almost certain that it helped.

Did I Get New Subscribers?

Yes!

On YouTube, I’ll be the first one to say that I’m not doing a very good job promoting my eBook and my newsletter. When I started on YouTube last year, I did not have a newsletter or eBook to promote, so I should follow my own advice and get on that right away.

I learned my lesson, however, and applied a very basic strategy to earn new subscribers through my podcast right from the start.

I purchased a domain at ebooksthesmartway.com, and I mention that domain on my show as an easy way to get people to come to my landing page where I promote my free eBook and newsletter. This is in lieu of saying something that is less memorable, such as: “Please visit smartpassiveincome dot com slash ebooks dash the dash smart dash way.”

Ever since starting the podcast, I have noticed a higher average of new daily subscribers.

Before the podcast, I was averaging about 15-20 new subscribers per day.

After the podcast, I am now seeing numbers between 25 and 50 new subscribers per day.

So is it worth all the effort?

Totally.

If anyone were to ask me: “Pat, what can I do to grow my blog?”, I would be really confident in saying that expanding your blog into video and/or podcasting is a great place to start.

By limiting yourself to your blog, you’re ultimately limiting your success.

Of course, you’ll want to make sure you use the best practices for expanding onto other mediums. I’m still getting familiar with Podcasting, so I can’t suggest what to do just yet, but I’m sure you’ll find these posts I wrote about YouTube helpful:

Thanks again for your support, and have a great weekend!

Cheers!

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Are YouTube Videos and Podcasting Worth the Effort?
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7 Ways to Be Everywhere – Building a Brand Online

Pat — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 09:13:00 +0000

Last week, an SPI reader asked me the following question:

“Pat. You seem to be EVERYWHERE online. Everywhere I go, people are talking about you and your name always comes up. How do you do it?”

To be honest, I never believed I would become this successful online, especially with SPI – a blog in the “make money online” niche, which as you probably know is wildly over saturated. Although my success is partially accidental I know exactly why I’m here.

What it really comes down to is this:

If you want to become successful online, you must think about what you do as building a brand. In order to build a brand, you must do what you can to be everywhere.

A successful blogger is not just a blogger. True – it’s the blog where things get started. It’s where authority is constructed and content is published. But if you stick to just a blog, you’ll be just that – stuck to your blog.

Your blog or your website is only the beginning. It’s your hub, your homebase where people can go to find out more about who you are and what you do, but it’s also just one piece of the giant puzzle that is your brand – your omnipresent, influential and (if applicable), money making brand.

Below are 7 ways to simply be everywhere:

1. Step Out of Your Comfort Zone

Before I get into more specific, actionable items, you must first realize that “being everywhere” isn’t going to be a walk in the park. It’s going to be uncomfortable at times because you’re doing things that you aren’t used to or even scared to do.

With that said, let me tell you this: the only thing holding you back is you.

In The 4-Hour Work Week. Tim Ferriss gives us some exercises to perform throughout the book to help train our entrepreneurial minds. One particular exercise was to enter a crowded area and lay yourself down flat on the floor, looking upwards.

What’s the point?

The point is that it will train you to do things that you wouldn’t normally do, to get you to not worry so much about what other people are thinking and just take action – no matter how silly or ridiculous an idea may be at the time.

When I first thought about writing my first eBook, it was something I honestly did not want to do. I was afraid of the process and I didn’t know if it would sell even one copy. Well, I’m glad I stepped out of my comfort zone and decided to write that eBook, because it turned into a six-figure online business.

2. Keep Your Brand Consistent

The goal is to be everywhere, but the trick is to make it as easy as possible for people to recognize that you are indeed everywhere. This means using the same graphics and the same logos where ever you are online.

This is important, because image recognition is the number one way that people make connections in their brain. Huge companies know this, and even babies know this when they recognize the face of their mother for comfort and food.

This is why I do my best to brand each of my pages online the same. My blog, my Twitter account, and even my Facebook Landing Page all look very similar. My gravatar (which stands for Globally Recognized Avatar – the image that shows up next to my comments on any site that I leave comments on) even uses the same exact picture as in these profiles.

3. Explore Other Forms of Media

So you have a blog.

Have you ever thought about expanding your brand onto other media types such videos? How about podcasting? Live streaming? Printed books?

Only only will this help you get more traffic by reaching people you wouldn’t normally reach with a blog alone, but it will definitely expand your brand as well.

Darren Rowse from Problogger.net was the first person I knew from online that was “everywhere”.

I knew about his blog, but then I went to Barnes and Noble and saw his printed book in person. Seeing that book really changed my view about who he was and made him (and his blog) even more of an authority in the blogging niche in my eyes. He has definitely done a great job expanding his brand because he also has videos, podcasts and has done some live streaming in the past, not to mention an additional printed book that he just recently published.

He’s at the top of his niche for a reason.

For myself, I’m getting there. I have a great following on YouTube and am about to launch a podcast as well.

4. Get Onto Social Networks

This one should be a given.

If you’re not utilizing Social Networks like Twitter or Facebook as an extension of your blog (not just to spy on your friends, but to network with your audience and actually provide good, relevant content on), then you’re not doing everything you can to be everywhere. The thing is: THIS is where everyone is!

Plus, the simple viral nature of these sites alone does wonders to help expand your brand and get noticed by people who would never have heard of you otherwise.

Luckily, it doesn’t take more than 5 minutes to setup a Twitter account (although it may take a bit more time to change the graphics and “brand it”), and I’ve laid out exactly how to setup your Facebook Page here.

5. Write Guest Posts on Other Blogs

This is huge.

HUGE!

Guest blogging is probably the easiest way to get a load of relevant traffic to your blog in the shortest amount of time. Beyond that, and even more important for your brand, you and your site’s url (and possibly your logo too) will be shown to tons of people who may have never heard of you or your website before. After getting published, you’ll be instantly known by that much more people when they come across the blog post live on the site or in the blog owner’s RSS feed.

There are several free guides about how to guest post online. My favorites are Glen Allsop’s Guest Blogging: The Ultimate Guide and Chris Guthrie’s Guest Posting [Ultimate Guide]. Yep – that’s two ultimate guides right there.

6. Over-deliver On Your Content

Okay, I have to mention by buddy Glen at Viperchill.com once again. He’s the master of over-delivering and a prime example of what can happen to a blog when you over-deliver on your content.

About 95% of the posts he writes on his blog are massive, tutorial-like blog posts that I’m sure take hours and hours of research and work. His posts are art in the form of words, and he goes into so much depth about everything that it literally makes me drool.

Recently, he just surpassed the 10,000 subscriber mark (although Feedburner is acting weird lately, but nonetheless), which means he earned about 9,000 subscribers in less than a year. That’s unheard of in the blogging world.

It didn’t happen because he writes blog posts consistently. He doesn’t – even though that’s “the rule” we’re all supposed to follow. It happened because his posts always over-deliver, and because they do, they spread like wildfire and his subscribership grows as a result.

When I’ve taken the time to write KILLER posts (and I mean posts that take days of research and just really have a ton of great content in it), I’ve seen all of my numbers grow as a result, including viral numbers like retweets and likes, which help expand my brand to people I’ve never reached before.

7. Create Raving Fans

It takes time, but if you continue to provide good content on your blog and build a nice community behind it, after a while you’ll eventually see that you and your blog may accumulate a number of “raving fans”. I like to think I have a few here on SPI, and I love each and everyone one of them to death.

Ravings fans should be treated like royalty, and you should go out of your way to make them happy. Do favors for them, or just spend time talking to them on Facebook or through email.

Why?

Because they are the ones who spread the word about you and your site. Some raving fans are more enthusiastic than others, but each one plays an important role in expanding your brand and influencing people who you alone cannot.

Let me say that again: your raving fans will influence people who you alone cannot.

This is why each and everyday I notice a huge influx of traffic from a few random websites that I’ve never been to before. My name and a link to my site show up on forums and blogs around the world not because of me, but because of my raving fans and their recommendations.

Thank you – you know who you are.

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7 Ways to Be Everywhere – Building a Brand Online
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YouTube Tips and Tricks For Bloggers – Part 3

Pat — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 09:19:55 +0000

This is the final installment of my YouTube marketing tactics series. In part 1, we covered how to approach video marketing, as well as what to include in your recordings for maximum impact. In part 2, we discussed the importance of optimizing the Title, Description and Tags of your video, and I included a few cool tricks to help you “snipe” traffic from other popular videos.

In part 3, we’re going to cover some tips and tricks that you can do with your video after it’s uploaded. Much like with blogging (and iPhone apps), the work should not stop once your content is live. There are a few things you should do before you can just let YouTube and the Internet do it’s thing and drive traffic to your videos and ultimately your blog automatically. Again, it’s about putting in the hard work now, so you can continuously reap the benefits later.

Place the Video on Your Blog

An easy way to increase traffic to your video is to show it to an audience that you already have! In addition, if your post Title matches the title of the video (and tags and urls as well), then you’re giving a nice boost in SEO to both your video and your blog post at the same time.

I used this technique in my keyword research experiment.

When you include a video on a blog post, be sure that you also include a link to the YouTube video as well.

Why?

Because many RSS feed readers will not play the video, but if you have the link in there as well (preferably with keyword anchor text), then you’ll be all good to go.

Blast it Onto Social Media Platforms

This is a given.

If you’re on Facebook, Twitter, or anywhere else on the web that has (targeted & relevant) people following you, then post links to your YouTube video.

Bonus Tip: Instead of just saying: “Check out my new YouTube video…”, why not post a tweet or a wall post that has a good reason for people to click on it to watch, for example:

Whoa! Lots of controversy on my latest video – check it out! (insert link)
I almost didn’t publish this video. You can see why. (insert link)
Doesn’t my hair look awesome in my latest video?! (insert link)
I need your opinion on my latest video. Too much powerpoint. What do you think? (insert link)
This may be the only video you every need to watch about [niche]. (insert link)

You get the idea. Put your copywriting skills to the test, and get more clicks to your video!

Utilize the Video Responses Option

If you haven’t noticed already, underneath most popular YouTube videos there is a section called Video Responses. These are videos that people have submitted as a response to the particular video that is loaded.

Many people strategically place their own videos as responses to popular, highly viewed videos so they can “ride the back” of the traffic of that particular video. It’s another easy way for you to get a lot of exposure on YouTube.

To post a video response to another video:

1. Find a popular, highly viewed video. The more relevant to your response video, the better.

2. Click inside the comment field immediately below the video, and then click on Attacha Video.

3. Here, you can either record a video response using a camera for your computer, or choose a video that you’ve already uploaded to YouTube.

Please understand, however, that your video responses will not post automatically. If they did, there would be spam everywhere. Your video must first be approved by the person who uploaded the original video in order for yours to be shown with it. In many cases, if your video is somewhat related, it will indeed be approved by the owner. If not, no worries – just try it again on another video later.

Annotations

Annotations are severely underutilized in the “blogger gone YouTube” world. I’ll admit that I don’t use them as much as I should either.

If you don’t know what an annotation is, it’s an ugly, small little popup that shows up on top of the video that has some text inside. It reminds me of “Pop-Up Videos” on VH1 from way back in the day.

Here’s how to make them for your uploaded video:

1. Go to your “videos” area to see all of the videos you’ve uploaded.

2. Find the video that you want to create annotations for, and click on Annotations at the bottom.

3. Use the timeline to create as many annotations as you want!

They are ugly, but that’s good.

Why?

Because you can’t miss ‘em – as you can see below:

You can change the shape the the annotation and select from a few different colors too, but what’s most important is what you put in them.

At the beginning and end of your videos, you should have an annotation that asks your viewers to either subscribe to your channel, leave a comment or a rating, or all of the above. You can add more in the middle if you think your video needs it.

Again, this is another simple way to provide a call to action to your viewers that may otherwise not be there.

The Video Thumbnail

The video thumbnail, or poster frame, is the picture that shows up when ever your video is shown around YouTube. The thumbnail itself can have a huge impact on your traffic because an eye-catching picture will get clicks, and a dull one will get lost in the sea of other dull thumbnails.

Fortunately, we can choose our thumbail (yay!). Unfortunately, we only have three choices that we do not really have control over (boo!).

Or do we?

We can actually strategically “place” optimized pictures within our recorded videos at the perfect time for YouTube to capture them as one of our 3 options. There is some math involved though.

Here’s how it works:

X = Video length (in sec.)
Y = X divided by 4 or X/4 (in sec.)

Y is the 1st thumbnail.

2 times Y or 2xY (in sec.) is the 2nd thumbnail (poster frame).
3 times Y or 3xY (in sec.) is the 3rd thumbnail.

For some, this may be too much. To be honest, I don’t strategically place pictures in my videos. But, I do make sure to go into the “edit” section of my YouTube videos to select the most eye-catching option. Which of these three do you think I use for my video?

Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed my YouTube series for bloggers (and non-bloggers too!). Thanks for all of your support, and I wish you all the best! Please spread the word if you have the time by retweeting or sharing this article. Thank you!

Cheers!

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YouTube Tips and Tricks For Bloggers – Part 3
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YouTube Tips and Tricks For Bloggers – Part 2

Pat — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 08:33:53 +0000

In part 1 of this mini series about video marketing on YouTube we discussed two important topics:

Your mindset as you begin to push videos onto YouTube for brand expansion and traffic generation; and
A number of things you can do to your video recording to optimize it.

In part 2 we’re going to cover some tips and tricks for what to do after your video is recorded with the title, description and tags.

Before that, I’d like to answer a couple of quick questions that some of you asked me after the previous post:

1. What’s the Maximum Length of a Video That You Can Upload to YouTube?

The answer is 10 minutes flat. People who got in early on YouTube before this 10 minute rule started are “grandfathered” the ability to upload longer videos, but that was within the first year only. If you search on the web, you can actually find people selling their old grandfathered accounts for a lot of cash because many people would love to have the ability to upload videos longer than 10 minutes in length. How legal is this?I can’t answer that, and I advise that you to use your best judgment.

That being said, 10 minutes or less is plenty of time to create a video with great content that can send masses of people to your site and expand your brand.

2. What Do I Do if I Have a Recording That’s Longer Than 10 Minutes?

You can either do your best to edit it so that is under 10 minutes, OR you can break it into two equal parts – and use either the description of the videos, annotations, or a video response to connect the two. More on this later in the series.

3. Is There an Easy Way to Check Video Statistics on YouTube?

Yes – indeed! YouTube has something called “Insight” that tells us a load of information about each of our videos, including incoming traffic, where they came from, and even what parts of our videos people are more interesting to the viewers – plus a lot more.

One thing I do is I added an “Insight Module” to my homepage of YouTube, so that after I sign in, I can immediately see what kind of traffic I’m receiving, and what my most popular videos are. In order to create an “Insight Module”, simply sign into your YouTube account, and click on the “Add/Remove Modules” button, and then select “Insight Chart”.

Okay – now back to our regularly scheduled program…

Today, we’re going to be talking about the Title, Description and Tags of your videos. All three are very important, yet are often overlooked as people get excited to see their videos finally live on YouTube.

The Title of Your Video

Treat the title of your video the same way that you would treat the title of any blog posts that you write. In other words, make sure they:

Contain targeted keywords that relate to your video; and
Are not generic – meaning they have some thought behind it that may catch people’s attention.

Having a keyword rich title is important because remember, YouTube is a search engine! And guess what…they are owned by Google (gasp!). Plus, many YouTube videos are picked up in Google Searches, so there’s a potential to get traffic not only from YouTube search, but Google search as well.

YouTube does not crawl through your video and listen to each and every word that you say to see what is the most relevant for a certain keyword. That would be crazy. So, what you say in your video doesn’t directly effect the search engine results, but it definitely matters – indirectly. Much of the rankings are based on views, competition, tags, related videos, and comments. I don’t know the exact algorithm (of course), but viewer action weighs in big time. That’s why it’s really important to include calls to action within your video to get more subscribers, and more comments as well, if possible.

COOL TRICK: You probably know some of the primary keywords you’d like to use in your videos before you even start. Type in those keywords into the YouTube Search field and see what comes up. You’ll get a quick glance at which videos are the most popular and get the most traffic. Here’s the tip: some similar titled videos will show up next to other videos in the “related videos ” area on the right. If your video shows up there, there is always a potential for people to click over and check out your video too. More exposure = more traffic.

The Description

The description is where you tell people what your video is about. Sounds simple enough, however there’s one all-important tip that I recommend you do:

Always start the description with the URL of your blog (or whatever website you’re promoting). As you can see in the screenshot above for my video on How to Make a Facebook Landing Page, the first thing that you see in my description below the actual video (see blue arrow) is my website address. Although it’s cut off a bit, it is still clickable, and I get traffic from these links every day. If you include a link in the middle or the bottom of your description, people will have to expand the window below to see it, which most people never do.

Again, start with your link and it will always be there for people to click on.

It’s also important to include a real description (after your link) that contain some relevant keywords to help the YouTube (and Google) search engines determine what your video is about.

Oh, and from what I understand, as of today, html does not work inside the description – so there’s no need to try and optimize with anchor text. Plus, the links from YouTube to your site are NoFollow anyways, which means they don’t really count in Google’s eye as a backlink. It’s still important to include a link though, to drive traffic from your video to your site.

Up Next

I hope you enjoyed these tips and tricks for the title, description and tag of your YouTube video. In part 3, we’ll cover what you can do after your video is uploaded and live on YouTube to maximize traffic to your videos and your own site.

Cheers!

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YouTube Tips and Tricks For Bloggers – Part 2
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YouTube Tips and Tricks For Bloggers – Part 1

Pat — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 08:58:04 +0000

YouTube.

It’s been around for over 5 years, yet for some reason most bloggers still haven’t explored the video sharing platform where millions of people around the world are watching over 2 billion videos a day.

I took the SPI brand onto YouTube on September 26th, 2009 for the same reason I do everything else I report on this blog – to see if it’s a worth while place to invest my time.

276 days later, I can truthfully say that I’m more than pleased with the results of my experiment with YouTube to expand the SPI brand and audience base. Here are some quick numbers from my account as of today:

15 Uploaded Videos
59,582 Total Views
720 Subscribers

That’s an average of about 1 new video every 2 to 3 weeks. Considering that the average length of my videos is about 6 minutes in length, you can get a feel for just how much time I’ve really dedicated to this “experiment” – 6 minutes every 3 weeks.

Not a huge amount of time invested, but you can see that I’ve earned a considerable number of views and a good amount of subscribers as a result, which has ultimately increased traffic to my blog as well as helped to earn a few affiliate sales here and there. Without much additional effort, my daily viewership continues to grow as you can see below:

By no means would I call myself a YouTube expert, but I’ve picked up a few tips and tricks along the way that may help you expand your brand, increase your views and grab more subscribers if you do decide to expand onto YouTube, if you’re not on the platform already.

Mindset Stuff

1. Provide Good Content

This is not really a trick, and I’m sure it’s something you heard before, but I’m reiterating it here because it’s still the most important thing to understand before anything else. Much like with your blog or online business, if you don’t provide good content, then everything else you do doesn’t really matter.

2. Video Quality Does Matter

If you upload a blurry, crappy and laggy video, people won’t stick around to watch it – even if the content is good. Your video doesn’t have to be in High-Def or an Emmy Award Winning production, but it does have to be watchable. Use your common sense here.

I try to upload all of my videos in HD (1280 x 720 resolution), because it looks really good on the YouTube and any embedded players.

3. Stand Out From the Crowd

There are a TON of videos on every subject imaginable, so in order to get more views and get people’s attention, you’re going to have to do something different than the “other guys”. What it is really depends on what niche you’re in and what kinds of videos other people have uploaded, but just do your best to find something that’s uniquely “yours”.

For example, a lot of my videos comprise of my “electronic white board”. Many people enjoy watching these videos because no one else uses this technique, and it makes learning about internet business and blogging fun.

4. What’s the Worst That Can Happen?

Many bloggers don’t use YouTube because of the fact that it is video, and video means they’ll have to be on screen, or at least talking over some slides or a presentation.

Well, you can’t hide behind your blog forever if you want to get anywhere, and YouTube is the perfect place to “practice” stepping out of your comfort zone and publishing more than just typed text.

I was scared too, at first, but then I thought to myself, “What’s the Worst That Can Happen?”

Really, what is the worst that can happen? So you upload a video and it get’s no views. So what? You learned from your experience, and you can only do better from there. Plus, I doubt you’ll ever get zero views if you follow the tips later in this post/series.

Within Your Videos

5. Place a Watermark of your Blog’s URL on the Video.

A watermark throughout most or all of your video will give people an easy way to know exactly where this content is coming from, and where they can go to get more.

More importantly, if anyone chooses to embed the video on their own website, their audience will know it originates from you and your blog, which they can see the url for right in front of their faces – driving traffic and expanding your brand at the same time. The description of the video on YouTube doesn’t show up when embedded onto another site, so a watermark will at least include your url.

6. Begin with a Quick Overview

Your job as a publisher of a video on YouTube is to get people to watch your videos, and to continue watching your videos all the way through. The best and easiest way to do this is to simply begin your video with an overview of what you’re going to cover and approximately how long it will take.

Even though there’s a video title, a description and a timeline, just saying what your video is about will engage your viewers and increase the chances of them sticking around, especially if you can get them excited about what you’re about to talk about.

7. Don’t Forget Your Calls to Action

Many people shoot fantastic videos, but fail to leave out any calls to action. If you want the highest impact from your videos, you have to include at least one call to action at the end of your video, preferably telling them to visit your website. I’ve often included more than one, sometimes telling them to say hi to me on Twitter or on my Facebook Page as well.

Just think – if a viewer makes it to the end of your video, they’re going to be in the best state of mind to follow any calls to actions that you have to say.

8. Screen Sharing is Awesome

There’s a huge difference between just telling someone how something works (or even listing out the step-by-step instructions) and actually showing people exactly how to do it.

If you have an opportunity to teach your audience something by showing them how it works on your computer, do it. Screen recording and sharing is a fantastic way to engage your audience, as well as easily give them the steps needed to do whatever it is you want them to do.

You can use software such as Camtasia Studios (for PC) or Camtasia for Mac to get the job done quite nicely. There are cheaper options out there, such as Jing, Screencast or Screenflow (for Mac) that again make it easy to record your screen and then quickly upload to YouTube.

Most of my videos are done on Camtasia for Mac. It can record my screen easily in the 1280 x 720 HD format that I like, and also my face on my iMac camera at the same time. After a little bit of editing, I simply click share -> YouTube, and it’s up in no time.

Also, if you have the chance, utilize some of the cool features that come with the software to enhance the look of your video. Using things like fade in and fade out, zoom in and zoom out, or even adding titles and little notes to your video, which you can see me utilize on this YouTube video. (see the 40 sec. mark)

Again, not so many people do this, so it’s another way to make your videos stand out of the crowd.

9. Intro / Outro Screen and Music?

Putting intro or outro screen and music is debatable, and really depends on your style and what you like to do. If you already have a brand that has a recognizable tune (i.e. a podcast with intro music), then you may very well want to bring that music over to your YouTube videos for continuity.

I had intro music in my first few videos, along with a title screen for each, but I stopped doing that because they didn’t really serve any purpose. They just took up precious time (YouTube’s max video length is only 10 minutes), and for all I know hundreds of people who watched those videos exited right away because they didn’t like the music, even before they get to the content of the video.

In my later videos, I skipped the intro music entirely and went straight to an overview of what’s to come. If they still leave after that, then at least they are leaving for the right reasons.

It seems to be working out much better, and it’s less editing for me to do as well.

Up Next

In Part 2 of this series, I’ll be going over some tricks you can do with your video title, description and tags to get more YouTube search engine traffic. Also, I’ll be going over how to improve your channel as well.

Cheers!

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YouTube Tips and Tricks For Bloggers – Part 1
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