What to Do After You Create Your First Video

Video marketing continues to be one of the most popular marketing tactics around today. There are so many options for getting a video created, and numerous video ideas on what a small business video can be about. As a small business owner, if you’ve invested in video marketing as part of your overall marketing strategy, congratulations! Now the question becomes, “what to do after you create your first video?”  Below are all the next steps to consider to make sure your investment in video marketing pays off.

Creating a video channel

One of the first steps to take once your video is created is to put is somewhere people can find it. The big question we often get asked is, should videos be hosted on a company’s own website, or placed on a video channel?  There are pros and cons to both options. Most often, small business owners will opt to host their videos on a video channel to get the most exposure for their videos and to take advantage of the tools and features that these channels offer. Once that decision is made, the next question is, “Which channels should we post on?”. YouTube of course is the most popular channel out there, but did you know there are several channels to choose from, including:

• Wistia
• Vimeo
• Dailymotion
• Sproutvideo
• Vidyard
• YouTube

All have great offerings and all have drawbacks. For many, the choice is personal preference, but if you want a handy comparison guide, this is a helpful video channel comparison article. A tad overwhelmed by all that info?  Ask a small business marketing consultant to help you choose, or ask fellow business owners what channels they are using.

Optimizing your video channel

Most of these video channels make it fairly easy to set up your company profile, but don’t stop there!  You have the option (it varies by platform) to optimize your channel well beyond just your company name. PLEASE take the time to do this!  It’s sad how many people go through the time and expense to create videos, and then upload them to a poorly optimized channel, where their videos are never found. Some of the options a video channel will offer you to insure it’s well-optimized includes:

• Logo
• Social icons
• Profile information
• Keyword phrases
• Call to action
• Playlists

Be sure to take the time to make your channel as engaging as possible.

Uploading your videos to your channel

Time to build your video library!  Let’s say you have a couple videos to start. You go to your (now well-optimized) video channel, and you upload your videos. Now it’s time to tell the world, right?  Wrong. Just like your video channel, EACH video needs to be optimized as well. Video optimization helps people find your videos. Skipping this crucial step will likely result in very poor performance of your videos. Here are a few steps you need to take each and every time:

• Title
• Description
• Annotation
• Cards
• Transcriptions
• Call to action

There are lots of resources that explain each step of optimizing a video. Check them out or find a video marketing professional to help.

Go tell the world:  Promoting your video

Now you can promote your videos!  Before you do that, decide where you want people to view these videos. While many companies promote their video channels to gain followers or subscribers, the ultimate end game should be to get them to your website, in which case, you may want to embed those videos on your website, and promote those pages of your website featuring your videos. Two of the more popular ways of showcasing videos on your website is through a video gallery (a page on your site where all your videos are showcased in one place) or embedded in a blog post, which some people call vlogs. Either of these will effectively showcase videos on your site.

You can promote your videos in so many ways!  Send out a press release announcing your new video channel or your newly released how-to video series. Write blog posts for each new video and share on your social channels. Share links with existing clients and vendors through email marketing. Cross-promote with other similar videos or content pieces. You can even do paid advertising to showcase your video. The options are endless! A lot depends on what kind of video you created, who your target audience is, and what kind of budget (and time) you have to promote each video.

Video marketing takes strategic planning, from concept to promotion. If you need help with any step along the way, contact Strategic Marketing Services to help you out. We can help guide you about what to do after you create your first video and beyond.