This is a guest post by Gregory Ciotti of Sparring Mind.
YouTube is the next big thing for blogging.
Seems like pretty poor advice, since everybody is hopping all over Pinterest and people have known about YouTube for a long time.
The thing is, few bloggers are utilizing YouTube to its full potential.
And it’s not just me thinking that: on a recent post on Social Media examiner, many of the 30 experts featured agreed that YouTube was going to see a tremendous rise in use by bloggers in 2012.
Why?
Because YouTube has finally come out of its “Wild West” past.
That means people are taking original content more seriously on YouTube these days—it’s no longer for Family Guy clips and videos stolen from elsewhere.
YouTube partners are making some serious coin, and many bloggers are learning that the traffic generated from YouTube can be big. David Edwards has been pointing this out here at ProBlogger for a while.
Check out the traffic just one of my blogs receives per week from YouTube:
Most bloggers get stuck when it comes to video content, because they’re unsure of what to make. (We’re not all illustrators and animators like David, after all.) Don’t worry, you won’t be forced to make any cheesy comedy videos, or “S_____ People Say” style viral videos either.
We’ll be taking a more serious and proven approach. Let’s look at three kinds of videos you can make to capitalize on the rise of YouTube.
This is a biggie: screen capture videos can bring in huge amounts of search traffic. Why? Because people are constantly searching for “How-To” videos on YouTube, and nothing beats the good old-fashioned screen capture in a tutorial.
If you title your video “How To _______”, get some views on your blog, pick a good how-to topic, and do a great job presenting it, you are guaranteed to have made a video that will give back for years to come in terms of views and traffic.
Not only do your readers benefit, but you get big exposure from the browsing YouTube audience who have the very real possibility of turning into future blog subscribers.
Leveraging your blog’s audience by embedding your video into a post is a great way to ensure you rank well for the “How To” term as well, since view count affects how high videos display in YouTube’s search results.
Get started by checking out programs like Camtasia and CamStudio (free) to record what’s on your screen.
Example video:
This is a great video by Pat Flynn detailing how to create whiteboard videos, so you’ll learn something else too!
You know if you read my blog that I’m a huge fan of interviews to bring in traffic. I’ve done plenty, and they’ve all sent a tremendous amount of shares and links my way:
Interview with Brian Gardner of StudioPressInterview with Rafal Tomal (Lead Copyblogger designer) & Alex Manginig (owner of Kolakube)Interview with Danny Iny, Onibalusi, and Georgina Laidlaw (Content Manger of Problogger)Interview with Leo of the BufferAppThe thing is, as much as I love these text interviews, I’ve seen the obvious benefits of video interviews from a few of my other favorite sites.
Not only are you going to rank well for the interviewee’s name (it’s YouTube after all, and YouTube videos rank easily on Google), but you’ll also get the obvious additional traffic from people finding your videos on YouTube from search and related videos.
Not only that, but having an interview means that anyone can share the interview on their own site, even the person that you interviewed! (It’s like a free guest post on content you already created for your own blog!)
That’s a whole other audience right there with no effort, so you should really consider making your next interview of the video variety.
To get started with interview videos, check out the programs Call Recorder (for Mac) and Pamela (for PC) to record Skype video chats.
Also, look out for a post on how interview videos can help grow your blog here on ProBlogger later today.
Example video:
Two of my favorite bloggers, Corbett Bar and Jeff Goins in a great discussion on writing.
The last video I love to see bloggers using is the classic “talking head” video.
In this style, you are simply going to be facing the camera, and chatting with your audience about advice, tips, a personal update, a story, showing them something live—really, any topic works for these videos.
You can feature someone else (non-interview style) discussing a certain topic, as Derek Halpern did with his videos on blog design.
Or, you can simply record yourself, which gives a really personal take on your content and allows you to mix things up from the standard blog post.
Darren is known to do this himself on his YouTube channel, and you’ll see through the comments that people really enjoy getting a personal take from a blogger via video. Nothing adds “you” to your blog like video content.
To get started with a talking head video, all you need is a camera with video recording capabilities (HD preferred) and a YouTube account, which makes this one of the easiest forms of video to get start with. Darren’s also handily explained the setup he uses for his videos.
This is another topic we’ll look at in detail later today, when an experienced video blogger shares his tips for making talking head videos like a pro.
Example video:
This video example from Amy Porterfield shows how to relay a quick tip via video, using an in-person recording and screen capturing, which we discussed above.
Have you tried out video content yet?
What is your favorite form of video style that I’ve discussed above? Any that you are looking forward to trying? I’d love to hear your thoughts on video in the comments.
Gregory Ciotti is the author of Sparring Mind, a content marketing blog that focuses on research & facts to find what really works in creating valuable content that creates a loyal following. Find out how Greg does things or follow him on Twitter.
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