Everyone knows that video is a great way to get attention, spread the word, or keep your reader’s interest. A while ago I talked about wrapping your video in great content to give the search engines something to find. We also talked about adding value to your posts with video, but we didn’t address how to find a great video and how to share it.

One of the best places to find a good video is on YouTube.

You can create your own video, of course, and post it to YouTube without too much trouble. You should give it a try; it’s actually quite fun and relatively easy if you have a few basic tools, including a webcam and some editing software. Most newer computers come with everything you need.

Listen to this podcast:
[audio:ListPipe_Podcast_35.mp3]

Finding a video on YouTube is pretty easy to do. Just visit YouTube.com and perform a search in the box at the top of the screen. You can search for anything such as a product or company name, an event, or keyword. Expect to get a lot of hits and to weed through a few videos before you find the perfect one.

If you are looking for a company video, you can usually find them posted to the company channel, which will feature a group of videos from the same company or sponsor.

Once you have located your video, there are a couple of options for sharing:

First, to include the video on a blog page, all you’ll have to do is copy the embed code from the YouTube page and paste it into your post. To do this, look to the right of the video and click on the box marked ‘embed’. This will open a drop-down section that allows you to select from a handful of options including whether or not to add a frame to the video, what color the frame should be (to match your site) and a size that will work best for your template.

Make the appropriate adjustments and simply copy the line of code in the ‘embed’ box. Paste this code into your blog post and you have now added a video. The video will play right on your site and your readers won’t have to leave your page.

The other way to easily share a YouTube video is to click the ‘Share’ tab just below the video. This tab will open a few options including one-click links to share to your Facebook and Twitter accounts.

When you click a share link you will be given an opportunity to add a comment to the video that will appear with the link on your social network page. Easy!

Sharing video from your company is a great way to spread the word, and is a great way to get a corporate message out without having to repeat it yourself. This can open the doors to a more engaging conversation after your readers or friends have seen the video and have a visual background of your products or services.

If your company doesn’t have a video posted to YouTube, take the initiative and create one yourself. Be sure to get the usual permissions for copyrights and trademarks, and be sure to stick to the features and benefits of the product without extending your liability.

Listen to this podcast:
[audio:ListPipe_Podcast_35.mp3]

Passing along ideas is what the Web is all about. When you post information to the Web, or discover something of interest that someone else has posted, you want to share it, tell your friends, and get the word out. You see this all the time with articles, of course, but it works well for events, discounts and all things funny or clever.

What I want to talk about in this post is how to share the information we create or discover in a way that makes it compelling for others to read. After all; there is no sense in taking the effort to share if there is little chance that your recipient will take a look.

A few weeks ago I shared some insight into adding personalization to your posts in order to make them more compelling to our readers. The same rules apply when sharing a link, and especially when sharing by email.

Listen to this podcast:
[audio:ListPipe_Podcast_34.mp3]

We have learned from Twitter and Facebook that adding a brief descriptive introduction to our posts makes it more likely that others will participate. Whenever you share a link in Facebook, for instance, you are provided with a comment box in which to add your own comment. Twitter works the same way, allowing a very brief comment to be included so that others will know what the link is about. Incorporating these skills into our other communications is a great way to get our audience to engage with us, particularly in email.

I get forwarded emails all the time, and a good percentage of these are links to articles that my friends and associates want me to see. I appreciate them, but sometimes all I get is a single link, with no explanation or no lead in that tells me what I am getting into. I hate getting these…

Why? Well, for starters it creates some apprehension against even clicking on the link in the first place. After all, this is how a lot of phishing sites deliver their spam; an email with a lone link, lurking about in the off case I will just click it out of curiosity. I never do, and neither should you.

My point is this; without a brief introduction to the link you are now competing with spam emails for attention, and if you are like me you usually discard them without a second look. You don’t want that happening to your communications.

Another reason is that as the reader you are committing me to look at the link ‘cold’, which means you have missed an opportunity to influence my perspective on what I may be reading. By sharing your enthusiasm, sympathy, or excitement about an article you are linking to, your readers will instantly become more interested. And that makes for good business!

We are constantly barraged with information, and when it takes more than a second or two to process the ‘hows’, ‘whys’ and ‘whats’ of a message we often tune out or discard it. This happens whether you are on Twitter, reading an email, on the phone or speaking in person. The best way to get your audience to engage with you is to engage them first, and all it takes is a quick introduction of the information you want to share to turn it into a conversation.

Here’s my protocol for success, in the context of an email. Let’s assume you are forwarding a link to your blog post, or to an interesting article you have found on the Internet.

Make your subject line descriptive of the action you are taking, just like you would start a conversation in person: ‘Here’s an Interesting article for you to read’. But don’t stop there; add a descriptive line in the body of your message, ahead of the link. Something that conveys your feelings about the article whether you are excited, empathetic, or displeased. Something that connects your reader to the story and either makes it important to them or generates some interest: ‘I read this and thought you would be interested because you have had a similar experience’.

The more personal you can make it, the better.

The idea is two fold: 1) you are working to generate genuine interest, and 2) you’re trying to persuade or prepare your recipient’s perception. After all, you’re not just passing this along for no good reason; you have a communications objective whether it is to sell, persuade, or build friendship. To engage your audience you need to engage them first; Start the conversation with a compelling introduction.

Listen to this podcast:
[audio:ListPipe_Podcast_34.mp3]

A picture is worth a thousand words, and while I usually emphasize writing good content so that your blogs are indexed by the search engines, adding some visual spice is always a great idea.

Adding images to your blog is easy. In popular blog platforms such as Wordpress there are tools that allow you to easily upload a small image into your blog. Once you have uploaded an image, you can also make some adjustments including the padding or spacing around the image so that your words don’t bump right into the image, and the justification so that you can position the image to the right, left, or center of your post.

Uploading the images is fairly easy. As a quick note, the most common and easily used images for your blog are .JPG, .PNG, and .GIF. JPG is the most preferred, and what is generally produced by most digital cameras and screen capture utilities.

Listen to my podcast of this post:
[audio:ListPipe_Podcast_33.mp3]

What I find to be the hard part is in finding an appropriate image to include with your post. Just the right image can add volumes of context to your post. Funny or abstract images are my favorites, but there is certainly good reason to add clarifying images, or those that appeal to emotion.

There are plenty of places to look, but the first thing to be aware of is copyright laws. It is illegal to simply steal an image from another person’s website or library without permission. Doing so can get you into trouble, but there are several ways to avoid this problem.

The first is to pay for an image. This costs money, of course, but is a safe way to get high quality images for your blog. My favorite site for purchasing images is iStock.com.

Another way is to use your own photography. Most of us have digital cameras these days so it is relatively easy to plan ahead, take a break from your computer, and host your very own photo shoot. I have done this in a variety of ways and I’ve had a lot of fun doing it every time. Of course you don’t have to go to elaborate lengths to create the perfect photo; sometimes a simple picture of a flower in the back yard, a window reflecting the sky, or a fencepost will do.

When blogging for your business, stock photos of your company’s products and the ways they can be used are good images to include, and are often available from your company website.

Another great place to get photos is Flickr. Flickr.com is a great source of photos taken by regular people from all over the world. You’ll be amazed at the quality and breadth of the photos you can find on Flickr. A great search tool for finding photos on Flickr is called Compfight. Just go to compfight.com and perform a search for the image you are looking for. Compfight takes care to search only those photos that are labeled for public use, however you will still want to be sure you are using a photo that has been given a Creative Commons license, meaning it is open source and available for use without payment. Some restrictions may apply, so always double check.

Adding an image to your posts is a great way to spice up your content and give your readers a little extra fun to look at when they stop by your blog.

Listen to my podcast of this post:
[audio:ListPipe_Podcast_33.mp3]

I was in the grocery store the other day watching people in front of me edge their way toward the cashier. As each person presented their handful of items to the clerk in the express lane, the clerk would offer a short and friendly personal greeting. ‘How are you today’, ‘That’s a lovely sweater you’re wearing’, ‘The bananas look good, don’t they?’. Each time a person approached her, she renewed her smile and made is sound fresh.

I was impressed. I actually thought ‘certainly she can’t keep this up all day’, but then I realized that yes, she probably could; there is no shortage of things to say when you personalize, and no limit to the amount of interest you can generate when you add a personal touch.

[audio:ListPipe_Podcast_32.mp3]

Imagine you were standing there in line in front of me, and as you approached the clerk she paid you a compliment on the color of your shirt. You would instantly feel a personal bond and would be compelled to engage with her, perhaps thanking her for the compliment, or maybe telling her a short story about where you found it, or that it is also your spouse’s favorite, or that all your shirts are this color because you love it.

And so it goes for blogging. Adding a personal touch to your posts will not only help you bring interest and life to your stories, but it will help people identify with you on a more personal level, and will compel them to engage with you.

Creative writing is a challenge for most of us, but retelling a story can come quite naturally. I find that one of the best ways to blog is to simply retell a story in my own words. Personalize it, and give it my own personal perspective. When you find a story that is worth passing along, don’t simply retell the story word for word; reinvent the story from your own perspective. Give new insight, posit new theories, and offer extending ideas.

An easy way to do this is to insert yourself into the story. As I did in my opening story; you probably envisioned me standing in a grocery store line waiting for my turn, and probably have a mental image of what the clerk might have looked like. By telling you about my place in the story, you became connected and your mind engaged. At least I hope so…

The people around you are most interested in hearing what you think about a story, not necessarily in the story itself. It’s your personalization that really brings it home for your audience. The next time you post content to your blog, or to a social network like Facebook or Twitter, take care to add yourself to the story and watch how others get engaged with you.

Can you believe I record these things? Give it a listen and tell me what you think:
[audio:ListPipe_Podcast_32.mp3]

A popular thing to do these days is to add video to your blog. This is a great idea because it adds some visual flair to your site and gives your readers a good reason to stick around. Especially if the video is interesting, funny, or noteworthy.

The most popular and easy way to add video to your site is to embed video from YouTube.com. It’s easy to do; simply find a favorite video on YouTube and copy the embed link you’ll find just to the right of the video. Clicking on the embed link opens a drop down menu of options you can select to change the way the video looks, including border colors and sizes.

To Listen to the podcast of this post, just click below:
[audio:ListPipe_Podcast_31.mp3]

For those of you using Wordpress, you’ll want to drop this bit of code into the HTML editing view in your post window. Change back to the visual WYSIWYG editor to add some content.

Add some content. This is really the gist of my tip this week; video alone is not enough to satisfy the search engines’ hunger for written content. While video is fun for us humans, it doesn’t leave much for the search engines to index; search engines can’t watch and understand videos. So no matter how many you have on your site, the search engines will pass you by if you are not including the written word.

So even though you have added a great video to your blog, it’s important to add content, too.

Next time you add a video to your blog, take just a few extra minutes to add a description of the video underneath. Give a quick explanation of what your readers will see in the video, add your thoughts or opinion about the video, and make sure to use a handful of keywords.

You only need a paragraph or two to give the search engines enough to go on, and the mix of video and written content will assure that the search engines are as happy as your readers.

To Listen to the podcast of this post, just click below:
[audio:ListPipe_Podcast_31.mp3]

I was reading the annual Content Marketing Spending Survey by Junta42 and was surprised that the list of content products users plan to take advantage of has Enewsletters and Blogs at a dead heat for second place. If you hadn’t guessed, first place is occupied by ‘Social Media’ including Twitter and Facebook.

The report surveyed 259 marketing professionals and asked them where they plan to spend their time and money in the coming year. A full 72 percent mentioned social networks as part of their marketing plans. Importantly, social networking was the number one position for marketers. Online newsletters and blogs are listed as second, with 63 percent saying they are engaged with these types of marketing tools. Another interesting result of the survey is that the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh positions of the report were strictly content, in the form of white papers, articles, case studies and online video.

The reason I was surprised that newsletters and blogs are tied for second is that blogs can be used as a newsletter, effectively killing two birds with one stone. I think it is both important and telling, too, that the positions just below ‘Blog’ are specifically content, all of which can be distributed via a blog (supporting my long-time stance that a blog is the foundation of any online marketing campaign).

To Listen to the podcast of this post, just click below:
[audio:ListPipe_Podcast_30.mp3]

There’s no doubt that a newsletter is a great way to stay in touch with your audience, and there are certainly reasons to use a newsletter. However if you are already a blogger, you may not have known that you are already on the way to hosting an newsletter. There are two ways to deal with this, and both help you leverage the concept of a newsletter or broadcast to deliver your blog content to your audience, and to attract them back to your site for more information.

The first way is probably already built into your blog, especially if you are using a ListPipe solution, or the popular Wordpress software. It’s called ‘RSS’, and it’s a built-in way for people to subscribe to your content. RSS stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication‘, and it’s a web standard that most browsers support automatically. When a visitor comes to your site they have an ability to subscribe to your RSS feed, and can receive content from you in their own browsers every time they post.

If you are using a ListPipe or Wordpress solution for your blog, simply type the word ‘/feed’ after your URL in your browser, and you’ll be asked to subscribe. Using this simple technique will allow you, and your readers, to receive an automatic update whenever you post new content.

Another way to deliver your blog content to your readers is to use a subscription service such a Google’s Feedburner. Feedburner is a free blog service that offers a subscription management tool. All you have to do is start a Google Feedburner account, and then direct people to your Feedburner subscription form to capture their email address. Whenever you post content to your blog, Feedburner will automatically email your readers with your article right in the email.

With Feedburner you also have a number of tools that allow you to manage your subscribers including adding and deleting them. Don’t worry about the management headache; Feedburner handles unsubscribes for you with a handy link at the bottom of every email they send on your behalf.

So if you are a blogger already, you are already ahead of the crowd when it comes to delivering an newsletter, you just need to make a few adjustments and let your readers know.

To Listen to the podcast of this post, just click below:
[audio:ListPipe_Podcast_30.mp3]

As we move into the second month of the year and our New Year’s Resolutions begin to fade into our busy schedules and habitual routines, it may be time for a quick reminder to keep it up!

Marketing online is a relentless pursuit, and even the tiniest of breaks can literally break the chain.

In particular, when blogging you risk loosing the attention of the search engines if you stop posting great content on a regular schedule. Your social networks, too, depend on your constant attention in order to maintain a top-of-mind presence in the minds of your followers.

In my experience, most bloggers start off with strong intentions and then begin to wear out after three to four weeks of posting. Now is the time to pull ahead of the crowd and reinvigorate your online efforts. Here’s a few quick tips to keep your blog alive and your networks growing:

1. Create a schedule for yourself. Make a note in your calendar and set aside a specific time to organize, write and post to your blog. Also, make sure to set aside a specific time each day to check in on your social networks and to repost a few items. Set a calendar reminder and stick to it.

2. Organize your effort. Posting to a blog is a complex task and requires at least a little bit of planning for even the best of us. Take a moment to establish a plan for your weekly posting routine. Identify a process that suits you and practice following the steps each week. For instance; set a timeline, and make a list of items to check off for each post. Your items might include ‘Brainstorming’, ‘Defining a Topic’, ‘Research’, ‘Writing a Draft’, ‘Editing’, and ‘Posting Live’. Whatever your routine; get it down on paper and follow it each week.

3. Keep in Mind. Through your week you will be inspired by new ideas and topics to write about. Be prepared to recognize these moments and have some tools on hand for capturing your fresh ideas. Make a note on your phone, or keep a pencil and paper handy. Train yourself to recognize new ideas and to capture them for later blogging.

4. Don’t Cheat. It is tempting to cheat a week or two and procrastinate, especially at this time of year when the sky is a little extra grey, and the cabin fever starts setting in. As we all know, this is the first step to failure, and the first opportunity for our competition to get the upper hand. Don’t let them have it! Stay true to your plan and work hard to meet your schedule. As soon as you let yourself slip, it gets a little harder to get back on the saddle, and before you know it all is lost and you are starting over.

Take a few moments to reset your commitment to blogging and social marketing, and you’ll be glad you did as you pull ahead.

Go ahead: Listen to the podcast of this post:
[audio:ListPipe_Podcast_29.mp3]

It’s the new year and you are hitting the ground running with your online marketing plans. While everyone else is talking about what to plan for, I thought this would be a good opportunity to talk about the structure of your plan.

It seems that all we hear about at this time of year is ‘goal setting’, but most of us rarely pause to consider what goal setting is, and how it relates to our online marketing plan.

Whether you are concentrating on social media, your marketing blog, or a good old fashioned email marketing campaign, it helps to understand the difference between Tasks, Goals, and Objectives. Let’s break ‘em down with a quick analogy:

When playing a sport, for instance ‘football’, your objective is to ‘win the game’. This is your overarching reason for all the effort and sacrifice you invest. While playing football, you win by making goals. Simple enough; you achieve your objective by setting and reaching goals. A goal can be scoring a point, or a goal can be to post to your blog on a regular frequency.

Finally, goals are made by executing tasks. A task in football might be to count to ‘three alligators‘, run ten steps and turn around to catch a ball. In your business a task is the smallest increment of work that helps you achieve your goal. In this case it might be ‘writing a post’.

Your Strategy is the plan you assemble to organize and complete your tasks and goals in order to achieve your objectives.

So as you contemplate your social media strategy, first outline your objective by asking yourself ‘What do I want to accomplish with all my effort?’. It may be a specific financial objective for your business. Next, determine the goals you need to set in place that drive your progress toward your objective. Goals are shorter term, and you need to have several if not many of them.

Tasks are the basic components of your goals; the actual ‘doing’ that gets the job done. Many tasks comprise a goal, and many goals comprise an objective.

Note that the most important aspect of Tasks, Goals, and Objectives is that they are all specifically defined, measurable, and timed. Like a three legged chair; without these three elements, you do not have an achievable task, goal or objective.

Listen to the podcast of this post:
[audio:ListPipe_Podcast_28.mp3]

Of course you can always save yourself the time of performing many tasks by signing up for a ListPipe account. ListPipe provides regular customized content to your Wordpress blog to give you a leg up in your online marketing effort. We’ll do all the research and writing for you, and all at a very affordable price. Check out http://listpipe.com for more information.

As the year comes to a close, I wanted to spend a moment looking forward with a few ideas to add to your strategy.

With more and more marketers blogging these days, it’s getting harder and harder to make a splash in an otherwise crowded marketplace. But that shouldn’t stop you from having a plan to blog about your business in the coming new year.

With search engines concentrating evermore on organic writing, high frequency and relevant keywords, the notion that ‘Content is King‘ should be the foundation of your marketing strategy for 2010.

Listen to my podcast of this post using this handy MP3 player:
[audio:ListPipe_Podcast_26.mp3]

Here is my quick list of reminders and tips to make your blog really stick out:

Organic Writing: Search engines are looking for original content. When you write on your blog, Facebook page or Twitter, your content is being scoured by the search engines and compared to other relevant content. When your content is deemed to be unique, you are awarded a higher organic status than with content that is copied or reproduced, and placed higher in the search results for your given topic.

Ways to make your content more unique, and more organic, include adding localization, personalizing information such as your contact address and phone number, putting the story into your own words, and allowing your own personality to shine through in the content.

Frequency. You have heard me talk about the importance of frequency before; basically the more you post, the more popular you will be in the search engines. This is a good time of year to establish a new goal to step up your frequency, and to expand your posting ritual beyond your blog to Facebook and Twitter. You should be posting once per week at a minimum, and more if you can. For serious marketers, I recommend posting twice per week with a daily post to both Facebook and Twitter.

Relevant Keywords. This, too, seems to be an overworked mantra. However, including relevant keywords in your content is the single most important way to let the search engines know where to include you in search results. The start of a new year is a perfect time to make a list and check it twice; revisit your keywords by doing a little research on what your customers are searching for, and physically write them at the top of your writing template. Review them often and include a selection from the list in every post.

Listen to my podcast of this post using this handy MP3 player:
[audio:ListPipe_Podcast_26.mp3]

If you are a business blogger and are looking for great SEO content for your blog, consider a subscription to ListPipe; in just a few short minutes you can get us started writing original, personalized content for your blog that is search engine optimized and linked to your primary website from relevant keywords. Take a look at http://listpipe.com

Working with keywords has always been important, but now that Twitter and Facebook are being indexed by search engines, it’s even more important to watch what you are saying, and to optimize for the best possible result.

Keywords are the terms and phrases in your posts that are most relevant to your topic. For instance if you are posting in your blog about a healthy food product, then your keywords will of course be the product name. But don’t stop there; keywords will also include the product category, the product ingredients, and can also include the ways you can use the product.

Want to listen?:
[audio:ListPipe_Podcast_25.mp3]

Your ultimate objective with keywords is to make a connection between your content and the terms your customers are searching for. While many customers search for generalized terms, some search for very specific terms. When you stick with the generalized terms on your site, you are competing with a million other sites for those terms. However, when you make your terms more specific, you reduce the number of competitors and open the door for more attention, albeit from a smaller crowd.

The wisdom follows that you would like to get more interest from a smaller, more focused set of customers than from a very small portion of a larger but less focused set. Would you rather be fishing with a big net in the ocean, or a small net in a barrel chock full of exactly the fish you like?

Let’s talk about a few ways you can optimize your keywords…

Keyword modifiers can help distinguish your product from a competitor’s, or can help refine your search for a more specific term. For instance you may add the word ‘chewable’ or ‘drink’ to your product name to help distinguish its specific product type. Adding words like ‘healthy’ or ‘natural’ can help refine search results for people looking for specific categories.

Modifiers are intended to make your keywords more specific, and thereby reduce the number of competing terms.

Associative Keywords are keywords that are related to your keywords, but that may not be precisely related to your product. For instance if you are selling a healthy food, you will want to add keywords that relate to proper digestion or good nutrition. These types of words will come naturally in your discussion, but it helps to be aware of them so that you can concentrate on using them in slightly more density than you might otherwise.

As you contemplate your keywords, don’t forget to consider misspellings or alternate spellings. If your keywords are hard to spell, or have a common alternative, intermingle these in your post to help the search engines identify your content with what your type-challenged customers may be entering into the search window.

Finally, remember to use localization terms with your keywords. The search engines are including localization tags in all their search results, meaning that it matters where you are from and where you are selling. Localized search results are relatively new and many users are only just catching on; this is a great way to get ahead of the curve and take advantage of local searches for your product. To add localization to your keywords, simply add the name of your city, state, and zip to your keywords.

Keep your keywords in mind as you write in your blog, on Facebook and Twitter. Optimize everything you write so that as the search engines index content from these sources, they know exactly how to match you up with the customers searching for your products.

Want to listen?:
[audio:ListPipe_Podcast_25.mp3]

Looking for a great way to start a business blog? Check out our new Business Blog Content Service from ListPipe; We’ll get you started with a blog and even write the content for you, every week!