This is the last segment 3 of 3 on using Video in your marketing mix.

Video has consumed America. A tiny English woman Susan Boyle, sang herself into our hearts this week and convinced millions of the power of video.

Video allows an emotional connection with your friend or fans, you are able to communicate to more of the senses using video.

So we need to get started . . . now. Just play a little. Don’t be afraid – it is ONLY A CAMERA! Take Baby Steps!

Think about using:

The video feature on your digital camera

Purchase TheFlip or a similar camera

I asked Mike Mueller, (video guy extraordinaire of AreWeConnected) a couple of questions on a webinar we recently held:

How long should a video be? – The shorter the better. Videos under 2 or 3 minutes work best.

Should video be raw (as shot) or edited. If so what to use to edit?

Always edit if at all possible. Cut the beginning and the end to length, snip out anything in the middle and add your branding; Make sure you include contact info, titles and links to items referenced in the video.

Most Important: Use but minimize the transition effects and use a tripod whenever possible.

As for what program to use, it depends on if you have a Mac or PC. Mac has imovie which does wonderful stuff, for the PC user they can use Windows Movie Maker. Both are free and simple to use.

Other programs to use (not free) are Camtasia Studios, Adobe Premiere, and Sony Vegas. Each has its benefits.

Most every editing program has a Storyboard and Timeline view. You can alternate between the two. You’ll need to be in Storyboard to insert transitions,

and you’ll need to be in Timeline to clip the length and add titles.

Ok, so we’ve created our video, now what do we do with it?

Now we need to send it to a site to host. I’ll use YouTube as an example. We upload the file to YouTube. There is a great post by Brad Andersohn called  Youtube and your Real Estate Videos. Click here for the link:

Set up an account on YouTube. Click on UPLOAD and add your video. We need to give the video a title, a description, and tags (these are metatags). We can set the privacy levels and indicate if we want comments or not.

Why YouTube? Why not other sites?

YouTube will give your video the most exposure. What is referred to as “eyeballs”. While it might not be the right “eyeballs” there are quite a few other sites out there as well.

Why not upload them to all the sites?

You can! With a free service like TubeMogul.com You’ll upload it to their site and they will distribute it to the other sites you’ve dictated. According to Mike Mueller of AreWeConnected, says make sure you are not in violation of the TOS. If you add music, you should make sure it is royalty free. Sites like Vimeo allow only non commercial videos. If they deem any of your videos to be commercial they’ll simply delete your account.

A great place to get royalty free music is IStockAudio. Music downloads are quite affordable. You pay for them once and can use them over and over.

Final advice?

Don’t be afraid of the camera. Get out and do it. Start simply with Slideshows if you need to. Nobody really likes the way they look and sound on camera. Get over it. Be human, be real, and let your personality show!

Found this great slidedeck on Slideshare. Great ideas for using Twitter in your business. Share it with your company and brainstorm how Twitter can be used to promote your own business. Chat soon!

Just heard about Wordle a site up for a Webby and I had to try it. You put in a URL or lots of text and it creates one of these . . .

Or this one, I took all the words of my resume/ bio and created this one:

Isn’t this fun? Go to www.wordle.net and create one of your own!

Facebook is one of the popular web service/platforms right now. Many people have already found Facebook to be a valuable addition to their web marketing strategy. Why? Because Facebook social networking can effectively connect you with potential clients, past customers and friends, with no cost and minimal effort. Buyers & Sellers are interested in their “Micro-market”, where they live and work. Your goal is to give them information they can’t get anywhere else and they will be hooked. Other than your all important status updates, adding applications selectively can help your business grow. Right now, there are over 2000 apps you can add to your Facebook profile. The temptation may be to try them all. Click on this link to see the full list of applications. Pick apps that won’t waste your time when you visit your Facebook home page, so avoid those that involve playing games, throwing things and just plain silliness. Read the app description carefully and know exactly what you’re getting, and what the privacy settings are before you go. It helps to see how your contacts are using the app first. But remember, if you add it, you can remove it. If you don't want to add applications that other people send to you, hit the IGNORE button. (They will never know.) Think of your apps in two ways

1. What do you want to see (that will appear on your Facebook home page)
2. What do I want the world to see (that will appear on your profile)?

While it might seem like a small part of why you would want to set up a presence on Facebook, Applications can actually dramatically enhance your ability to manage your content and provide a compelling experience. Some examples: Memorable Web address for Facebook - create a short easy to remember facebook link to your profile. Include it in your email signature. Slideshare - Share your PDFs and Powerpoints with potential clients. How about a prelisting presentation? Why work with a buyer agent? The real story behind buying a foreclosure. You get the idea. Google Calendar – Share your calendar of events Birthday and Social Calendars – choose one to keep on tops of friends birthdays Blognetworks – Promote other blogs that you read Free Conference call nice and easy to use program Facebook Video Facebook Video provides a high-quality video platform for people and pages on Facebook. With Video, you can upload video files, send video from your mobile phone, and record video messages to your friends. Business Card With this application, you can: * create a Business Card and customize it * attach your Business Card to Facebook messages * browse other cards and read comments RSS Reader Applications These enable you to leverage the content updates you are probably already doing on your main online presence. Why bother cutting and pasting when RSS can do the work of syndicating the content on your Facebook Page? My 12minutetechbyte for this is: Pick one application, add, it use it see if you like it. And then selectively add others that you like.