Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Video Marketing Tips - Never Use YouTube For Your Business Web Sites & Blog - Top Ten Reasons

Video Marketing is a great way to extend your reach and build your list. And to market your business I suggest you use all the different video sites, including YouTube.

What I see many Internet Marketers doing though is using YouTube videos on their business sites and I think this is a big mistake. Let's take a closer look at my top ____ reasons why you do not want to use You Tube videos on your business web sites and blogs.

1. YouTube logo says, you don't know how, you are too cheap, you can't afford to host video on your own web site or blog. It's like giving wealth advice while driving a broken down old Pinto.

2. You cannot change the player and are stuck with what YouTube provides. You can't create colored players to match the look and feel of your website.

3. There is no way to auto start or do a URL redirect to your sales page.

4. You cannot put in your video in membership sites as content is public and not protected.

5. There is no way to do tracking links so you can track from where your visitors are coming.

6. YouTube puts search boxes in the video that take your visitor away from your website.These can be links to related videos who may be your competitors.

7. In a YouTube there can be clickable links in the lower 3rd of the screen - Google Ads - that take your visitors to other websites, possibly your competitors.

8. YouTube can change the rules at anytime, and no matter how much you whine, they could care less.

9. What if you had 1000's of videos that make you money on 100's of websites and YouTube ran Super Bowl commercials for Miller Beer, and you had an AA Alcoholics blog or website...Not good for your audience.

10. You basically have no control over the video you produced.

Bottom Line - You Tube for traffic to you, never for your business money making websites. And here's how you can claim your FREE Instant Access to a 6 minute video on how to safely host videos on your money making sites when you visit http://www.s3mediaplayer.com/

From Mike Stewart, The Internet Video Guy & S3MediaPlayer.com

Sunday, February 1, 2009

IMovie Video Editing Software - A Breeze to Use

Does editing video on a computer leave you scratching your head? Video editing programs can be very confusing for the novice user. There is so much stuff crammed onto your monitor, it's hard to know where to start.

Video editing programs have five to six different windows up on the screen at once. Even more windows are hidden until you click the appropriate button. Each window functions independently and each is sort of like a different piece of equipment. In fact, before computers, video editing was done with about twenty different components. An editing suite was a large room crammed full of all these components. Now, with computers, it is a bit like each one of those components is shrunk down and stuffed into your computer.

Once you learn what all the windows do and how they operate together, video editing will make much more sense.

Most video editing programs are laid out in a similar fashion.

iMovie by Apple is one of the easiest to use.

iMovie is the free video editing program that comes on a Mac when you buy it.

The designers of iMovie started from scratch to create a simple, intuitive, drop and drag program that would be handy for novices who want a nice look but don't want to bother learning a complex program.

Everything you need is right there, but they were smart and limited the onscreen commands to only those that you use frequently. Contrast that with other video editing programs where you are confronted with literally hundreds of commands crammed onto every inch of screen space. That's great if you have used the program a long time and know what every button does, but it will only confuse the novice with choices she probably doesn't even want.

iMovie sticks with the basics and it is all drag and drop.

Music, photos and other media are all easily imported. iMovie provides easy access links into the other programs and all the software is 100% integrated automatically.

I've always been a fan of Apple products and I think Final Cut is the most fantastic video editing software on the planet. However, FCP takes a while to learn. iMovie doesn't.

If you are looking for an easy video editing software program, iMovie is another fantastic reason to leave the PC behind. iMovie knocks the socks off Windows Movie Maker.

Lorraine Grula has been a well-respected award winning video professional for over twenty-five years. (Yeah, that makes her kind of old.) Lorraine has done virtually every kind of video production imaginable and now shares her expertise on the web. Her blog, http://www.VideoProductionTips.com is full of free information and video tutorials.