Survival Guide — WiredIn: YouTube as a Marketing Tool

With over 100 million U.S. viewers (recorded in December 2008), YouTube is a hidden gem when it comes to marketing. In this bust economy, thinking outside the box and getting your pitch onscreen can pay off big time.

With 80 percent of people in the U.S. spending as much time online as watching TV, developing an active Web presence beyond just your business website is an important marketing move. Many people searching for a professional portrait photographer or wedding photographer start—and often finish—the quest online, so maximizing your visibility is a smart move.
 
Wedding and portrait photographers can easily take advantage of evolving and affordable technology to post promotional videos on YouTube, AOL Video and other free video sharing websites where users can easily upload video clips to promote their businesses. Each uploaded video can carry keywords or tags that enable anyone looking for a professional photographer to instantly find videos that have been associated with a particular term or combination of words.

YouTube Photography Video Roundup
A recent search for “portrait photographer” on YouTube pulled up 32,500 videos, many posted by professional photographers, while a search for “wedding photographer” on the same site culled 8020 videos. Length, style and level of sophistication vary, but they all aim to deliver a promotional message. The subject matter included showcases of recent work (showing range and professionalism) and tutorials on topics such as “how to choose a wedding photographer” and “how to best photograph babies.” Glowing testimonials from newlyweds give other interested couples a peek into how the potential photographer worked, their personality, talents and temperament during the event, as well as the resulting albums. For an example of a wedding testimonial, visit Bella Rose’s video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vpsWlSZbEg. Other videos are compilations of still images artfully put together with a variety of zooms, transitions and fades, all set to music like Kairos Studio’s in Austin, Texas: www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqUOqjotpOY.

Typically, at the end of each video, graphic visuals suggest that the viewer contact the photo studio or photographer, with business name and website (and only sometimes a phone number) listed. Many videos also include a direct link to the studio’s or photographer’s website. Most videos range in length of 20 seconds or shorter to five minutes or longer. Check out Dias Photo’s video to see an example of a photographer sharing his website and story; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFpm8mGoinw.
One heavily viewed video by corporate photographer
David Tejada (featured in Rangefinder’s September 2008 lighting-themed issue) with 187,808 viewings and counting (www.you
tube.com/watch?v=1xQmWPAcaKU) uses voiceover narration to explain how a portrait photographer sets up, captures images and reviews with the client; how to shoot nine corporate head-and-shoulders shots as well as nine environmental photos onsite at a company. The informative video, which runs for four minutes and 22 seconds, ends with the photographer’s links to his blog and website on a black screen.

In addition to attracting new business from those searching for “wedding photographers” in their geographic region online, studio owners should email potential and past customers the direct link to their online videos. Forward-thinking service providers have already posted promotional videos online, which include time-lapse videos set to music, live-action how-tos and talking heads explaining services offered.

Making Your Own Video
Creating videos and posting them to YouTube is an easy and affordable process, using simple to operate, inexpensive camcorders that don’t require any learning curve at all.  

For example, the new Flip MinoHD is a pocket-sized high-definition (HD) camcorder that makes it very easy to capture and share HD video online. The slim, trim and tailored camcorder weighs just over three ounces. Small enough to slip into a shirt pocket or pants wallet pocket, it has a HD 720p resolution, and 4GB of internal memory, enough to hold up to 60 minutes of HD video.

The device, which has a 1.4-inch LCD display, features one-touch video and fingertip controlled 2X digital zoom. The user pushes a center red button to start recording and pushes it again to stop, making anything from fast snippets to long takes a snap. Touch-sensitive up and down buttons above and below the red button handle zoom-in and zoom-out. Other touch-sensitive buttons activate fast-forward, rewind and pause during playback. Another touch-sensitive button takes care of delete. It’s all very easy. A built-in USB arm plugs directly in to a PC or Mac USB port with no additional wires. The sealed internal lithium ion battery provides up to two hours of life and recharges whenever the arm is connected.

The onboard software, FlipShare, which installs directly when the camcorder is connected to a PC or Mac, streamlines the processes of browse, play and delete of videos, saving the videos to your computer, snapping photos from the video and sharing of the videos. The software streamlines the procedure of uploading the clips directly to YouTube. It automatically converts any video file to Adobe Flash Video format, the file format commonly used to embed video directly to the Web, including to YouTube, AOL Video and MySpace. The software also lets you post directly to email.

FlipShare provides a very easy way to perform custom movie editing, with the option to use your own music and to add titles and credits, for professional level promotional videos. The drag-and-drop interface makes it easy for the user to browse among the various takes, play them back and organize them in a way to put together exactly the story you want to tell. The software also allows you to capture still photos from any video.
Before your first upload to YouTube, you need to set up a free user account, which is a very straightforward, quick process. After confirmation of the upload shows on screen, you can cut and paste the hyperlink to your video and send it to potential clients via email. At any time you can instantly post new videos without any limit. You could match a new video to an upcoming season or holiday or highlight your latest photo project.

If you want to stretch your legs as a video director, you can take advantage of the more advanced features offered by Adobe Premier Elements 7, which is a sophisticated video editing software solution. The program enables users to easily edit clips, compile them in any order, add animated titles and other special effects, TV-style transitions and even music that will automatically adjust to match the length of the movie. This software, like FlipShare, facilitates immediate and direct upload of any video to YouTube, using the Adobe Flash Video for Web preset, which covers the requirements of most servers and the bandwidth and player options available to most viewers. It also enables users to attach keywords or tags to any video, which will then lead any online searcher to any clip on YouTube carrying that term.

Take one, anyone?

William and Patti Feldman are freelance writers based in NY.