Google Tools for Business, Blog Series - Part 5

Google Tools for Business, Blog Series – Part 5

By SourceLink Admin Advancing Entrepreneurship, Business Growth, Technology and Business Comments Off

In case you’re wondering, yes Google does own YouTube ergo it counts as part five of my Google Tools blog series!

Right now, many small businesses underestimate the power of visual storytelling to market their business products or services. I hear from lots of entrepreneurs who believe it’s too complicated, or they just don’t know where and how to start. I’m going to give you a freebie video topic: ask some of your key clients if they would be willing to do a 30 second video testimonial about why they love your business product or service. If they agree, you’re in!

Go out and buy or rent a small camera- right now they are pretty cheap. We recently bought a Sony Bloggie for this task and we have found it very intuitive to use. There are many different video recording devices out there, go to a technology company and ask for their suggestions, or even better, buy one from them! Once you have a camera, the rest of the process is fairly easy. Hit to the street and shoot your client quotes. Here are some important tips to keep in mind as you’re doing this:

Avoid strong backlight (strong light from behind your client) or distracting backgrounds.
Make sure your client’s speech is loud and clear.
Use a tripod to keep the camera set and steady during the recording.
Have the client pause for a few seconds between each take to make editing as easy as possible. Also try to conduct the entire video testimonial all in one shot.
Keep the testimonial very short- two minutes at a max.

Once you have the video on your recording device, you need to move it to your computer for editing and upload to YouTube. This usually is accomplished via a USB cable that came with your camera. You can use one of the free video editing software packages out there to edit your raw video. One we have used here in the office that is free and pretty easy to use is Microsoft Windows Movie Maker. There are many out there however, so when you go to buy your camera, be sure to also inquire about software to help you with this.

Once you have the video cleaned up, log in to your Google account (see my first Google Tools Blog on how to create a Gmail and/or Google Account) and click on the ‘upload’ link in the top right hand corner of the YouTube webpage. From here, you can enter in a description of the video and add tags. Tags are keywords that people search for to find your video. TIP: Be sure to have at least your business name and location in the tags and description. You may also want to include your business name in the YouTube video title, along with the client’s name. Keep in mind that all of this information can be edited later- so don’t fret too much about the specific language.

Now that you have your video up and loaded to YouTube, it is ready for distribution. You can use what is called the ‘Embed Code’ to place the video on your website. Even better if you create a new page dedicated to client testimonials and embed all of your videos there.

Once you’ve completed this process, your videos will appear in the Google video search and in some Google search results. In some ways, this blog article has been simplified. There are many steps in between, but we have people here who would be happy to help you work through any challenges you have getting your video up on your website. You can contact us via the MyEntre.Net Business Concierge for assistance.

This concludes my official Google Tools Blog Series. I’ve just touched the surface of all of the great services Google offers. Here is one of their newest inventions, Gmail Motion– just another reason to switch to Gmail :). Here’s a quick recap of what we’ve covered: