Connect with us

MARKETING

Try These 5 YouTube Video Tips and Watch Your Results Improve

Published

on

Try These 5 YouTube Video Tips and Watch Your Results Improve

How’s that for a headline that promises … not much? Here’s the truth: There’s no magic formula for success. Not on YouTube, not on social media, not on your blog.

Tim Schmoyer, founder of Video Creators, doesn’t promise his clients quick and easy tips – and he didn’t promise any to the Ask the #CMWorld Community in his recent livestream interview, either.

Instead, he advises relying on a set of “consistent principles that lead to growth more predictably than others.”

But if you’re not getting the results you want from your videos, you need to start experimenting somewhere. “We know the definition when you do the same thing over and over again and expect different results, right?” Tim says.

So stop creating and promoting videos the way you’ve been doing it – unless you’re happy with your results. (And if you’re pleased with your results, why are you reading this article? Send us a guest post or video to help your fellow video content marketers.)

Advertisement

There’s no magic formula for @YouTube success. But you can apply principles that lead to growth more often than not, says @timschmoyer via @CMIContent. #CMWorld Click To Tweet

Tim suggests you start by focusing on these principles:

Tell a great story

A great story is the closest thing to a magic formula for video success, Tim says.

If only crafting one was as easy as it sounds.

But Tim offered a place to look for guidance: the tried-and-true hero’s journey. You know that archetype – the hero sets out on an adventure, overcomes multiple challenges, and learns something along the way that transforms their life. It’s a model that Tim says produces “a really good story that has been proven to hook someone’s attention, hold their attention, and then get them to take some sort of action.”

The hero’s journey helps you tell a story that hooks and holds people’s attention in #video marketing, says @timschmoyer via @KMoutsos @CMIContent. #CMWorld Click To Tweet

Advertisement

When I heard Tim’s advice, I immediately thought of The Mirnavator, a gem of a video from REI.

The Mirnavator tells the incredible story of ultrarunner Mirna Valerio, who (as the video description says) “overcomes the negative voices that don’t believe she belongs in the sport.”

Watch even the first 20 seconds, and you’ll see how quickly the story hooks you.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:

Really get to know your audience

There’s a reason I remembered The Mirnavator all these years. The story of her journey should move all but the stoniest hearts.

But it also spoke to me because, like Mirna, I’m a woman and a (slow) runner who often feels like an imposter in the sport. It’s almost as if REI created this video to reach women like me.

Advertisement

As it turns out, that’s what the company did.

REI commissioned a survey on women’s outdoor experiences in early 2017 and found that women felt the lack of female role models for outdoor activities. And they perceived that men’s outdoor interests got more attention. The Mirnavator (and others in REI’s Force of Nature initiative) sprang from the REI content team’s commitment to telling more stories about women in the outdoors.

Yes, knowing your audience is borderline cliché advice, but all content and marketing must start here. You have to understand the people you want to reach to have any hope of getting their attention.

You’re not targeting a corporation. You’re still targeting a person at the corporation who has a problem they’re trying to solve, says @timschmoyer via @KMoutsos @CMIContent. #CMWorld #Video Click To Tweet

But what does it mean to know your audience exactly? Tim says it goes beyond the demographic details. You have to dig into the psychographic profile:

  • What’s their story emotionally?
  • Why are they seeking out content like this?
  • What can we create to make them say, “Where have you been all my life? This is just what I’m looking for!”

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:  

Emotion matters more than equipment

Not every company has the team or the budget to create REI-quality videos. But does that doom their videos to mediocrity?

Advertisement

If there is emotion in your story, you don’t need a big budget to create REI-quality #videos, says @timschmoyer via @KMoutsos @CMIContent. #CMWorld Click To Tweet

Not if the emotion is there, Tim says.

He shared the story of his recent 16-year wedding anniversary trip to Rhode Island. Tim brought along a DSLR camera, four different lenses, filters, and microphones to capture the weekend.

But he didn’t use any of them. Instead, he used his smartphone. And the video still performed.

“And that was because the story was compelling: a guy and his wife, 16-year wedding anniversary, dancing alone together as the sun’s rising on the beach.”

That’s a personal example, but it’s not hard to envision the business analogy.

Advertisement

In fact, Apple built a whole campaign around the concept. Shot on iPhone started as a user-generated content initiative, so you can find plenty of examples that didn’t involve a huge budget.

Eventually, it grew to feature Apple-commissioned spots by famous directors, including Life Is But a Dream from Park Chan-wook (The Handmaiden, Oldboy).

No, you probably can’t afford Park Chan-wook. Yes, you can afford a smartphone. Then invest in finding stories worth telling.

Thumbnails and titles matter – maybe more than anything else

Most of Tim’s tips so far apply to any form of content. But here’s a piece of video marketing advice you probably haven’t heard: Start with the thumbnail.

Advertisement

It’s that important.

“It doesn’t matter how amazing your story is. It doesn’t matter how emotional it is … if no one clicks on it in the first place,” Tim says.

And the way to get people to click?

Create a scroll-stopping thumbnail.

Create a scroll-stopping thumbnail to get people to back up and click, says @timschmoyer via @KMoutsos @CMIContent. #CMWorld #Video Click To Tweet

That means the thumbnail has to pass what Tim calls “the glance test.” That involves making your thumbnail as small as it will be when people are scrolling. Look away, then look back. Ask yourself:

Advertisement
  • What stood out?
  • Where did my eyes go?

Do this test, Tim says, and you’ll probably find that text distracts from the curiosity you hope your visual might spark.

What’s the optimal amount of text on a thumbnail? Tim says to aim for no text at all.

Instead, focus on finding a clear, eye-catching visual that makes people say, “Whoa, what was that?! Let me back up a little bit!”

Then the title can offer the pitch or the promise of the value the video will deliver.

Most video marketers fall down on this step, failing to create a question that compels viewers to click.

But some of Tim’s clients (with millions of subscribers, he says) focus on the thumbnail before anything else.

“It’s not uncommon for them to spend a day just brainstorming all of the titles and thumbnails they think their audience would click on,” he says. “They don’t bother to make the video unless they come up with a good title and thumbnail first.”

Advertisement

I’m a self-professed word nerd, and I found Tim’s “zero text on thumbnails” advice hard to take. So, I went to YouTube and scrolled through a bunch of thumbnails.

And … I’m skeptical. (Next step, test this on the CMI audience.)

But I did find enough to convince myself that words matter less than the chosen image.

This screenshot shows a row of thumbnails for trailers on HBO Max’s YouTube home page.

I used Tim’s glance test to see what stood out the most. For me, it’s:

  • The dragon on the thumbnail for the House of the Dragon trailer (far left)
  • The man’s face on the thumbnail for House of the Dragon (second from left)
  • The woman’s face on the thumbnail for Sweet Life Los Angeles (far right)

After those, the red image on the thumbnail for Harley Quinn Season 2 (third from left) and the red text on The Batman thumbnail. Then, finally, the two faces on the Rap Sh!t thumbnail (third from right).

1659529715 581 Try These 5 YouTube Video Tips and Watch Your Results

So, yes, the text played the smallest role in catching my attention. Clear, bold images did the work.

Advertisement

But getting the click? I found myself attracted to thumbnails that created intrigue, as Tim suggested. In some of those, the text does play a role (in combination with the video title).

Like this one I found on the Video Creators YouTube channel:

1659529715 504 Try These 5 YouTube Video Tips and Watch Your Results

The text “FORGET THIS” combined with the red X covering the Google logo caught my eye. The “talk to the hand” gesture by the woman on the right told me this video has a strong point of view about something. What am I supposed to forget about Google? The title (even though it’s partly cut off in the image) hooked me: “The ‘Google Mentality’ Is Holding You Back on …”

I clicked. I watched. I learned.

Still, I’m not making any strategic moves based on testing Tim’s advice on myself. But I will work with our PR and video producer, Amanda Subler, to try different thumbnail/title approaches for our videos (and we’ll report on the findings).

Create a video engagement feedback loop

How will we find the signals among the mountains of data YouTube provides?

Advertisement

Tim comes through with good advice here, too.

Look at the data that corresponds with what he calls “the viewing journey.”

  • What brings them into the video? Look at click-through rates on titles and thumbnails.
  • What holds their attention? Study the audience retention graph. Are you losing attention regularly in like the first 10 seconds? Why? What could you change to keep more viewers?
  • What gets them to act at the end? Explore whether people clicked to watch another video after the first one. Try different things to prompt people to act.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:

Remember who you’re talking to

Tim’s list of principles started with the reminder to know your audience. And there’s one thing that’s particularly important to know about your viewers. They’re all people.

That seems obvious. But sometimes marketers forget this. When an audience member asked Tim whether his approach changes for B2B video versus B2C, he said it doesn’t. Here’s why:

“You’re not targeting a corporation. You’re still targeting a person at the corporation who has a problem they’re trying to solve.”

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:

Advertisement
Learn more from Tim Schmoyer at Content Marketing World 2022, where he’s teaching the session Creating A Sales Strategy for YouTube That Doesn’t Kill Your Channel. Register with code BLOG100 to save $100.  

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute



Source link

Keep an eye on what we are doing
Be the first to get latest updates and exclusive content straight to your email inbox.
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Invalid email address

MARKETING

How To Combine PR and Content Marketing Superpowers To Achieve Business Goals

Published

on

A figure pulls open a dress shirt to reveal the term PR on a Superman-like costume, reflecting the superpower resulting from combining content and PR.

A transformative shift is happening, and it’s not AI.

The aisle between public relations and content marketing is rapidly narrowing. If you’re smart about the convergence, you can forever enhance your brand’s storytelling.

The goals and roles of content marketing and PR overlap more and more. The job descriptions look awfully similar. Shrinking budgets and a shrewd eye for efficiency mean you and your PR pals could face the chopping block if you don’t streamline operations and deliver on the company’s goals (because marketing communications is always first to be axed, right?).

Yikes. Let’s take a big, deep breath. This is not a threat. It’s an opportunity.

Advertisement

Reach across the aisle to PR and streamline content creation, improve distribution strategies, and get back to the heart of what you both are meant to do: Build strong relationships and tell impactful stories.

So, before you panic-post that open-to-work banner on LinkedIn, consider these tips from content marketing, PR, and journalism pros who’ve figured out how to thrive in an increasingly narrowing content ecosystem.

1. See journalists as your audience

Savvy pros know the ability to tell an impactful story — and support it with publish-ready collateral — grounds successful media relationships. And as a content marketer, your skills in storytelling and connecting with audiences, including journalists, naturally support your PR pals’ media outreach.

Strategic storytelling creates content focused on what the audience needs and wants. Sharing content on your blog or social media builds relationships with journalists who source those channels for story ideas, event updates, and subject matter experts.

“Embedding PR strategies in your content marketing pieces informs your audience and can easily be picked up by media,” says Alex Sanchez, chief experience officer at BeWell, New Mexico’s Health Insurance Marketplace. “We have seen reporters do this many times, pulling stories from our blogs and putting them in the nightly news — most of the time without even reaching out to us.”

Acacia James, weekend producer/morning associate producer at WTOP radio in Washington, D.C., says blogs and social media posts are helpful to her work. “If I see a story idea, and I see that they’re willing to share information, it’s easier to contact them — and we can also backlink their content. It’s huge for us to be able to use every avenue.” 

Advertisement

Kirby Winn, manager of PR at ImpactLife, says reporters and assignment editors are key consumers of their content. “And I don’t mean a news release that just hit their inbox. They’re going to our blog and consuming our stories, just like any other audience member,” he says. “Our organization has put more focus into content marketing in the past few years — it supports a media pitch so well and highlights the stories we have to tell.”

Storytelling attracts earned media that might not pick up the generic news topic. “It’s one thing to pitch a general story about how we help consumers sign up for low-cost health insurance,” Alex says. “Now, imagine a single mom who just got a plan after years of thinking it was too expensive. She had a terrible car accident, and the $60,000 ER bill that would have ruined her financially was covered. Now that’s a story journalists will want to cover, and that will be relatable to their audience and ours.” 

2. Learn the media outlet’s audience

Seventy-three percent of reporters say one-fourth or less of the stories pitched are relevant to their audiences, according to Cision’s 2023 State of the Media Report (registration required).

PR pros are known for building relationships with journalists, while content marketers thrive in building communities around content. Merge these best practices to build desirable content that works for your target audience and the media’s audiences simultaneously.

WTOP’s Acacia James says sources who show they’re ready to share helpful, relevant content often win pitches for coverage. “In radio, we do a lot of research on who is listening to us, and we’re focused on a prototype called ‘Mike and Jen’ — normal, everyday people in Generation X … So when we get press releases and pitches, we ask, ‘How interested will Mike and Jen be in this story?’” 

3. Deliver the full content package (and make journalists’ jobs easier)

Cranking out content to their media outlet’s standards has never been tougher for journalists. Newsrooms are significantly understaffed, and anything you can do to make their lives easier will be appreciated and potentially rewarded with coverage. Content marketers are built to think about all the elements to tell the story through multiple mediums and channels.

Advertisement

“Today’s content marketing pretty much provides a package to the media outlet,” says So Young Pak, director of media relations at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. “PR is doing a lot of storytelling work in advance of media publication. We (and content marketing) work together to provide the elements to go with each story — photos, subject matter experts, patients, videos, and data points, if needed.”   

At WTOP, the successful content package includes audio. “As a radio station, we are focused on high-quality sound,” Acacia James says. “Savvy sources know to record and send us voice memos, and then we pull cuts from the audio … You will naturally want to do someone a favor if they did you one — like providing helpful soundbites, audio, and newsworthy stories.”  

While production value matters to some media, you shouldn’t stress about it. “In the past decade, how we work with reporters has changed. Back in the day, if they couldn’t be there in person, they weren’t going to interview your expert,” says Jason Carlton, an accredited PR professional and manager of marketing and communications at Intermountain Health. “During COVID, we had to switch to virtual interviewing. Now, many journalists are OK with running a Teams or Zoom interview they’ve done with an expert on the news.”

BeWell’s Alex Sanchez agrees. “I’ve heard old school PR folks cringe at the idea of putting up a Zoom video instead of getting traditional video interviews. It doesn’t really matter to consumers. Focus on the story, on the timeliness, and the relevance. Consumers want authenticity, not super stylized, stiff content.”

4. Unite great minds to maximize efficiency

Everyone needs to set aside the debate about which team — PR or content marketing — gets credit for the resulting media coverage.

At MedStar Washington Hospital Center, So Young and colleagues adopt a collaborative mindset on multichannel stories. “We can get the interview and gather information for all the different pieces — blog, audio, video, press release, internal newsletter, or magazine. That way, we’re not trying to figure things out individually, and the subject matter experts only have to have that conversation once,” she says.

Advertisement

Regular, cross-team meetings are essential to understand the best channels for reaching key audiences, including the media. A story that began life as a press release might reap SEO and earned media gold if it’s strategized as a blog, video, and media pitch.

“At Intermountain Health, we have individual teams for media relations, marketing, social media, and hospital communications. That setup works well because it allows us to bring in the people who are the given experts in those areas,” says Intermountain’s Jason Carlton. “Together, we decide if a story is best for the blog, a media pitch, or a mix of channels — that way, we avoid duplicating work and the risk of diluting the story’s impact.”

5. Measure what matters

Cutting through the noise to earn media mentions requires keen attention to metrics. Since content marketing and PR metrics overlap, synthesizing the data in your team meetings can save time while streamlining your storytelling efforts.

“For content marketers, using analytical tools such as GA4 can help measure the effectiveness of their content campaigns and landing pages to determine meaningful KPIs such as organic traffic, keyword rankings, lead generation, and conversion rates,” says John Martino, director of digital marketing for Visiting Angels. “PR teams can use media coverage and social interactions to assess user engagement and brand awareness. A unified and omnichannel approach can help both teams demonstrate their value in enhancing brand visibility, engagement, and overall business success.”

To track your shared goals, launch a shared dashboard that helps tell the combined “story of your stories” to internal and executive teams. Among the metrics to monitor:

  • Page views: Obviously, this queen of metrics continues to be important across PR and content marketing. Take your analysis to the next level by evaluating which niche audiences are contributing to these views to further hone your storytelling targets, including media outlets.
  • Earned media mentions: Through a media tracker service or good old Google Alerts, you can tally the echo of your content marketing and PR. Look at your site’s referral traffic report to identify media outlets that send traffic to your blog or other web pages.
  • Organic search queries: Dive into your analytics platform to surface organic search queries that lead to visitors. Build from those questions to develop stories that further resonate with your audience and your targeted media.
  • On-page actions: When visitors show up on your content, what are they doing? What do they click? Where do they go next? Building next-step pathways is your bread and butter in content marketing — and PR can use them as a natural pipeline for media to pick up more stories, angles, and quotes.

But perhaps the biggest metric to track is team satisfaction. Who on the collaborative team had the most fun writing blogs, producing videos, or calling the news stations? Lean into the natural skills and passions of your team members to distribute work properly, maximize the team output, and improve relationships with the media, your audience, and internal teams.

“It’s really trying to understand the problem to solve — the needle to move — and determining a plan that will help them achieve their goal,” Jason says. “If you don’t have those measurable objectives, you’re not going to know whether you made a difference.”

Advertisement

Don’t fear the merger

Whether you deliberately work together or not, content marketing and public relations are tied together. ImpactLife’s Kirby Winn explains, “As soon as we begin to talk about (ourselves) to a reporter who doesn’t know us, they are certainly going to check out our stories.”

But consciously uniting PR and content marketing will ease the challenges you both face. Working together allows you to save time, eliminate duplicate work, and gain free time to tell more stories and drive them into impactful media placements.

Register to attend Content Marketing World in San Diego. Use the code BLOG100 to save $100. Can’t attend in person this year? Check out the Digital Pass for access to on-demand session recordings from the live event through the end of the year.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

Source link

Advertisement
Keep an eye on what we are doing
Be the first to get latest updates and exclusive content straight to your email inbox.
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Invalid email address
Continue Reading

MARKETING

Trends in Content Localization – Moz

Published

on

Trends in Content Localization - Moz

Multinational fast food chains are one of the best-known examples of recognizing that product menus may sometimes have to change significantly to serve distinct audiences. The above video is just a short run-through of the same business selling smokehouse burgers, kofta, paneer, and rice bowls in an effort to appeal to people in a variety of places. I can’t personally judge the validity of these representations, but what I can see is that, in such cases, you don’t merely localize your content but the products on which your content is founded.

Sometimes, even the branding of businesses is different around the world; what we call Burger King in America is Hungry Jack’s in Australia, Lays potato chips here are Sabritas in Mexico, and DiGiorno frozen pizza is familiar in the US, but Canada knows it as Delissio.

Tales of product tailoring failures often become famous, likely because some of them may seem humorous from a distance, but cultural sensitivity should always be taken seriously. If a brand you are marketing is on its way to becoming a large global seller, the best insurance against reputation damage and revenue loss as a result of cultural insensitivity is to employ regional and cultural experts whose first-hand and lived experiences can steward the organization in acting with awareness and respect.

Source link

Advertisement
Keep an eye on what we are doing
Be the first to get latest updates and exclusive content straight to your email inbox.
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Invalid email address
Continue Reading

MARKETING

How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

Published

on

How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

AI and startups? It just makes sense.

(more…)

Keep an eye on what we are doing
Be the first to get latest updates and exclusive content straight to your email inbox.
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Invalid email address
Continue Reading

Trending

Follow by Email
RSS