Guest Posts

5 Great Reasons To Use Video For Content Marketing

This is a guest post by Joshua Hardwick.

I hear about “content marketing” all the time and to be honest, I’m sick of hearing about it. Ever since Google rolled out their Panda algorithm update a year-or-so again, it seems to have been the topic of just about every blog post out there.

“But why does it annoy you?” I hear you ask. Well basically, it’s because every online marketer worth his/her salt has been doing content marketing for years (before all this Panda nonsense) and I find it annoying that it’s become yet another “SEO tactic” where, more often than not, it’s more about “getting a link” than creating great content.

The truth is that great content will always attract links (and social shares and all the rest) and a lot of content marketers are creating great content every day. However, there seems to be one aspect of content marketing that is still (for whatever reason) extremely underused; video.

In my opinion, video should be part of EVERYONE’s content marketing strategy; and here’s why…

It Sets You Apart From The Crowd

As I mentioned above, almost every online marketer on the planet is involved in some sort of content marketing these days (i.e. guest posting, blog posting, creating infographics, etc.) but for some reason, very few are using video marketing at all.

Sure, a lot of the bigger companies have started using it in the form of viral ads or perhaps on landing pages but hardly any of the small companies out there are using it.

But why should you care about standing out from the crowd? Well, let’s say you were given the choice of reading two blog posts; one of them was 1000 words of plain text and the other had the same information, but presented in a video format. Which one would you choose and which one would you be more likely to share/link to? Exactly, the video post.

It’s Embeddable!

One of the best things about video content is that it’s easily embeddable on just about any website or blog you can think of. This means that bloggers can easily share the great content presented in your video with their readers too; they just have to embed it.

Let’s compare this to a standard blog post. If another blogger wanted to share your blog post with their readers they’d not only have to ask your permission (thus decreasing the likelihood of them sharing it) but also, have to significantly rewrite the post to ensure that Google doesn’t hate them for stealing your content.

If this wasn’t enough, you can probably generate a huge amount of back links to your site if you host the video yourself (and provide an embed code) too (check out this post if you want to do this).

It’s Not As Expensive As You Think

Writing a blog post is cheap; if you go on any popular freelancing site you can probably find a decent writer for just a few bucks quite easily. Now, creating (quality) video content is never going to be this cheap admittedly, but firstly; it doesn’t have to be and secondly; it’s still not as expensive as you might think.

The fact is, millions of people are writing blog posts every single day and while they’re still a great form of content marketing, there’s nothing special about them in most cases. A piece of video content is probably going to have chance of generating links and ranking well on popular search engines than any, bog-standard blog post.

As well as this, quality video content is becoming cheaper than ever to produce in-house. If you’ve got a Smartphone (e.g. iPhone, Galaxy etc) or perhaps a decent (i.e. $500+) DSLR camera with video mode, you’ve got everything you need to create a great video. Remember, it’s more about great content than fancy video editing.

You’re Probably Already Doing Similar Things

A lot of content marketers are constantly producing different forms of content in order to keep their strategy as diverse as possible and therefore, you’re probably already doing similar things to video marketing.

One of the things that springs to mind is infographic marketing. For years, infographics have been an extremely popular way of not only gaining links but also, sharing expertise and building trust.

Now one things for sure, infographics aren’t cheap (at least not the good ones anyway) so why not use that budget and produce a video? With thousands of infographics created every day, bloggers are inundated with requests to republish them but rarely are they asked to republish a video (hence you’ll stand out from the crowd).

The World Loves To Watch Videos

If all the above reasons weren’t enough to convince you, then hopefully this one will be; people LOVE videos.

Content marketing is all about creating content that your target audience is going to love and currently, the world seems to be in love with video content. Sure, people love reading a well-written blog post (as you’re doing right now) but let’s face it, it’s much easier to sit back and watch a video.

I could throw statistics about online video at you all day (if you want some, here’s some mind-blowing ones) but really, you only have to look at the success of YouTube to see just how much people love them.

And That’s A Wrap!

Well, I hope that I’ve convinced you to experiment with video marketing at least as I know it can lead to wonderful things.

However, just remember that video marketing works on the same principles as any other form of marketing; it has to be great content or no-one will care about it, no matter how much outreach you do!

About the author: I?m Joshua Hardwick, founder of The SEO Project. I spend most of my time ?doing SEO?, drinking red wine, and working on crazy projects (sometimes all at once). Feel free to follow me on Twitter. ?

image: EmpowerNetwork

Blogging in 2013 : The Year of Crowd Curation?

This is a guest post by Paul Mayze.

The barriers to blogging are now lower than ever. ?At least, that is the theory.

On WordPress and Blogger it takes minutes, if not seconds, to set up your blog. On Tumblr, adding content is child?s play (and if in doubt you can repost something from someone else).

Of course, the reality is that blogging is harder than ever. Assuming your intention is to generate a readership for your blog, setting up a blog isn?t the problem. ?The problem is keeping it up.

But a new breed of content publishing and curation tools is focused on tackling this issue head on.

Top 7 Big Marketing Essentials for 2013

This is a guest post from Feather Hickox.

The average consumer receives over 16,000 marketing messages each day. Marketers face a daunting challenge to break through that volume of noise.

This challenge has given rise to Big Marketing ? the use of Big Data analytics to develop personalized marketing messages and offers on a massive scale.

Based on my team?s work with many of the largest retailers in the world, we?ve compiled a list of seven essentials for turning Big Data into effective, profitable and highly targeted Big Marketing campaigns.

Fact Checking Facebook: How to Do it and Why You Should

This is a guest post by Jennifer Dunn.

It?s back. Last week grandma posted the old, ?With this status I hereby declare that all my Facebook content belongs to me and only me…” and all of a sudden the mythical Berner convention is gunking up your Facebook feed again.

First off, this is a hoax. All major media outlets have now reported it as a hoax. You can?t copyright your Facebook content with a status, but luckily you don?t have to ? you already own it. Don?t worry.

Lately I?ve taken it upon myself to, politely, call out people who have posted bad information on a public forum like Facebook. Yes, I?m that person. But being argumentative isn?t in my nature.

Wouldn?t it be better if everybody was armed with the tools to fact check Facebook themselves? Couldn?t they save themselves from posting a picture of a baby with a horrible tumor and promising us all that Bill Gates has offered a dollar for every ?like??

Here are some of the erroneous posts I?ve recently ran across and how I fact checked them. I hope you?ll share your favorite fact checking methods in the comments.

(Because politics and general worldview are two of the more frequent hobgoblins of misinformation on Facebook, this post will deal with both, but I promise to pick on reds and blues equally.)

Example #1: The Inflammatory Picture

The other day a friend posted this picture of dark-skinned youth in camouflage holding guns with the caption, ?Obama just graduated a class of 40 ?Department of Homeland Security Youth.?? The post went on to compare this alleged fighting force to Hitler?s Brownshirts and warned us all to be very afraid for our guns and women.

Immediate clues that something was amiss:

a.)?? The ?youth? looked very, very young.

b.)? ?Department of Homeland Security Youth? doesn?t sound like any U.S. government department I?ve ever heard of

c.)?? Hitler made an appearance. Any mention of that guy should raise a red flag when it comes to the veracity of a Facebook post.

How to fact check? I downloaded the photo and submitted it to trusty TinEye.com. It turned out the ?youth? are Explorers, a group affiliated with the Boy Scouts of America. The picture was taken after a training exercise simulating a Border Patrol exercise. In 2009.

Example #2: The Inflammatory Video

Back around the time of the U.S. political conventions, I very nearly shared a video on my Facebook page showing a group of delegates at the Republican National Convention shouting ?USA! USA!? over the Puerto Rican delegate as she tried to speak.

We all have our own areas of sensitivity, and racism is one of mine. ?Wow, look at these racists!? I almost posted. Except I mentioned it to a colleague who quickly told me there was more to the story.

How to fact check? Look at the context. Get the whole story. If I had bothered to check before marveling to my colleague, I would have seen that the chanting had to do with seating arrangements.

While this one has been in hot dispute, an article in the well-respected Harper?s magazine sets the record straight that the delegates were not trying to shout the Latina delegate down.

The Sniff Test

The moral of this story? Before you go sharing something on Facebook, ask yourself a few questions to make sure you?re not just perpetuating another rumor or hoax.

1.)? Is the source trustworthy? Does it say, come from a Facebook group called ?Kill all the Pandas?? This is an easy way to find clues about the veracity of a source.

2.)? Does this jibe way too firmly with my worldview? You might hate Paris Hilton but chances are she wasn?t caught on camera actually consuming an adorable puppy. You might want to check the provenance of that doctored image before you share it.

3.)? Is it on Snopes? Or can you Google it and quickly see that it?s been debunked by reputable sources? (I.e. the Facebook copyright notice.)

4.)? Is it accredited to a famous person? Abraham Lincoln was a quotable guy, sure, but the 16^th president didn?t say this. Or lots of other things you?ve probably seen attributed to him on Facebook.

5.)? Was Hitler mentioned? Seriously, Godwin?s Law should always end the discussion. Think before you hit ?share.?

If it passes all these tests, it just might be real and ready to share.? Remember:

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t. – Mark Twain.

Or did he?

The next time you see someone post something about copyrighting their Facebook statuses or terrorizing your feed with images of Boy Scouts, maybe instead of being ?that person? you can just link them to this post.

Or just make like this guy and give up.

About the author: Jennifer Dunn is owner of Social Street Media, helping businesses connect with their customers through social media strategies and education. You can find her small business writing at Outright and WePay. Follow her on Twitter at @JennEscalona.