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Want To Dive Into Video Blogging? Here’s Where To Start

John Hoff — Mon, 17 May 2010 04:00:09 +0000

I don’t read a ton of books these days, I’ve just got too much to do.

But as an entrepreneur and blogger, I’ve got to keep my education growing.

Although blogs are great sources to learn from, nothing beats a well written book by an author who really knows the subject matter.

Since my time is limited, I try to choose what books I purchase carefully.

I check out a number of different books written on a subject, read at least 4 or 5 reviews and skim through many of the other ones before making my purchase.

As many of you know, I do video screen casts for WordPress bloggers and our hosting customers. But I’m wanting to push ahead and venture beyond simply creating screen capture videos.

To do that, I need to expand my knowledge in the “how to create online videos” arena, so I did what many people do, I bought a book.

Since I don’t read a ton of books, I don’t do many book reviews… I know, big discovery!

But when I purchased Get Seen: Online Video Secrets To Building Your Business and began reading it, I knew right away that I had to write a post about the book.

What Videos Can Do For Your Blog

Author Steve Garfield begins the book by talking about how popular videos on the Web are and why you might want to put your own videos on the Web.

Video allows you to tell a much richer story than you ever could with just words and pictures alone. Video enables you to engage the viewer emotionally.

Wait! Did he say emotionally?

Isn’t that what all those guru bloggers tell us we need to do? Engage our readers and spark some kind of emotional response?

If video does that, then I want some more of it! That’s what we all hope to accomplish on some level with our blogs, right?

And if we can tell a good story, invoke an emotional response, and put a real person in front of our readers, then we increase our ultimate goal of, wait for it….

A connection.

What more could you ask for, except maybe a house in Hawaii.

Topics Steve Covers In The Book

If you’re going to create video on the Web, realize that there’s a learning curve. It’s not as simple as hit record on your camera and record yourself talking.

Here’s something to think about which many newbies to video blogging get wrong.

Which of these three do you think is the most important in terms of priority?

What video camera you use?
What audio source you use?
Lighting

The answer might surprise you.

It’s lighting.

These are the kinds of secrets you’ll learn today so that you can skip ahead much quicker than the person just “learning as they go”.

The book is filled with everything you need to know about creating, editing, and publishing videos online.

You’ll learn about:

Different cameras and which might be the best for you
Lighting and recording sound options
Creating screencasts
How to record and shoot your videos
Editing your work
Sharing your videos in social networks
How to broadcast live online

Even better? Steve interviews a number of online video publishers to see what they’ve learned over the years and how we might skip ahead in our own learning curve.

Conclusion

If you’re looking to start creating your own videos online, Get Seen in my opinion is a must have for your bookshelf.

You’ll learn what equipment fits the bill for your needs, how to record your shots, how to edit your work, and get your videos seen online, all for under $20. Now that’s a steal in my opinion.

If you have a story you want to tell, this book will help you tell it.

Please note the links to this book contained in this article are my amazon.com affiliate links. This in no way has swayed my appreciation of this book.

So, are you wanting to create videos one day?

Blogging Bloopers, Outtakes, & Deleted Scenes 2

John Hoff — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 04:00:41 +0000

Hello everyone, it’s round two for my blogging bloopers videos. None of these were “planned bloopers”, they all happened on the spot.

Hope you enjoy.

1 Great Reason to Use blip.tv vs. YouTube for Videos

John Hoff — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 05:00:42 +0000

A few days ago I published a post, How To Install WordPress Manually and Why Beginners Should Do It. It was my first time using blip.tv to broadcast my videos and I have to say, I’m very pleased with the results.

The one great reason I think to use blip.tv to broadcast your videos over YouTube is video quality.

Basically, when you upload a video to blip.tv, it seems the video quality remains pretty much the same as what it looks like right after you record your video and watch it on your computer. When I upload videos to YouTube, on the other hand, I get a little loss in video quality.

Take a look. The two videos are the same videos I uploaded from my computer to both sites. You’ll notice in addition to a little better video quality, blip.tv did not resize my video when I copied and pasted in my embed code.

blip.tv version

YouTube version

YouTube does have one distinct advantage over blip.tv.

Can you guess what it is?

Popularity.

I’m sure more people will see my videos on YouTube than blip.tv simply because YouTube is so popular. So for now, I’ll upload my videos to both sites, but the ones you watch from my blog will be embedded from blip.tv.

Have you started video blogging (vlogging) yet? If not, you might want to consider it. I think we’re on the road to seeing a lot more of it.

How To Not Track Your Own Visits In Google Analytics – Setting Up A Filter

John Hoff — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 05:50:38 +0000

Anyone whose been blogging for longer than a couple weeks will of at least heard of Google Analytics.

Problem is, it’s so damn difficult to try and figure out when you’re just starting out because there’s SO much you can do with it. One of my first frustrations with it was the fact that I couldn’t determine which clicks and visits were my own?

Obviously, you’re more interested in who is visiting your site, where they came from, and what they did to find you. You’re not interested in how you found your own website.

So here’s a little video I put together which hopefully you’ll find useful. It will show you how to set up a filter on Google Analytics so you don’t track your own movements and visits to your own website.

If you haven’t already set up Google Analytics to run on your blog, here’s how: How To Install Google Analytics On A WordPress Blog Without Using A Plugin

How To Set Up A Google Analytics Filter

Videos To Help Craft A Better Website & Attract Attention

John Hoff — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 09:00:49 +0000

In today’s world, having a website is one of the most powerful marketing tools entrepreneurs can have for their businesses and it’s their responsibility to make sure people can find it and understand its message.

Craft a bad, unorganized website and your potential customers will no longer be potential.

My last post 20.4 Ways People Scan Your Website showed us how people scan your website and where their eyes naturally are drawn to. Today I’d like to share some videos which can help us learn to design better websites and attract more clicks/sales.

Attractive Headlines

Excellent video on the importance of writing good headlines. Think about how important good headlines are for magazines like Cosmopolitan, Maxim, Enquirer, etc. Headlines are important for your business in press releases and getting people to click through your blog.

Headlines, by Cory from Boing Boing
Run Time: 6:03

Getting Incoming Links

This video shows a few ways how to obtain incoming links to your website. One such method is the link exchange method which as he points out can be a bit time consuming. However, it can be an effective tool to get your site ranked higher in search engines.

He also points out a useful tool that not many people know about. If you own a website and want to get an idea of what websites are out there linking to you, type link: your_website.com in the search box of Google, Yahoo!, or MSN.

Author: Michael Cheney
Run Time: 9:47

Site Makeover

This is a very important topic that some Search Engine Marketers aren’t well trained on. True you want your website to be optimized so Google or Yahoo! can rank it high in their indexes but you also don’t want to ignore the human element.

Also, just like writing captivating headlines helps persuade site visitors to click on that particular topic, so too do you need to actually tell your visitors/customers what to do (something not mentioned in this video). For example, instead of creating a link or button that says “Sign Up,” create one that gives the call to action like, “Subscribe Now!” Or maybe instead of a “$50 off special” image, your image says “Save $50 by Purchasing Now!”

The following video illustrates how you should really examine your website and see if you might be confusing people and/or telling them exactly what it is you want them to do.

Site Makeover – Generating Ecommerce Sales, by www.mindvalleylabs.com
Run Time: 5:24

Site Makeover 2

Very good idea on how you could look up typical keywords people use to get to your product and then add those words in a menu link on the side of your page, maybe a more information section
or something.

Boosting Sales for a Catalogue Site, by www.mindvalleylabs.com
Run Time: 4:49

Site Makeover 3

Some thoughts on designing your blog to help people stay connected with your blog.

Site Makeover – Getting Repeat Traffic to Your Blog, by www.mindvalleylabs.com
Run Time: 3:55

Site Makeover 4

Site Makeover – Getting Users to Click, by www.mindvalleylabs.com
Run Time: 3:01

Optimizing WordPress for Search Engines

Make Your WordPress Blog Search Engine Friendly, by Michael Gray
Run Time: 4:41