Video Captivates Your Clients and Prospects Like No Other Medium

How many hours of video have you watched in the past week?

Chances are you have consumed over 40 hours of video in the past week. According to Nielson’s Q1 2015 “Total Audience Report” the average American adult watches over 42 hours of video each week when you combine TV, PC, smartphone, and tablet viewing.

People spend the equivalent of a full-time job each week watching video!

Let that sink in for a moment….

Your clients and prospects love video so much that they consume video content to the tune of 6 hours each day. That’s kind of amazing when you consider that, according to a 2013 Gallup survey, the average American only clocks 6.8 hours of sleep each night.

Knowing this, it begs the following question.

How much video are you producing for your clients and prospects to consume?

If a prospect told you she was a vegan would you take her to a steakhouse for a dinner meeting? Of course not. Yet, if we did an audit of the digital content you and your firm routinely share via email, your website, and social media channels my guess is almost all of it is text based. There’s nothing wrong with text, people still read. It’s just that we know for certain that your prospects and clients love video. So why not share information with them in their favorite format?

There are two primary objections I hear most from clients when I suggest adding video to their marketing and communications mix. One is cost and the other is fear of making poor quality video. Let’s tackle both real quick so you don’t fall victim to them:

1. Production Cost - If you have a smartphone and access to a reasonable quiet space with good lighting you’ve got yourself a production studio for almost $0.
   • Your phone, if it was made in the last 3 years or so, can shoot in full HD and there are hundreds of video apps available on iOS and Android that are free or cost $10 or less.
   • Distribution is also free or extremely low cost. Simply publish your video to YouTube, Vimeo, Vine, Instagram, or live stream it via Periscope, Meerkat, or Ustream. You can even post video directly to Facebook and Twitter now. Again, most of these options are free.
   • If you want to spend some money on higher-end equipment you can get all you need including studio lights and miss for under $2,000 if you spend right. 
   • So, cost isn’t really a legitimate roadblock. If you are a professional in 2015 and beyond you should have video production capabilities. 
2. Production Quality - As I mentioned above, a quiet space, good lighting, and your smartphone will actually produce very high quality video at almost no cost. The question of quality for most clients (particularly financial advisors and other professionals) is really a fear of looking bad in front of their clients. We’ve all seen cheesy videos and no one wants that. Here are a few things that will help avoid making poor quality videos:
   • Smile and talk to the cameral like you are talking to a real person. If you are engaging and approachable your clients and prospects will love it.
   • Focus on video platforms where the viewer expects video with minimal or zero post production (editing). My personal favorite (as of this writing) is Periscope. It’s a live streaming app for iOS and Android that allows viewers to comment and ask questions while you are broadcasting. The fact that it’s live and interactive eliminates the fear of it needing to be “studio quality” and it offers you and your viewers a super high-touch experience.
   • Pump up the volume! Produce video regularly, as part of your routine. Get in the habit of using video as a means to expand your influence and engage with clients. The more to you do it the better you’ll get and as a result the quality of your content will improve.

Note: Periscope is also one of the fastest growing social networks in history. Our “Periscope for Professionals” course offers several tips and tricks for getting started with the app and its social network. The course also covers recording for compliance and several use cases for your business.

The next generation expects video and will seek it out over print.

Eric Guerin of Adelie Studios wrote a great post about "Marketing to Millennials" and he lays out the case, with tons of supporting stats, that video is the most compelling medium for the millennial audience. It makes sense, the millennial generation are the first digital natives. 

This next great, gold rush generation of clients has never known a world without online video. They have no idea what the “test signal” looked like on TV because they’ve always lived in a world with 24/7 cable television. They have no memory of a world before sports bars with flat screens everywhere. To them, watching videos on their smartphones while on the toilet is something they’ve been doing since high school.

YouTube is a viable search engine for your next generation of clients. Will they find you there when they search for their next big financial question? I hope so.

The big takeaway is obvious.

Start producing and distributing videos for your clients and prospects. Share them on your website, via your newsletter, YouTube, Facebook, Periscope, and whatever platform they are using. It’s just smart business.

BONUS: Below is what is claimed to be the oldest video footage of New York City. These video clips are from 1903 and 1905. Once you start watching it, I assure you you’ll be hooked. Like I said, video captivates like no other medium. 

The oldest and most incredible footage of New York City ever, including where the WTC would be built. With added maps carefully researched to show where the camera was. 28 shots of classic footage with a new twist and a new soundtrack.

The Long Awaited Return of Twitter's Google Juice Is Here

I joined Twitter back in October of 2007 at the urging of a PodCamp Boston presenter. For several months after that I failed to see the value in the service. My "Ah ha!" moment came when I noticed one of my friends had added a link to his Twitter profile on his email signature and I decided to explore why he would such a thing.
 

PodCamp Boston

— Mike Langford (@MikeLangford) October 27, 2007

When I checked his Twitter profile I noticed that he had accumulated 600 followers. Then I googled his name. Sure enough, a link to his Twitter profile popped up on the first page of results. As I started to poke around a bit more I realized that each tweet created a unique URL. So, Google was indexing every single tweet as it would for any other page of content on the web. I immediately got it. I thought to myself:

Whoa! Twitter is Google juice!

That's right, every tweet a user posted had the potential to show up in someone's search results. That made Twitter extremely useful as a publishing tool.

Sadly, in July of 2011 Twitter decided it didn't need Google anymore for search and ended the tweet indexing relationship. At the time Twitter was riding high and some people were predicting that its real-time search results were going to put a serious hurt on Google's bottomline. 

How has Google's stock performed since Twitter canceled their tweet indexing relationship in July 2011? The chart above tells the story.

Now that Twitter is a public company and scrambling to onboard new users and keep existing users engaged, they have decided that having tweets display in Google search results might not be such a bad idea after all. (Note: This is just my analysis of Twitter's likely motivation. There have been rumors that Google is in talks to acquire Twitter due to, what is considered by many as, a failure of Google+ to catch on.)

So what does the impending reappearance of tweets in Google search results mean for you and your business?

1. Everyone can see your tweets. The big appeal of Twitter, for business, is that tweets are public people can view them and subscribe to your account with ease. The problem is not that many people actively use Twitter. A newly released Pew Research study of American social media usage revealed that only 8% of American adults use Twitter daily. (Note: 23% of American adults use Twitter. Only 36% of these people use the service daily. 23% * 36% = 8%) The average person simply has no real need for Twitter when they have Facebook for social. However, everyone uses Google. Once the tweet indexing is reactivated you can expect your tweets to reach a much wider audience.
2. The SEO value of your tweets matter. There's only so much real estate on the first page of Google results. If Google is going to start displaying tweets there you want to be sure yours display where and for whom you would hope they would. Keywords, time, date, location, the size and relevance of your Twitter network, and the engagement of your tweets are likely to impact whether your tweets or someone else's display as a result for a given search. 
3. Search Plus Your World is likely to be really important. About a year after Twitter terminated the tweet indexing relationship Google launched Search Plus Your World which allows you to see search results based on stuff your friends have shared on Google+ or YouTube. When Google announced the service they said they were open to including other social network results but Twitter declined. With the Twitter relationship rekindled it's a sure bet that who follows you and/or has your Twitter profile in their Google contacts will play a big role in what results display when they use the search engine.

The takeaway, Twitter might become much more important to your digital marketing strategy in 2015 and beyond. It's probably a good idea to start thinking about how you and your team will adjust your efforts.