YouTube for Marketing?

Not to long ago I was reading a post by a friend from SocialMediaSystems and it was on the use of social media to generate buzz for a company/website. The article got me thinking how the social media could be applied to generate buzz for one of my topics at that time, Marysville real estate, but the hard thing was and still is; how does one make a short about real estate that will generate buzz?

So far the best idea that has come up is to do a basic video just to get a feel of what I am doing. The video was for a listing Barnett Associates Real Estate Team has in Stanwood WA, Washington. This Puget Sound waterfront property has so much to offer but how does a person convey the excitement about owning Puget Sound waterfront property through a short video? Gosh, still working on that one and once I find out I’ll share.

Real estate is one of the topics that it is very challenging to make exciting to watch but that is not to say that other industries face the same dilemma.Back in college a buddy and I had to do a commercial on a company we chose. Our conclusion for the company, The North Face, was to stick to its core competencies by only putting their product in high-end stores instead of trying to get mass product out there using cheaper stores, quality over volume. Well our commercial, being a school project, used borrowed material from the movie Out Cold and images from The North Face website along with music provided by a local band my buddy knew. The commercial titled Warm & Dry was a smash success at the University of Washington.

The video is now hosted on YouTube for the sake of sharing it with world on the largest social media website on the world wide web. Many YouTube users use it to create Vlogs and to share their own creations. I have seen more humor on that site than any other in a long time and some companies are using to their advantage and one of them is AdultSwim. Though not the most mainstream material it is catchy and has been awarded some top honors like #26 Most Subscribed of All-Time and #37 Most Viewed this Month. Those seem pretty substantial from a free social media network.

So what does it take to create a video on YouTube?

– Sign Up for a free profile page
– Add information to your profile
– Add a link to your main website (if you have one)
– Add a custom URL to your YouTube page
-Start uploading videos

Tech Tip: it may take a few uploads, time and videos watched before a custom URL can be created

– Come up with a theme for a video
– Use digital camera to take images and short videos (Tech Tip: some digital still cameras will only take 30 second videos)
– Use Windows MovieMaker to compile the pictures and videos

Tech Tip: windows moviemaker comes standard on all pc’s using XP or newer, just go Start=>All Programs=>Accessories=>Windows MovieMaker.

After adding titles, closings, music, blending images and adding movies just save it the computer in a WMV format. Now go back to the newly created YouTube site and upload the video and add all the appropriate titles, descriptions and tags and voila! You are now on YouTube.

Videos then can be added to websites like blogs, basic html sites, comments all by using the automated code supplied by YouTube. Good Luck and have fun using media on the internet.