OnlineVideoPublishing.com

Strategies, tips, how to's and best practices for online video publishers

Online Video Publishers: “Take Video Search Seriously!”

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In her most recent New Media Minute, Daisy Whitney talked with my good friend Mark Robertson, publisher and Founder of ReelSEO, and leading expert in online video search, about the secret sauce of video SEO. Mark says that content creators shouldn’t get bogged down in the inner workings or search, but that publishers should. Take note online video publishers, take video search seriously!!
Mark points out that a large portion of discovery comes from search, but search engines have a difficult time crawling and searching for video content. So he recommends several video best practices video best practices to make sure your video is discovered by search. Besides having great, unique content and relative content, and metdata to surround the video, and a well optimized website – Mark says that creating and submitting a Google Video Sitemap for your video content is the best way to show up in Universal Search, and your best chance to show up on page one of Google search.

Episode description:
Want to get more views for your videos? Have you optimized them for search? Knowing how to get your videos found via search can make a big difference in your views. But it’s something few video producers do. So come learn the tricks of Google video search from Mark Robertson with ReelSEO!
Check out these Reel SEO resources:

Video Production for Streaming: Improving Your Video Quality

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This video from Streaming Media East features Jan Ozer, Principal of Doceo Publishing, who provides an overview of video production for streaming. Jan is also publisher of Streaming Learning Center Streaming Learning Center and 2010 Streaming Media All Star, He included lots of helpful information, useful stats, and strategies to improve your video quality for streaming.

The topics covered are:

  • Setting the scene (background and clothing)
  • Lighting
  • Shooting for streaming
  • Editing/Preprocessing
  • Choosing your target,
  • Avoiding/correcting aspect ratio issues
  • De-interlacing
  • Encoding
A101: Streaming Production: Improving Your Video Quality
You’ve got the video production basics down pat, but you’re still concerned that somehow your streaming quality just doesn’t measure up. From camera selection to choosing an encoding tool and encoding parameters, streaming consultant Jan Ozer details the most common production pitfalls that unnecessarily degrade streaming quality. Come learn at least three or four ways to make your video look better.
Jan Ozer, Principal, Doceo Publishing

Download the presentation here: Video Production for Streaming (.pdf file)

Video Production Tips for Interviews

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This post covers the basic tips for shooting video interviews. There are a few golden rules to follow to achieve good results and better looking and sounding video. The specific areas you should focus on are: Camera placement and movement, Lighting and Audio. Also, knowing your location and having plenty of time to reduce distractions is particularly important, to advert any audio and video issues. It’s better to get it right when you shoot your interview, to save yourself from “fixing it in post”. The following presentation serves as a tutorial to help you get started.

Camera placement and movement

  • Use a tripod
  • Avoid zooming and panning of camera
  • Get physically close to your subject
  • Place your camera at eye level of your subject
  • Frame your interview to give your speaker with enough head room
  • Select a neutral background for your interview
Lighting 
  • Make sure you have enough light for a good quality picture
  • Do not place your subject in front of a window (avoid backlight)
  • Close curtains, blinds and turn on room lights
  • Don’t mix daylight and indoor lighting
Audio
  • Avoid distracting background noise (HVAC, TVs, music)
  • Stay close to your interview subject
  • Use an external microphone when possible (clip on lavaliere microphones)
  • Use headphones to monitor microphone if possible

Interview techniques

  • Be a quiet, active listener (be empathic, nod, don’t talk, no “uh huh”)
  • Allow subject to complete answers before speaking (no crosstalk)
  • Ask interviewee to phrase your question in their answer (for context)

Know Your Location 

  • Do a site survey (Look for and reduce lighting and ambient sound issues in advance)
  • Reduce distractions
  • Make sure you have directions
  • Lots of time (for retakes)
  • Sweat the small stuff
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Kodak Zi8 Video Workflow Tips from OnlineVideoToolkit.com

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Veteran Internet marketer and video blogger Jim Kukral has produced a series of educational videos he calls the Online Video Toolkit, which he says is, “a free guide that will tell you everything you need to do to make high-quality web videos… without having to spend a fortune to get it done! The best part is… it’s totally free!” He covers all the bases for you to get your video blogging studio up and running on a shoe string budget, like choosing a camera, lighting tips, set design, indoor and outdoor shooting, editing, attire, audio and more. He’s used the Flip Video camera, but now
recommends that Kodak Zi8 HD pocket video camera for its external
microphone input)

In his recent email newsletter, Kukral shared how he has produced a series of videos using his brand new Kodak Zi8 HD pocket video camera and iMovie to promote his new book. His straight forward approach to the video production process can be applied to any business that wants to get involved in online video for Internet marketing, e-Commerce social networking or any application.

The following is republished with his permission:

“Today I made a bunch of videos to promote my new book with my brand new Kodak Zi8 camera. Want to see one of the videos? Here you go. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_bfS9UmwX0”

“Pretty simple, yet somewhat complex. Here’s how I made this video.”

  1. Get a Kodak Zi8, link here: http://www.buytheflip.com $150 or so.
  2. Get a lavalier lapel mic. http://bit.ly/9qEuXW This is only $22.39 on Amazon now.
  3. Get a tripod. Preferably one that can adjust height.
  4. Find a room with windows that have blinds. Put the light to your back when filming. Adjust blinds to let in just enough light.
  5. You can also mess around with the lights in the room. The point is to get a good balance of light on the person being recorded.
  6. Mount the camera on the tripod. Plug the mic into the camera.
  7. Pull the mic and clip up inside your shirt/jacket/blouse so the cord can’t be seen. Clip it on.
  8. Hit record on the camera, go sit down. I taped my video in 1080p which is HD.
  9. Now, on my video, I’m pretending that there’s a person in the room with me interviewing me. There wasn’t. I picked a spot on the wall behind and off to the right of the camera and talked to it as if it were a person. That gives the video a nice look.
  10. I had 7 questions and answers prepared ahead of time. I would review each question briefly, then record an answer. Without stopping the recording. You can edit it apart later. Get through all your points.
  11. When done, I stood up and stopped the recording.
  12. I took the camera and plugged the USB into my Macbook Pro and copied the one large file to my hard drive. It will be big in HD.
  13. I opened iMovie and imported the video.
  14. I edited the part of the video I wanted and saved it.
  15. I then exported the movie in iMovie via Quicktime.
  16. That was it. I could have added a bunch of text or music or titles but I wanted to keep this one simple.

“Now, I know that looks like a lot of steps, and it was, kind of. But in reality, it was really cheap, and easy to do. There’s no reason you can’t do it yourself. Give it a go!”

Jim Kukral.
Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 8:45 PM

Quickly and Easily Master Online Video Promotions and Watch Your Sales Skyrocket – Eastbay LocalPreneurs Meetup, May 18, 2010

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This post originally appeared on Larry Kless’ Weblog: Quickly and Easily Master Online Video Promotions and Watch Your Sales Skyrocket – Eastbay LocalPreneurs Meetup Group, May 18, 2010 on May 24, 2010.

On Tuesday, May 18th, 2010, I spoke at the Eastbay LocalPreneurs Meetup Group about how you can use low cost video tools and creative techniques to boost your business. The title of the session was, Quickly and Easily Master Online Video Promotions and Watch Your Sales Skyrocket, and covered the online video industry and trends, tips for producing online video for business, specific platform you can use to broadcast yourself and, some of my favorite online video resources. This Meetup group is organized by my friend and local entrepreneur, Jonathan Fleming, and was held at Tech Liminal in downtown Oakland. About 15 of us gathered in the friendly salon atmosphere of Tech Liminal, and the energy was high and the group really engaged on the topic of online video. Just about everyone who attended used video in some way either for personal or business use, and shared their tips and experiences.
We were also treated to an impromptu demo of a new online video editing tool called Minimash, from our local entrepreneurs Claudia Ward and Mark Gartland. Minimash is a self-funded startup ready to come out of stealth mode and looking for an angel investor. The software is really intuitive and fun to use and takes a similar approach to online video mashups like Animoto, but to all whole new level. Look for more on Minimash in the near future. Jonathan wrote a great summary of the event on the Meetup site which I’ve included below.
Quickly and Easily Master Online Video Promotions and Watch Your Sales Skyrocket

Jonathan Fleming wrote:

“If you missed it, Larry Kless gave an awesome presentation on the many powerful uses of “Online Video” to help promote, make sales happen and brand your business!

For those that attended, you felt his passion, talent and skills towards helping you get started in online video! I know he has helped me to elevate my real estate business to the next level! He’s really a cool guy that loves helping people get their video marketing improved. You can read his blog at klessblog.blogspot.com or catch his informative posts on twitter.com/klessblog

Rodil San Mateo (Eastbayloantips.com) opened up discussing the various ways he uses video to help Realtors showcase properties better; improve their search engine rankings; and get sales results from their marketing. Rodil showcased some of the tools he uses daily to help run his mortgage business.To close it out, a very creative, innovative startup named Minimash.com dropped in to give an awesome presentation on their upcoming product which I think will be awesome! An Oakland based company at www.minimash.com for more info. It was very inspiring to meet the founders and I felt as if I was meeting an early stage superstar company!

Meetup is the world’s largest network of local groups. More than 2,000 groups get together in local communities each day, each one with the goal of improving themselves or their communities. If you’re in the Bay Area and a local entrepreneur, it’s crucial to understand how to make the right connections, get the tools and inspirational education in order to grow your business. Eastbay Localprenuers Meetup brings you fresh speakers, monthly training and networking to jump-start your projects and dreams.  Join this Meetup group here or sign up using Facebook.  

Many thanks to Jonathan for organizing for the event and to Anca Mosoiu for hosting it at Tech Liminal. Also thanks to Rodil for kicking it off and proving some context for how businesses can use video to engage customers. Most of all, my thanks to all who attended and contributed to the conversation. I look forward to seeing you at another upcoming Meetup.





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