Social networking tools for Small Business, Part II

YouTube can be a useful marketing tool for small businesses, provided it is done well. A useful article found on Hubspot.com, "6 Tips for Making a Business Marketing Video," gives you some great advice for making a professional-looking and effective video. Among the points made by the author, Catie Foertsch, are these: use a script, use effective lighting, don't use the built-in microphone on your camera, frame your face (or your product) well, be yourself, and most importantly, end with a "call to action." That is, remind your viewer how to contact you for the chance to take advantage of your great product or service.

Another useful article, including examples of memorable videos, is "How to Market on YouTube," by Stephan Spencer for MarketingProfs.com: more good advice on making YouTube work for you, too.

And finally, you need to get your video noticed. As Stephan Spencer's article mentions, tagging appropriately is important: spread your tags out among your clips; use adjectives to make your videos more visible to folks searching based on their mood; have some category descriptor tags (bearing in mind that YouTube's default search settings are Videos, Relevance and All Categories); match your title and description with your most important tags; and don't use natural language phrases or waste tag space on words like "and" or "to."

In addition to appropriate tagging, you may want to contact the folks at NorthShoreInsider.com, Chicago's North Shore Insider Guide & Video Directory. Their mission, according to their website, is to "[h]elp community businesses increase their profitability within the communities they serve," and they do this by posting local business videos and directories.