The YouTube video story (from a construction marketing perspective)

I'll admit I am more a written-word than visual person.  However, tonight, YouTube put on a "road show" event in Ottawa promoting YouTube partnerships and encouraging creators to develop videos which, if successful, can go "viral" and generate advertising revenue for the videographer.  So I attended.  It proved to be an expensive evening as I also picked up a $55 parking ticket.  Grrr.

Nevertheless, this stuff interests me on several levels, in part because I am a voluntary contributor on the Google AdSense forum, where publishers whose accounts are disabled by Google arrive to seek solace, help, and the opportunity to have their accounts restored.  Unfortunately, outside of a formalized appeal process (which usually fails) the chance of a publisher regaining his or her account after it is disabled is virtually nil -- for life.

So why is Google pounding the pavement, putting on road shows, and encouraging as many people as possible to become "YouTube Partners?"   I wish I had a good answer but assume, the idea is that the more content on the system, the more advertising there is, and the more effective and profitable YouTube can be for Google.

In practice, most people concerned with construction marketing won't want to try to become video gurus and make money from YouTube partnerships.  However, the basic issues of successful video production remain highly relevant, especially as video results can impact significantly on your search engine rankings and also create a dialoge and communication between you and potential clients.

Especially effective can be "how to" and informative videos -- and client-focused videos showing the nature of problems and how you've solved them elsewhere (these videos, presumably, you would not post publicly on the web until the client approves, but could help you stand out from the crowd.

The challenge with video production is the time, effort and co-ordination required -- it takes much more effort for a writer like me than simply drafting a regular blog posting.  However, you don't need to be excessively slick or have a high budget to produce videos.

Notably, as I continue my experiments, the Google+ Hangout system provides one of the quickest and simplest ways to produce video content.  You simply set up a Hangout on Google+, authorize live video, and YouTube records everything.  You can also have guests and others on the screen and if everything works right, show videos, screen shots and the like.  That is how I made the video that goes with this blog posting.

Do you have examples of successful construction marketing videos you would like to share.  Please feel free to communicate with me at buckshon@constructionmarketingideas.com or visit the other blog at constructionmarketingideas.com.