Engage in PR

Video has become an increasingly important tool for all of us and folks are throwing up videos on corporate sites at an amazing pace.  These videos are often time educational and brand building, but others are simply fun and help drive traffic to a community.  In the past week alone we have posted seven videos to a hyper-niche audience and have had more than 2000 views.  Many of these views have led to solid business leads (when our latest campaign is over I’ll post hard numbers).  So are we all in agreement that video can be a powerful tool for you to use in your communications strategy?  Good.  Now let’s talk about video SEO.

Think about a typical blog post or even a news release your write.  You make sure to have the correct keywords linked, you insert text in <alt img> tag, you update your meta description, personalize the header and rename the URL. This helps you optimize visibility for your post or a page on your website and these are critical steps! OK, now imagine you are posting a video to your blog or another page, and let’s also imagine that you are using a hosting service like Viddler, Vimeo or YouTube.  You now lose a lot of the control you once had to optimize this content.

Video has no <alt img> tag, the URL of your video is most likely randomized by the service, some services don’t allow you to insert links within a description and you certainly have zero control on header tags.  What is a communicator to do?  Here are some tips, but be forewarned, I am in NO WAY a SEO expert or even that knowledgeable.  I know what I know through books, blogs and my colleagues John and Pam.  So tell us what you do for best practices in video SEO.

Video SEO Top Five Tips

1. Choose a hosting service that allows you to personalize the video as much as possible, or host the video yourself.  For example I’ve been using Viddler because they allow me to put links in the description, personalize the title and allow other people to comment on the video with links.  All of this helps the video get picked up in search engines AND ultimately drive the to your site.  Now if you use something like YouTube your video is still searchable, however there is no easy way to have a visible link to your site once they watch the video, unless…
2. Start your video with the URL you want folks to visit and end the video with the URL.  Personally I despise videos that have the URL the entire time, feels really pushy to me, but you certainly want to make sure that URL is seen.  Another pointer is to have that URL seen in the freeze-frame of the video before folks press play, many services allow you to choose this image.  Now this is not technically SEO, but it will help you reach your goals.
3. Embed the video on your site, but be sure to include a bit of text.  This text should explain what the video entails and that will, obviously, allow you to use your keywords.  This is important because it also goes to the point that you should be making videos that actually talk about what you do!
4. Personalize the title as much as possible.  Obviously you can do that on the page you embed the video on your own site, but you should also be sure to do that wherever the video is hosted.  Don’t gum it up with a bunch of corporate jargon, just say what it is about and that will correspond naturally with your important keywords.
5. Still update your meta tags…some elements are less important, but I’m amazed at when I look at the source around videos on corporate sites and folks have not updated the meta tags nor meta description.

Video can be a huge benefit to your communications program, but it is also important that the video can be found. This is critical whether you are talking iPhones or network testing equipment. Here is a quick example of using Viddler and some tactics for video SEO:

Part III of my Social Media Case Study series: Part I, Part II

There is so much talk lately about what social media is, what tools encompass social media and who should “own” social media.  These are all great topics and the posts I linked to are all ones I enjoyed…but are we getting to the point where these discussions can end?  At this point in the “evolution of social media” we need to talk use-studies and real-world examples.  Sharing these with the community so that we can empower others and get critical feedback on how to improve. We are entering a time where social media should not be about talk and “experts”; it must be about action and results.  I left my life in the PR agency world to start implementing and measuring social media for a company (note, that is not a slam against agencies, some of whom really get social media).

This is why I’m going to continue on with the Social Media Case Study series, sharing with you our (@poneal is my boss and partner in crime for this stuff) use of social media and results.  Part III happened quickly and  reawakened my mind to the power of community.  Instead of reiterating the entire story I’m fortunate enough that Jennifer Leggio (@mediaphyter) had a terrific post where she recapped some of what we were facing last week. Go read the article, I’ll wait…

It had it all did it not?  Misquotes! Mis-representation! He-said/she-said! Security exploits! Bloggers not doing their research!  Ohhhh!  Ahhhh!  It was an interesting conundrum and one that we took very seriously, since any news; good and bad, right and wrong, take off and build their own momentum in today’s media/blog environment.  Within hours of the incorrect article there were dozens of posts and dozens of Twitter conversations elaborating and seemingly corroborating the incorrect article.  Many of them, however, did not post the corrected article nor went back to revisit the piece after the facts came out.  This is something we all have to deal with in this day in age, so what is a communication person to do?  Here is what we did:

1. Get the facts straight internally and highlight the truth through personal and/or corporate blogs;
2. Monitor the conversation using all the tools available: Google, Twitter Search, FriendFeed, del.icio.us and more;
3. Comment on blogs who got the story wrong in a personal and polite manner, leading people to the facts;
4. Interview with other journalists/bloggers making sure to communicate the facts clearly and concisely;
5. Talk about the incorrect story and it often becomes the story;
6. Twitter folks who post the incorrect story and let them know (recommend DM);
7. Twitter publications to make sure they correct the story online;
8. Twitter folks who post the correct story and thank them;
9. Watch your community respond and defend…highlight those on your own blog or Twitter feed;
10. Watch the story evolve into the real issue on blogs, Twitter and MSM;

It was a site to see, following along on Twitter or searching blogs, as folks went from slamming to correcting in a matter of hours. Twitter became an important lifeline for us to monitor what the community was discussing, but it also gave us a chance to communicate directly with publications such as PC World, PC Magazine and NetworkWorld.  The folks managing the PC World Twitter actually got in touch with us directly over Twitter, letting us know they were putting up the correct story.  Twitter also allowed folks to directly tell us where the story was incorrect so we could fix. WOW!

Is this something that happens for everyone, no.  You have to build up your community and participate with them for a long time before they will respond for you.  We had been doing that long before I got here and HD is a recognized figure in the industry with his own community.  But it shows why we continue to do more and more of these activities.  Some folks ask me why we are on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Ning, blogging, etc.  I can now point them to three main results:

1. It increases quality traffic to our website;
2. Social media generates business leads;
3. The community you build through transparency, trust and listening will always be your number one proponent;

After the horrible service from ING and the equally good service from Bank of America I’m currently sitting at B of A opening up more services with the bank. Good service pays off for everyone and can often trump effective marketing…and in fact becomes effective marketing. At least to the readers of this blog.

Give folks a reason and these days they will do your marketing for you.

–Kyle Flaherty

I finally downloaded the WordPress app for iPhone and I’m trying it out. Doubt I’ll use something like this slot but nice to know it is here if you ever need to blog from the road.

One thing I’d love is an HTML editor and camera integration, although I see a photo library but not sure if the photo will be attached. Maybe next version.

–Kyle F Flaherty

I alluded to this news a week ago on Twitter and today it was official when we put out our release: “BreakingPoint Adds Twitter Protocol to Network Performance Testing Platform“. Since this blog is certainly not about technology nor my corporate life I won’t go into details, those can be easily found. But we were announcing support for the Twitter application protocol in order to properly test network devices. We (Pam O’Neal shout-out) put our heads together and figured we needed to put out something in Twitter form.

So we put out a release that took the form of Twitter, but also adhered to MarketWire publishing policies. The release was very simple and drove folks to our blog post for more information.

At the same time our corporate Twitter posted the news, I Twittered the news, Pam posted the news and we then saw other folks begin to Twitter the news. Our own Twitter Wire had been born.

I’ve discussed our success thus far with Twitter already in my Social Media Case Study and I’m excited to see what comes out of today’s news.

–Kyle Flaherty