Video Killed The SEO Star

Dead, you say?? How dare... oh wait, I did just look around to see if the last website had any videos, didn't I?? (Yup, you probably did.)

Even the phonebook companies are gearing up for video. Let your eyeballs do the walking? Hell yes! So let your video ad do all the talking, baby!

There was a comprehensive report done recently by DoubleClick (See Report here) wherein they analyze the effectiveness of ad formats. Rich media involves complex flash, animation and/ or video ad formats. The study includes these as well as the older formats of images and simple flash.

We have been heading toward total visual for a long time, if you count the 60 plus years of television and about 100 years of motion pictures, not to mention early animation. (Remember those booklets with a hundred pages of drawings of a cat that seemed to move when you filed through the booklet? No, well then you ain't old enough and you probably think I'm kidding.)

Don't get me wrong - people still do read. The difference is that today, if it's in words, it needs to be interactive for the reader. A blog or forum would be useless if readers couldn't post comments. Cellphone texting is another example in which people read messages, but the idea is to participate in real time. This is much different than how we started off using pagers twenty or so years ago, and it advanced quite rapidly after that, from just static sending of alerts and cellphone photos to the texting we do today.

For websites, again we need to hold people's interest, and that improves by reducing their burden to read too much information - ah, that wordy explanation of your product or service typically needed for accomodating spiders, crawlers, and that whole google search engine phenomenon.

Not only is visitor interest important, that is getting them to stay on your site and navigate it. You want visitors to make a proactive decision: Buy your products or services!! Well, they have to FIND you first, right? And this is the best part about using videos.

For those looking to rank and be found, a well-titled video hosted on YouTube, Vimeo, or other video-sharing sites, will markedly improve your search status without spending thousands of dollars on SEO. The video can be a traditional-looking 30 second ad, but your options are many. Don't limit yourself. You also do not have to limit your ad to just the video hosting site. Once posted, take the video file's link and drop it in any of the popular online social networking sites you belong to. Of course, you can include the video on your company's (or org's) site, too. If you have the marketing budget, and you carefully choose an effective online marketing consultant or company, they can provide some strategic SEO solutions. But for guerrilla marketing, which is what most small businesses are doing these days, videos are a more cost-effective and results-effective way to go. (Hell, even huge corporations are going this route.)

If your company or proprietorship is already popular and you have top ranking on search engines, you still should think about staying on top of your game. There are always competitors out there selling cheaper, faster, better, more. What you present in a video can make the difference. A kind and sincere welcome to your services, a product demonstration, an entertaining invitation to visit your location, or a sincere customer testimonial are some nice ideas. Personal, helpful and familiar are the way to go in our socially-driven online world.

I know you all know from my blog that I cover lots of events and music in the Roanoke area. I shoot videos of all types and genres. These include videos for commerce. They can be short or long, for online or for DVD presentations, and for-profit businesses or for non-profits. I am always interested in working with new and current subjects, clients and ideas to bring your best visual message up front and out into the world.

My latest video is a Real Estate listing. (I also shoot for a phone company's online business pages. Those are 30 second "ads" and a bit formulaic.) This residential home video includes a voice-over, which I also produce here at my studio. I run an audio recording and video production company. Professional audio tracking is essential in many different shoots - and not every video producer offers that. This is why I call Star City Fame a Media company. I built this company by expanding my existing pro-audio studio, adding professional video for on and off-location shoots.



(Source for the graph posted above is: Dynamic Logic MarketNorms®, 2008. Fixed frequency level of 1. Campaigns using online display advertising of any format N=547-765)

Hello and Welcome to Star City Fame

Well, here we go. My name is Ron Bergeron, a long-time musician and songwriter who has had to wear corporate hats for over 3 decades. The past several years took me from my home state up in Central Noizee Joizee to a small and unique Metro area in SW Virginia that looked something like the North Counties of my old state, except the cost of living here is about 1/2 or better in this beautiful Blue Ridge region.

That's my story in a nutshell. I didn't need to roam around much while I was working as an IT consultant, but soon as that project was through, I had to get out of my house a little more often, other than driving to the airport. (By the way, if you've never flown in or out of Roanoke Regional Airport, you have got to do it. It's breath-taking to see the mountains surrounding this valley.)

I had little occasion to run Downtown or go into SW County or to shop at the malls (which I don't really do anyway because I prefer buying from non-chain businesses). Once I got to know a few people and had some things to do about town, I quickly realized that Roanoke had tons more things available for its residents than most of the large cities I've lived in and around in the Tri-State NYC area. How could that be possible???

Obviously, the exception would be Manhattan. Otherwise, the next closest "town" or city I can compare Roanoke to would be something like New Brunswick, NJ... but only because they have a younger university population, the county seat, lively night life, huge medical facilities, arts organizations and a theatre (not a movie-house). The landscape does not have similarities. But as for action, I can go there and not get bored.

Roanoke is working on having its own teaching hospital from what I understand, with Carilion. So, while we have no formal UNIVERSITY, we do have nearby Roanoke College, Virginia Tech, Radford University, and local learning centers like Virginia Western, National College, Roanoke Higher Education Center, and more. We're not slacking in education, and we have major players in Roanoke as far as employment and technology.

To rattle off a few, the Roanoke Valley is home to Norfolk Southern Railroad, Carilion Healthcare, ITT, General Electric, Lewis-Gale Medical, and a host of logistics companies, like FedEx, UPS, and other major common carriers. We have some of the area's best sound local banks. We also have huge financial and insurance institutions. Appalachian Power is one of our biggest energy companies. We have several communications services as well, one being Cox Communications which brings many of us our cable TV, internet and telephone services. I am a customer of theirs, but I am also a long-time customer of Verizon, which continues to be my wireless provider. (Geez, did I just make it sound like... "yep, we got electric.")

Real Estate is what brought me here originally. Home prices compared to the NY-Metro area is a difference that can take you out of a cottage and put you into a brand new golf course mansionette... if you do it right.

What Roanoke shouldn't be lagging in, though, is its young residents. I keep hearing stuff about how we can't hold onto our young people. Young adults leave their roots all over. It's not an uncommon phenomenon. But young people also come back after getting their fill of big-city life. Right now, with the economy being stale everywhere, work is going to depend on education level more than ever, I believe. And Roanoke is not the backward town that some outsiders might mistake it for. Far from it.

YEP. WE GOT ELECTRIC...

Roanoke. Downtown is a place that reminds me of the mid-60's Main Street shopping era. I loved it then, and I love it now. Feels like home to me. I like to shop at stores where I know the owner's name. People are so worried about sales reps remembering their customers' names. Anybody can do that. Do YOU know your shopkeeper's name? How many store owners do you know personally? Have you ever thought they might be residents of your town? That they are not the big-box alterers of the landscape and rather care more about your purchase than how many cheap widgets they can ship in a marine container for a bigger profit?

That's the guy and gal I'm talking about.

Is that classic? Is that somehow "retro?"

I'm thinking, we need to see the forest from the trees. All the global-mindedness ain't gonna happen on some blanket pulled over the earth, even if that blanket is our great friend, the internet. Reach out and actually touch someone, please. Do it often. Get out into the air. Walk, bike, or drive to somebody's real life thing.

Fun happens offline. You can do Meet-up, Twitter, Facebook, and all that, to see what your friends and co-workers are doing... and go. You can peruse The Roanoke Times, City Magazine, The Roanoker, whatever, for what's going on out there... and go.

Go. Go. Go.

Get out and do something because there's TONS OF STUFF TO DO ALL OVER ROANOKE!!Free stuff. Group stuff. Alone stuff. Volunteer stuff. Participation stuff. Creative stuff. Sit and watch stuff. Walk, bike, hike stuff. Cruise-around in your car stuff. Sports stuff. Kids stuff. Senior stuff. Civic stuff. Shopping stuff. Entertainment stuff. Learn-how-to-do stuff. Crafts stuff. Mentor stuff. Food stuff. Party stuff. Teach stuff.

And events galore!!! I had no idea how many events go on in the Greater Roanoke Valley, from Downtown Street festivals to Regional Music festivals. So if you are not sure where to go or to find out what's going on - definitely click on any of the linked words here in this post. And come on back to the Star City Fame blog so you can find out more about events and organizations (to get you going) in this l'il old town that isn't so little.

Okay, that's it for now. I just wanted to share with you how much I really dig being a resident (and taxpayer since it helps make this the city and county it is) of Roanoke...

And now that Star City Fame is getting rolling, you'll see some more stuff back here to give ya's a well-rounded idea about this multi-faceted Valley.

PS - The flowers are blooming!!!