Should You Consider Videos and other Forms of Media?
When I wrote the article What Can Stephen Colbert Teach You about Reaching New Viewers?, I wrote about spreading your content to other sites so they could come to your site. Colbert used video and Youtube as the way to become viral and become popular. Video, (or sketchcasting) is another way to promote your site and provide better content to your audience.
Multiple Ways to Express Information
Providing multiple ways to express information will provide options to your established audience. People learn in different ways, so if someone enjoys watching a video rather than reading an article, your site satisfies that type of visitor along with a reader. Multiple mediums will help you satisfy a larger audience and get repeat visitors.
Having made video for content myself, videos will make your content better and make clear up questions visitors might have had just by reading.
The Grunt Work is already done
When you have written an article, making a video that reiterates the article is relatively simple because the ideas are hammered out. You can use what you wrote as a script for what you want to say in the video. Once you wrote the article you are ready to record.
Youtube Audience
Youtube is an instant cataloging search engine. Once you’ve uploaded a video, people can search for the video on Youtube and Google Video. In the past, I uploaded just two videos ( I didn’t embed these videos on my own site) to Youtube and got 27,000 views and a bunch of people to subscribe. By posting the video, I was able to promote my site 27,000 times. Like I said in the Colbert article, you can’t look at the fact that your not monetizing posting a video on Youtube or a podcast. Rather, your making content for your site visitors to enjoy and promoting your site to new people you would have never found.
Podcast Audience
Almost everyone has iTunes these days. If you turn those videos you used for your blog and Youtube into a podcast, you are reaching a greater audience. One great thing about podcasting is that many of the topics aren’t plastered with dozens of competitors so if a person wants to find information you provide, you are likely the podcast. You again have the ability to promote your blog on the podcast.
I started creating a video podcast out of videos used on a site soon after podcasts where added to iTunes. It was and still is relatively easy to get on the top 100 podcast in your particular topic. It helped that I was able to move traffic from the site to the podcast, but the niche I was covering was open as there might have been one or two podcast already establish in that area.
