Video Star

Video Killed the Radio…and ushered in the world of the home broadcaster on the internet. Video plays multiple roles in the world of social media. There are static sites for you to upload videos you have produced, live video broadcast sites, and mobile phone video sites. Let’s look at all three categories and figure out what works for you.

Video Web Sites

YouTube is the best of class in many ways. There is a massive user base, dynamic features enabling you to share, comment and respond to videos, and you can easily share the videos you post on YouTube on a variety of sites from FaceBook to MySpace to your blog. That said, if you are posting videos you should consider registering and posting your videos to sites such as Veoh, Daily Motion, Revver, Yahoo Video, Tumblr, and of course MySpace and FaceBook (tagging people in videos puts those videos on your friend’s FB news feed). First, because you never know where your audience will be. Second, because it is an easy way to spread links to your site (think SEO). Third, because each site has different features and you may find some unique functionality the really works for you.

After you have posted the videos you need to let people know you exist and have uploaded videos. In your descriptions of the videos pay careful attention to the keywords you are using and include links to your website or properties you are promoting. Posting links to your YouTube account in your FaceBook profile is a good example of how you can promote your videos, you may also consider placing a link in your signature line of your email. Embedding videos tastefully and linking up to your videos are a great way to promote them.

Live Video Broadcast

Live Streaming Video is evolving quickly and there are some fantastic sites enabling you to become your own broadcaster. It is relatively standard to have a chat room associated with your video broadcast enabling viewers to communicate with each other and you during the broadcast. Gary Vaynerchuk does a great job of streaming a show live, then reading the chats out loud and answering them verbally, really bringing the viewers into the show. Promoting a live streaming show can start with an email notice, tweet that you are live with a link to the show or posting on any of your other networks. After the show has been streamed the show should be promoted as you would any other archived show.

Justin.tv is an innovator and early mover in this space. The ability to customize the look of your channel, easy to use Flash based web broadcaster and encouragement to broadcast 24/7 has resulted in thousands of broadcasters. The efforts to monetize with ads all over the screen has detracted from the early simplicity of the site, but its hard to complain when this is the only way you pay for the service.

Ustream has consistently innovated in the live streaming space, building in Twitter notification, FaceBook connect so you can find your FaceBook friends on Ustream and notify your news feed that you are streaming live, direct upload to YouTube and last but ot least an iPhone application for viewing Ustream broadcasts. The site does not have the best look and feel, but it works and is very social.

There is always the threat that YouTube will turn on live shows, numerous other sites that people like for a variety of reasons. If this is an area you are interested in then check out Kyte and Mogulus, either one might be very appealing to you. I am a fan of 12 Seconds Tv, which limits your broadcasts to about the length of time anybody could focus on me for and it integrates nicely into my site.

Mobile Video

Live streaming video from your mobile phone is an area I have an affinity for after working at Comet Technologies for a year and a half. This is an area growing quickly with a host of complexities for the end user. There are only a handful of compatible phones, you must have a data plan and you must learn how to hold a phone very still while broadcasting! That said, if you fit the bill there are some awesome sites that can enable you to stream live video from almost anywhere.

The market leader in the mobile streaming field is Qik. The buffering or delay can vary dramatically, but the quality of the archived videos is superb. They have integrated in social features like the ability to tweet that you are streaming live with a link to your stream. The software is logically designed and easy to install after following an SMS link. Qik partnered with Justin.tv enabling you to broadcast directly to your Justin.tv channel. Qik has iPhone software that is available for download if you have a jail broken iPhone. Qik works best on the Nokia phones but does support Windows Mobile and notably the BlackBerry phones as well. You can also integrate in easily with most of the video sites mentioned in this post.

You can also check out sites like Flixwagon, LiveCast, Stickam, Next2Friends, and Phlyr. Phlyr is a paid site launched by Comet Technologies on the ATT network (I worked on this). It is innovative in that it is the first site to be implemented with a wireless or telcom here in the US. The site is far more restrictive with a focus on privacy. However, live mobile video streams can be broadcast directly to your FaceBook profile. Comet’s technology enables streams to be broadcast with no buffering issues and minimal delay. Comet has struggled in social media, but been fantastically successful providing a professional solution to television broadcasters who can rely on the live mobile stream for broadcast on air.

Top Ten List

1. Link it up – Put links to your videos everywhere, wherever you post your videos put links to your web site. Tag videos with people in them.

2. Promote it! – tell people when you will be Live (when possible), hit your networks like Twitter, FriendFeed and FaceBook with a link to your broadcast, post links to archives and embed those archives on your web properties.

3. Pay attention to production values, good lighting and a steady camera go a long way to creating watchable video. If you don’t know what you are doing get in a pro to help you get your set-up right.

4. Enable people to comment or respond to your videos when possible. Creating a discussion makes your video more interesting!

5. Speak up! Practice with your built in microphone and consider investing in a real microphone to improve the quality of the audio. Common mistakes are popping your P’s.

6. Censor yourself! “Sometimes I have to curse just to prove my damn point.” Q-Tip. But most of the time you don’t have to. Be sensitive to the idea that people may be watching your video at work or have their kids around at home. Unless you are the next Howard Stern, keep it clean enough for your mom or kids to listen to (and see).

7. Find other people to be in your videos, engage them and share their audience. This is a great way to expose new people to yourself and establish yourself as a resource to new people.

8. Key words – Get in all of the meta data, make sure your videos are being categorized appropriately and being found on the site.

9. Practice, Practice, Practice. Your videos will get better! Watch and listen to your videos. You will see and hear how to improve your videos.

10. Ask for feedback. Get your friends, family, peers, co-workers to tell you what they think of the videos and how you should improve them.