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40 P a r t I Marketing Your Business Online with YouTube

camera and talks about the latest news of interest to your customers. This can be
news about your products, your company, your industry, or even the outside world
(as it affects you and your customers). It’s the YouTube equivalent of a newscast.

The best of these videos address more universal issues, rather than being blatantly
self-promotional about your own products and brands. This helps to establish you
or your company as the authority on a given topic, someone customers will come
back to when they want the straight poop about what’s going on.

For example, if you’re a dentist, you could go on camera and talk about the services
you offer or what a great dentist you are, but that’s pretty self-serving; in the end,
who cares? It would be better and more interesting to talk about the latest teeth
whitening techniques, or how to fight plaque, or what kind of toothbrush works
best.

Likewise, if you represent a clothing retailer, you can produce informational “sto-
ries” about the latest seasonal fashions and such. If you sell computer equipment,
you can talk about trends in the tech industry, the types of new machines coming
out, new ways that people are using computers, and the like. Or if you’re in the
restaurant business, you can talk about food trends, new dining experiences, nutri-
tional issues, and the like. You get the idea.

You don’t even have to present straight news. You can offer opinions on the latest
developments, or give advice to viewers. (There’s an idea—a series of Q&A videos
where you answer customer questions and address their issues.) Opinions are often
more interesting than facts, and advice often more useful than straight data.

The key is to use the format to establish yourself or your company as the authority
to turn to, so that when customers need to buy what you’re selling, they’ll think of
you. To do this, your videos not only have to be newsworthy and authoritative, they
have to be somewhat frequent. News isn’t really new if you’re reporting on it two
weeks after the fact. If you go the news-based approach, be prepared to produce a
new video at least once a week; viewers need to know that your information is
timely, and will come to expect updates on a regular schedule. That might mean
producing a weekly YouTube newscast, or maybe something even more frequent.
Whatever the case, you must create and stick to a regular schedule; sporadic
uploads won’t attract a regular viewer base.

Information = Facts

Another approach is to produce videos that inform viewers about your product.
This could take the form of a series of spec sheets, presented in slideshow format
with accompanying background music. Or maybe you create a video based on an
existing sales presentation or conference. Even better is a video that serves as an