It’s all about the Headline – Use an impactful headline that incorporate keywords that increase search ranking.

Natalie Blatnick is a Recruiting Specialist at GCG Financial
Katie Jansen is the Manager of New Advisor Development at GCG Financial

➣ Why LinkedIn?
➣ How to get noticed on LinkedIn
➣ Grow Your Business by Creating a Prospecting Machine
➣ LinkedIn How to Tips and Tricks

LinkedIn has the world’s largest audience of professionals

By using LinedIn, businesses can get introduced to the right type of prospects that will help grow their business

Include 3 key elements in your profile summary:

➣ Who you are
➣ Who you help
➣ How you can help the customer

Blue Sky Video Productions is a full service video production company helping businesses with internal communication using video. They also help small businesses increase brand awareness and sales utilizing YouTube marketing strategies. In addition they to corporate communications and small business marketing, they also produce promo & demo videos.

Ads from Toyota (Kaley Cuoco – Big Bang Theory), Best Buy (Amy Poehler – Parks & Recreation, SNL) and Got Milk (Dwayne Johnson, the Rock) that featured celebrities or perennial favorites such as Budweiser, Go Daddy & E*Trade spend tens or hundreds of thousands on producing their commercials.

Other advertisers such as Doritos created a contest for a chance for people like you and me to get into the spotlight by producing an ad for Doritos that would air during the Super Bowl. But, you say, how can a regular guy go up against giants like Bud, Honda or Pepsi? With a little humor and creativity. What makes the Super Bowl spots special is not that they cost more to produce, it’s that they tend to push the envelope and dare to be different.

The winner of the 2012 Doritos spot spent $20 (for dog treats) to produce the spot.
There’s a saying, never work with children and animals. But, with a little patients, a little luck and many takes, the spot comes out beautifully. Here’s a link to the Bloopers from “Man’s Best Friend”.

So now that the Super Bowl is over and people are searching the web to see the spots that they missed or the ones they want to see again. This is the time to release your own “Super Bowl Ad”.

Bruce Himmelblau, Blue Sky Video Productions has worked on major motion pictures as well as small budget independent features, short films and behind the scenes documentaries. In addition, Himmelblau has been to major film festivals such as the Chicago International Film Festival, Sundance and Cannes with his webcast Indie Film Nation that he co-produces with producer/director, Michael Smith, and his partner, editor, Sue Lawson. “Sitting Ducks” was screened at the Cannes film festival and the thriller “Partyline” & drama “The Rise and Fall of Miss Thang” has won numerous festival awards. Blue Sky Video Productions has been creating simple, yet engaging marketing campaigns and videos for business like yours for over 25 years.

CONCEPT

-STORY
The key to creating your own ad is to tell a story. If you work with a number of people, let everyone participate in the concept phase. Schedule a brainstorming session and choose the idea that your audience not only will want to watch, but to share with others.

- ENGAGE YOUR AUDIENCE
At the heart of your story your spot should have a hero or someone for the viewer to identify with. Messages that evoke strong emotions such as joy, surprise, anticipation, acceptance, fear, anger, sadness, and disgust are more memorable. One thing else that you may have noticed during the Super Bowl, companies like Doritos and GoDaddy had more than just one commercial message. By creating more than one commercial, you can keep your message fresh or target different audiences with a variety of appeals.

- SHOW, NOT TELL
As obvious as it may seem, video is a visual medium. The saying goes, “a picture is worth a thousand words”. People can get a grasp of what your message is about by seeing it in action faster than by someone telling them. Demonstrating that the product helps turn a skeptical audience into a buyer.

- CALL TO ACTION
You’ll be amazed at the number of ads that create an interest or desire in the product or service and leave it at that. The call to action is your final pitch that tells the viewer what to do next. Do you want them to pick up the phone and call, order from your website or come in to the store? Whatever it is, tell them.

POST-PRODUCTION EDITING & DISTRIBUTION

“Production Value” is a common phrase in low budget films which also carries over to low budget commercials and videos. Most often small businesses try to cut corners by producing the video themselves or hiring some who will shoot the video with the camcorder that they use to shoot their home videos. But what usually suffers is the sound and lighting. Professional video production companies, like Blue Sky Video Productions, who work with local businesses are equipped to shoot and edit the ad with small crews that will produce a spot with high production value and small budgets. With websites such as YouTube and Vimeo to name a couple, you don’t need $3.8 million to distribute your message.

scene from Partyline

Now is the time to let Blue Sky Video Productions help you get the attention that your company demands.

Blue Sky Video Productions is a full service video production and editing studio located north of Chicago in Lake Forest, IL.
To contact Bruce Himmelblau, call 847-295-9555 or email at info [at] bsvp.com

Indie Film Nation Video Podcast #057: Interview with Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi (directors) of 5 Broken Cameras (FR/PA) feature documentary film

Our podcast team covered Sundance 2012 and caught up the the Co-Directors of the the Oscar Nominated Feature Documentary 5 Broken Cameras. On January 10, 2013, the film was among the 5 films that was nominated for an Academy Award.

We all can identify with Emad Burnat, a father who started shooting home videos of his forth son, Gibreel, is born. At the same time he documents events of his village of Bil’in located in Palestine as a separation barrier is being built and the villagers attempt to hold peaceful protests. For more than five years, Emad films the struggle, which is lead by two of his best friends, alongside filming how Gibreel grows. Very soon it affects his family and his own life. Daily arrests and night raids scare his family; his friends, brothers and him as well are either shot or arrested. One Camera after another is shot at or smashed, each camera tells a part of his story

Five broken cameras—and each one has a powerful tale to tell. Embedded in the bullet-ridden remains of digital technology is the story of Emad Burnat, a farmer from the Palestinian village of Bil’in, which famously chose nonviolent resistance when the Israeli army encroached upon its land to make room for Jewish colonists. Emad buys his first camera in 2005 to document the birth of his fourth son, Gibreel. Over the course of the film, he becomes the peaceful archivist of an escalating struggle as olive trees are bulldozed, lives are lost, and a wall is built to segregate burgeoning Israeli settlements.

Gibreel’s loss of innocence and the destruction of each camera are potent metaphors in a deeply personal documentary that vividly portrays a conflict many of us think we know. Emad Burnat, a Palestinian, joins forces with Guy Davidi, an Israeli, and—from the wreckage of five broken cameras—two filmmakers create one extraordinary work of art.

Award Winner – Sundance Film Festival
World Cinema Documentary Directing Award

BSVP On-Site at SES Chicago with Greg Jarboe, president of SEO-PR and author of “YouTube and Video Marketing in one hour a day”. Bruce Himmelblau discusses how YouTube has added Watch Time to it’s ranking algorithm. Watch Time is the amount of time a viewer spends watching a particular video which is accumulated and considered in how high a video will rank. Greg also pointed out that YouTube is second to Google as the top search engine and currently has over 800 million unique visitors a month.

Businesses that are not using video as part of their marketing strategy have a good chance of loosing sales and customer to those who have a strong video marketing strategy and use YouTube or other services to engage their current and potential customers.

Before YouTube introduced the “Watch Time” algorithm, it was primarily based on the number of people who clicked on the video. However, those seeking higher clicks used “black hat” tactics to get people to click on their video, such as misleading thumbnails. This prevented videos with useful content with higher engagement from getting ranked or promoted by YouTube. The affect of including the cumulative amount of time that a video is watched is that the videos will appear more in the related and recommended sections and will benefit both established as well as brand new channels.

The video was shot at a loft in Chicago as well as their hair extension salon & school and at Exsalonce, Tony’s hair salon.
The models that we worked with were fantastic.

Tony presented the 2012 North American Hairstyling Award (NAHA) for Texture.

Blue Sky Video Productions is a Chicago based production company that produces corporate communications, promotional, educational and more that help increase viewer engagement and build relationships.

We now launch BSVP On-Site, a video blog the goes behind the scenes of tech, movies, music and more.

I have to admit, that I did not realize who Garrett Brown was when I first approached him to talk about the Merlin. However, shortly after the interview I found out that this was the man who also invented the Steadicam that made the classic shot of Sylvester Stallone running up the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum in “Rocky” possible. Since then the Steadicam has been used on many more films since.

As we have done in some episodes of WEVA News, instead of just shooting the product, we integrated it into the episode. In the first segment, we with Garrett Brown about the Merlin 2 as our camerman, Steve Eisen is using the Steadicam Pilot for the very first time. In less than 15 minutes and with a very quick training session that we got in the second segment, we up and running.

Behind the scenes preparation for shooting the interview with Garrett Brown

Here is the complete interview.

How did you first become aware that you had the skills to create a business based on something that you were very interested in working on?

I think it was gradual. When I was younger, this industry didn’t exist. At least not to the extent that it was 25 years ago, and definitely not to the extent that it is today. I always had the personality and drive to be an entrepreneur. All the jobs I had leading up to starting Blue Sky Video Productions, we’re building blocks to becoming a business owner. I’ve held a number of positions since high school, including selling motorcycles, manager, accountant, stock broker, photographer and video producer.

How is your work with Blue Sky different from what you anticipated when you started?

From the time we started Blue Sky Video Productions in 1986 until about 2000, our business was tape based. Meaning that we shot on tape formats such as VHS, 8mm video, Hi8 video, DVCam and miniDV. In the beginning we shot a lot of wedding and event videos as well as corporate communication and training videos. In 2001 we started editing with Final Cut Pro, a computer based editing system that allowed us to compete with the big production houses in the city. Over the years we have moved from event video to more corporate and local business videos. We have also phased out tape all together in favor of reusable cards, similar to the ones used in the iPhone, capable of recording HD video.
In a great majority of our jobs, we are using renewable resources from production to delivery where we shoot on the HD cards, edit on hard drives and deliver to the web. These projects are made with 100% reusable bits.

What is the toughest obstacle you’ve had to overcome?

My toughest obstacle was becoming a sales person and selling my own service. Coming from a background of video production and marketing, it was difficult going out and talking about myself. Like many people, I hate making cold calls. One way I’ve managed to reduce the amount of selling that I have to do is by providing a great service and having a network of raving fans who “sell” for me via word of mouth and social networks. Today, I use social media such as LinkedIn, Twitter Google+ and YouTube to make connections. The online networking works as a first introduction, so when I meet with my “contacts” or “followers” in real life, we’ve already built a relationship. Social networking has also helped us expand our business nationally as well as internationally.

Is it helpful, and why or why not, for your company to be located in Lake Bluff?

I think the benefit of our location has more to do with the community than on our business. Given the nature of our business, we could have been located almost anywhere and still be successful. Over the years we’ve had the opportunity to work with many of the large businesses located nearby as well as many or of the local retailers and fellow Lake Forest/Lake Bluff Chamber of Commerce members. At the same time we’ve been able to work with clients from New York to California as well as Melbourne, Australia and to have traveled to England, France and Italy in addition to many parts of the US. And now that we’ve been here for 25 years, it’s hard to picture our business anywhere else.

How is managing a company like yours in a recession different than how you were able to work when the economy was stronger a few years ago?

Back when I was doing wedding videography, I though that the business was recession proof. But, lately many of my friends who are wedding & event videographers are saying that business is down. Surpringly, we had our best year ever in 2011. I attribute it to the explosion of video on the Internet. Next to social media, video is the fastest growing sector of the web. These days it’s not enough just to have a website. Businesses need video, not only to engage visitors to there website, but it also helps in search engine optimization, or SEO. A website with video is 53 times more likely to be ranked in on the first page of a Google search than that same site without video. We often tell our clients that they can’t produce just one video and be done. There are thousands of hours of video being uploaded to the Internet everyday. So, discovering a single video is like finding a needle in a haystack. But imagine that haystack containing hundreds or thousands of needles. And then imagine that all of those needles are tied together with a string. That is how businesses can get noticed on the web. Instead of putting up one long video on YouTube or other video sites, they produce shorter videos or a variety of videos. It then becomes easier for a potential client to find one of those videos during a web search. On YouTube, at the end of the video, the viewer is given a selection of related videos. If that business doesn’t have more videos on the web, those related videos could most likely be from their competition.

Is this what you expected to be doing when you graduated from school and started a career?

In high school I was on track to become an accountant. My father is a CPA and my grandfather & uncle founded Himmelblau & Associates, a prestigious accounting firm in Chicago back in the 40′s. However, in my junior year at New Trier, I discovered the high school radio station. I then went on to study radio & TV and communications at SIU. After SIU, I transferred to ASU and got a degree in advertising & marketing. After graduation I pursued a position as a copywriter and eventually landed a job at a Chicago advertising agency. As my interest in the production grew, I decided it was time to start Blue Sky Video Productions.

I recently wrote about how YouTube is making it easier for businesses to get exposure by releasing the YouTube Creator Playbook. A basic “How To” guide to getting your video higher search engine rankings. By following the playbook, your video can not only rank higher in Google searches, but also YouTube searches, Bing searches, Yahoo searches and others.

In Part I: Programming & Producing, I outlined the steps suggested for producing your content. In this part, I will cover what to do after you have finished your video and are ready to post it.

1. Metadata.Metadata are your titles, tags, and descriptions. It helps YouTube index your content and is critical to building views. Make your tiles compelling. This is your headline or your hook. Your title should be concise, informative and, at times, entertaining. Unlike headlines, the title to your video should include keywords that should be repeated throughout your tags and description. Put the keywords first in the title and your show title or channel name at the end.

Write keyword tags that are a combination of specific and general terms that are relevant to the video’s content. An example for this article would be video marketing, YouTube marketing, video SEO, as well as video, marketing, SEO. An example for a video that we recently produced for a local clock store named Clockworks would include general tags such as clocks, watches, antiques, repair and specific tags such as the brands and styles of watches that they carry. If you have a retail store, include the towns where you are located. Select a reasonable number of tags that most closely reflect your video content.

Write your description for both the viewer and the search engines. You can also include additional info that was not covered in the video. Your description is an opportunity for you to let new viewers know about your channel. Outbound links to your main channel or website, subscription to your channel, related content, your social media pages (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc) will also help the YouTube algorithm for SEO rankings.

As in your title, the order of your tags is also important. You should repeat your keywords in the same order in your tags and your description. When using phrases in your keywords such as “video marketing” or “local business”, use quotes instead of commas.

2. Thumbnails – You can’t always be lucky enough to have one of the three thumbnails that are provided by by YouTube to be the perfect image that reflects the content of the video as well as engage the viewer. If you need to create your own custom image, it should be clear and in focus at a minimum of 640px by 360px. It is also recommended that the image be bright with high contrast, be visually compelling, close up on the subject, well framed and looks good whether it’s view either small or large.

The thumbnail image is one of the most important attributes of your video because it will appears in the search results and will be one of the determining factors of whether the viewer clicks on your video or someone else’s.

A good practice to get in to is to look for the thumbnail image while you are shooting or editing. Another option is to take photos during the shoot. Most photo software will let you resize, enhance or even combine images for your thumbnail.

3. Annotations – Annotations are text overlays that you can position on your YouTube videos and are seen as the video plays. They can be used to supply additional information at specific times in the video. They can also be linked to allow the viewer subscribe to the video, channel or interact with the video. One of the best uses is to attract new interest and interaction to old videos.

When creating annotations for your video, be sure not to obstruct critical elements of your video. This also includes the lower third of the image where, if you are monetizing your content, the ads will appear.

One of the most effective uses of annotations is to create an “end card” that appears at the end of your video for 15 to 20 seconds that links to your other related content. You have most likely seen this already when the YouTube algorithm posts links to related videos.

This video shoot was a great chance to use our Redrock Micro M2 Encore Indie Bundle lens adaptor attached to our Panasonic P2 camera. Where most filmmakers are going the DSLR route, we have found that we prefer to stick with dedicated video cameras. Not only are the cameras a little easier to work with, but we find the post-production workflow to be smoother. The video for this shoot will be posted soon.

Recently YouTube released their new Creator Playbook that outlined best practices for producing marketing videos for YouTube. Here are six main points for small businesses who want to create compelling and effective marketing and informational videos.

1. Engage: Create content that engages your viewer more than sells to your viewer. Your message should offer solutions rather than pitch your product or service. They should get their attention within the first 15 seconds. Many TV programs start the program immediately after the end of the previous program. The view gets invested in the program before they have a chance to change the channel. Only after 2 or 3 minutes do they go to the opening title sequence. Try this on your video. Open with a quick teaser to give your viewer an idea of what is ahead before going into the opening titles.

2. Strength in Numbers: Create a series of videos. It’s difficult to find a needle in a haystack. But image if you put 100 or 1000 needles in the haystack. And then tie a string from one to the next. It becomes easier to find that first one and follow the links to the rest. Granted you may not be able to produce 1000 videos on your budget. But instead of posting a single video that runs 60 minutes, you can post 20 videos that run 3 minutes or 10 videos that run 6 minutes.

3. Consistency: Create a consistent schedule for posts. Produce a series of related videos that you can post weekly or every other week. And post them on the same day each week at approximately the same time. In this day of time shifting TV programs, you really don’t have to know when your favorite program comes on. But if you get into the habit of coming home from work on Tuesday and watching a program that was on sometime on some channel on Monday, if that program isn’t there, they may loose you as a viewer. Another important factor is to keep the length of your program consistent. 3 – 5 minutes is best for those with short attention or tight schedules. If your content needs to be longer, create a 2 -3 minute trailer that gets them engaged and interested in watching the longer video.

4. Bonus Material: One of my favorite sections of movies on DVD are the extras and behind the scenes. Add additional videos to your channel of how the video was made, out-takes or trailers. The behind the scenes video can include interviews with those both in front of as well as those behind the camera. If your business is trying to gain media exposure, the additional material can be included in your Electronic Press Kit (EPK).

5. Seasonal Events: Produce your programming to coincide with an event or holiday. When interest increases around a special time of year such as St. Patrick’s Day, the beginning of Spring, 4th of July or Halloween, create a themed program that capitalizes on people who are searching for those keywords. Some businesses such as clothing or automotive have special times of the year when the new fashions come in or people get their car ready for winter or summer.

6. Call To Action: Just as the opening is important to get your viewer involved. After they’ve watched your video you need to tell them what you want them to do next. In advertising this is the Call To Action. You can use the content of the video or annotations to ask the viewer to respond to your video. Do you want them to subscribe to your channel, +1 your video, share the video or view other videos on your channel? Do you want them to visit your website, pick up the phone and call you? Without the call to action, they may just go to next video without doing anything.