IntroductionWelcome| 00:04 | Hi! My name is Richard Harrington and
welcome to this course on Hypersyndication.
| | 00:09 | We're going to explore techniques
that are useful for those of you who are
| | 00:12 | creating blogs, social media
posts or web video content.
| | 00:17 | When it comes to hypersyndication, the
whole idea is to work less, to take your
| | 00:22 | content that you create
once and distribute it to many.
| | 00:26 | This is a very straightforward
concept but it involves using several
| | 00:30 | different technologies.
| | 00:32 | Throughout the lessons, we're going to
explore readily available often free tools.
| | 00:37 | You're going to piece these tools
together in order to get results.
| | 00:42 | Now, the results I'm sharing
with you today are based upon my own
| | 00:45 | personal experience.
| | 00:47 | I run a visual communications company
called Red Pixel in the Washington D.C.
| | 00:51 | area, and for many clients in the
corporate, non-profit and government space,
| | 00:55 | we've helped them extend their
reach out to broader audiences.
| | 00:59 | We find that using these free tools is a great
way to significantly extend a project's reach.
| | 01:06 | By putting a little bit of effort into
building a network you can leverage that
| | 01:10 | network for tremendous results.
| | 01:12 | Now, the truth it is, it does take a
little bit of work, but the pay-off is huge.
| | 01:18 | As economies get tighter and budgets shrink,
it becomes important to do more with less.
| | 01:25 | Using technology like
hypersyndication, you can eliminate things like
| | 01:29 | replication or printing cost,
shipping and mailing and instead leverage the
| | 01:34 | power of the internet to reach
a much, much broader audience.
| | 01:38 | My name is Richard Harrington.
| | 01:39 | We're going to jump into a
whole bunch of techniques today.
| | 01:42 | I encourage you to watch the training in
order but we've sliced it up into small
| | 01:47 | segments, so you could jump just to the
parts that are relevant to you as well.
| | 01:51 | Thanks for joining me.
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1. What is Hypersyndication? Why do you need to hypersyndicate?| 00:00 | So, you came to our training title today
to learn all about hypersyndication but
| | 00:05 | what exactly is hypersyndication?
| | 00:07 | Well, things in today's world require
you to reach a broad audience and go where
| | 00:12 | people are already at whether that be
social networks or the iTunes podcast
| | 00:16 | directory or maybe Vimeo or YouTube.
| | 00:19 | But a lot has changed in the recent years.
| | 00:22 | Now, when I first started back in media,
I was in television and it used to be
| | 00:26 | pretty expensive to reach a broad audience.
| | 00:28 | You needed tape decks and satellite
dishes and if you wanted to put something
| | 00:32 | out there you're to pay it to get it
on lots and lots of different screens.
| | 00:36 | Of course, the same thing held
true if you were in the print world.
| | 00:40 | You had expensive printing presses
and you'd have to have a distribution
| | 00:43 | network, all just to reach an audience.
| | 00:44 | Well, the good news is,
is that it's not that hard.
| | 00:47 | We can go ahead and actually reach a
broad audience today, taking advantage of
| | 00:52 | modern portable electronic devices.
| | 00:54 | So, there's a lots of things in play here.
| | 00:56 | If you want to go ahead and hit a
laptop or a portable media player it's easier
| | 01:01 | than ever using technology like podcast.
| | 01:03 | Thanks to things like adaptive
streaming, we can actually send right over the
| | 01:07 | air to cell phones and hit that broad audience.
| | 01:10 | I'd like to talk about for a moment
why you need to hypersyndicate, and the
| | 01:14 | concepts here are pretty straightforward.
| | 01:17 | In the past, it used to be publish or die.
| | 01:20 | People would print lots of newspapers
and set them out on stands for free or
| | 01:24 | they would run a television station
spitting out content 24 hours a day because
| | 01:29 | if you weren't there, people would stop coming.
| | 01:31 | Well, the good news is, is we've
shifted to an on-demand type network.
| | 01:35 | Really now it's becoming divide and conquer.
| | 01:38 | The concept here is you go where
people are already at, so that might be
| | 01:43 | Facebook or Twitter or YouTube or
Vimeo or their iPod while out on the go.
| | 01:49 | There're lots of reasons to hit that
audience and the important thing here is
| | 01:53 | stop trying to pull people in, instead
go where your audience already gathers
| | 01:59 | and you will hit a much
broader collection of folks.
| | 02:02 | Additionally, reasons to hypersyndicate
include the fact that you want as many
| | 02:06 | people as possible to see your content.
| | 02:09 | This is going to allow them to
actually view the content where they want and
| | 02:13 | when they want and when you embrace this
concept you're going to see significant
| | 02:18 | growth in your audience and
much more results in your returns.
| | 02:21 | Of course, many people are obsessed
with drawing people into their website.
| | 02:26 | We have to get those hits, those
visits, those unique page views.
| | 02:30 | In today's day and world, this really
doesn't matter, what matters is the fact
| | 02:34 | that you're getting actual results.
| | 02:36 | Did people watch your content?
| | 02:38 | Did they read your blog?
| | 02:39 | Did they see what you published in
order to get that content and take action?
| | 02:44 | If you want to make a sale, if you
want to go ahead and see things and get it
| | 02:48 | done, this is where things come into play.
| | 02:51 | You simply need to stop worrying
about people coming to you and go to them.
| | 02:57 | The last reason to hypersyndicate is you
just can't beat the stickiness of social media.
| | 03:02 | In today's world, more than half
of all Americans are on Facebook.
| | 03:06 | Are you prepared to ignore your audience?
| | 03:09 | Simply go where the audience is
and you're going to see results.
| | 03:13 | Now, what this means is you're going to
want to publish to laptops, you're going
| | 03:17 | to want to publish out to portable
media players and phones and of course, the
| | 03:22 | Holy Grail back to the
living room with a television.
| | 03:26 | So, now that you understand why to
hypersyndicate, we're going to explore
| | 03:30 | the how.
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| How online behaviors are changing| 00:01 | The exact methods you choose for
hypersyndication are going to vary depending
| | 00:04 | upon who you want to hit.
| | 00:06 | In order to understand your target, I
think it's necessary to look at some
| | 00:10 | recent trends in Internet behavior.
| | 00:13 | One of the things that really stands
out is that in the last 10 years we have
| | 00:17 | seen a significant rise in Internet consumption.
| | 00:20 | People really say that the Internet is
the most essential medium to their lives.
| | 00:25 | When surveyed, 45% of all adults said
that the Internet is the last method that
| | 00:30 | they would choose to give up to
get their news and information.
| | 00:33 | Of course, if you break this down
by age, it's even more shocking.
| | 00:37 | Those under 35, two-thirds of them
would not give up the Internet, they would
| | 00:43 | drop movies, drop television, drop
radio, drop everything else, except the
| | 00:48 | Internet in order to get their
information and entertainment.
| | 00:51 | So, what this really means is
that you have to target the Internet.
| | 00:56 | We see a lot of folks in my line of
work, who put a lot of effort into
| | 01:01 | things like making DVDs shiny discs we call
them or doing traditional mailing campaigns.
| | 01:06 | Well, those are fine and those still
reach people but in today's world, the
| | 01:12 | Internet is where it's at.
| | 01:14 | So, you absolutely need to think about that.
| | 01:16 | If you're reaching for somebody under
the age of 35, you want to go ahead and
| | 01:20 | use online delivery methods.
| | 01:23 | Just last week, 98 million folks in the
United States watched the video online.
| | 01:28 | When you break that down by the
percentages, what you see is a
| | 01:32 | significant growth.
| | 01:33 | Almost 40% of folks are watching online
video and the US is not even the leader.
| | 01:39 | If you take a look at European countries
or Japan, the statistics are even higher.
| | 01:44 | So, it's definitely important to
understand just how much people want online content.
| | 01:50 | Now, when it comes to reaching people
online, people get kind of freaked out.
| | 01:54 | What happens if my customer is not online?
| | 01:57 | What happens if my fan for my show
doesn't have a good Internet connection?
| | 02:01 | Are they going to be able to see it?
| | 02:03 | Well, notice that when asked in the US,
9 out of 10 folks said they can get
| | 02:08 | online whenever they want.
| | 02:10 | This might be at school or at their
job but they do have access and it's
| | 02:14 | important to realize that folks can get there.
| | 02:17 | When you look around the world
you'll see that access varies.
| | 02:21 | When you look at North America and
South America, Australia, Japan and
| | 02:25 | Western Europe, you see very strong
access for the Internet and this is just
| | 02:30 | something you can depend on.
| | 02:31 | Now, obviously as you go around the
world, you'll see that access may dip
| | 02:35 | down in certain places but this is
still the dominant form of access for most
| | 02:40 | folks in the world.
| | 02:41 | So, no matter what you publish, you're
going to want to take advantage of these
| | 02:45 | mediums to reach that broad audience.
| | 02:47 | It doesn't matter if it's news or
entertainment or corporate communications, the
| | 02:51 | web is where it's at.
| | 02:53 | The last thing, I want to leave you
with is the extreme growth in social media.
| | 02:58 | Notice, that that rich demographic
that everyone wants to reach the under 35
| | 03:03 | crowd is huge and while not all the
people are online, we're only going to
| | 03:08 | continue to see growth.
| | 03:09 | The key number there is look at the
18 to 24-year olds, 80% penetration
| | 03:14 | into social media, and as this
group just ages you're going to see them
| | 03:18 | continue their use of social media
and these numbers are going to grow
| | 03:22 | across all age segments.
| | 03:24 | So, now that you understand where those folks
are, think a moment of who you want to reach.
| | 03:31 | Once you've set your strategy of your
target audience it's going to make a lot
| | 03:35 | more sense when we explore the
specific techniques to reach them in our
| | 03:39 | upcoming modules.
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2. Using RSS FeedsWhat is RSS?| 00:00 | When it comes to syndication, there's a
driving force literally and that's RSS.
| | 00:06 | If you've seen this icon before, this
indicates real simple syndication and this
| | 00:12 | will often pop-up in your web browser
or in the preferences and it's probably
| | 00:16 | the first place you saw it.
| | 00:18 | Now, for many, they confuse it with
the WiFi icon but it is different.
| | 00:21 | This is an RSS icon, which
means Real Simple Syndication.
| | 00:26 | Now, if you're on some web browsers,
you'll see the RSS really tiny up in the
| | 00:31 | Bookmark bar and that's just
indicating real simple syndication.
| | 00:35 | Typically, on a blog, it's going to be
the first place you discover it or if
| | 00:40 | you're looking at a news website.
| | 00:41 | Now, if you're on a different web
browser like Firefox, you may have to turn
| | 00:46 | this on and make it visible but you'll
see that same icon and clicking it is
| | 00:51 | going to take you to the RSS feed
which is going to make it easier to see all
| | 00:55 | the content on the website
in small bite sized chunks.
| | 00:59 | But, what exactly is RSS and what does it do?
| | 01:02 | Well, many get confused because by its
very nature, it actually is a technical
| | 01:07 | process but with RSS
there's not that much to it.
| | 01:11 | The goal with Real Simple
Syndication is to get subscribers.
| | 01:14 | Once you've captured a subscriber,
you can continue to market to them or
| | 01:18 | entertain them or inform them without
having to spend dollars marketing to them
| | 01:23 | over and over again trying to draw them back.
| | 01:25 | A subscriber keeps getting your
information until they actually unsubscribe.
| | 01:30 | So, with RSS it's pretty simple,
which is why it's called Real
| | 01:34 | Simple Syndication.
| | 01:35 | This is the process of getting that
material out there to a broad audience.
| | 01:40 | Now, an RSS feed is a document written
in XML, and this feed is going to allow
| | 01:46 | you to publish content repeatedly.
| | 01:49 | So, if you have a blog or a news
website or content management system for your
| | 01:53 | corporate site or personal site, it's
likely generating an XML feed and this
| | 01:58 | works great for content
that is frequently updated.
| | 02:02 | The big thing here is that people can subscribe.
| | 02:05 | So, if you are going to publish a
lot of content that subscriber will get
| | 02:09 | everything that you release
and that really is useful.
| | 02:14 | Now, before you get too hung up on XML
and the gobbledygook of how do you make
| | 02:18 | it, you really don't have to
worry in today's day and age.
| | 02:21 | That's because virtually every content
management system out there from Word
| | 02:26 | press to Blogger to TypePad is going
to generate an XML feed automatically.
| | 02:32 | This XML feed can also have items
embedded inside of it such as rich media for
| | 02:38 | photos or video or audio or PDF
documents and this is going to make it easy for
| | 02:43 | people to get that content.
| | 02:45 | So, this is pretty useful stuff, and
when you think about it, it's going to
| | 02:50 | automate the process of delivering a
bunch of stuff to a bunch of people.
| | 02:54 | Now, XML feeds have been out there for
a long time but you might not realize
| | 02:58 | that you use them in your everyday life.
| | 03:01 | How exactly is XML useful?
| | 03:03 | Well, first off, you actually use this
when it comes to things like web browsers.
| | 03:08 | If you have bookmarked a webpage, and
you see that in your Address bar or in
| | 03:13 | your Bookmarks they'll often be a
little number next to the site and that
| | 03:16 | indicates the number of
unread articles on that site.
| | 03:20 | People also use XML to pull together
custom home pages whether this be on a Web
| | 03:26 | browser or using iPad
applications like Flipboard and AOL editions.
| | 03:30 | This lets them get the content
they want from their favorite websites
| | 03:34 | delivered without having to remember
to go out to every single site that
| | 03:38 | they're interested in.
| | 03:40 | Similarly, our dedicated RSS readers and
the hard-core geeks of the world love these.
| | 03:45 | Strips away all of the information and
just gets to the facts, the hard details.
| | 03:50 | In fact, a lot of browsers will have a
Reader mode that strips away a lot of the
| | 03:55 | flop and just gets to the meat and
the potatoes of the actual article.
| | 04:00 | And like we said before, if you're putting
together a blog, you're going to have an XML feed.
| | 04:05 | Every blog is dependent upon it and
this is going to allow that content to go
| | 04:09 | out to a lot of places.
| | 04:11 | One of the ones that I think is most important
in today's world is feeding your social media.
| | 04:16 | So, once you get that XML feed located
and identified it becomes really easy to
| | 04:22 | push it to a bunch of places
that matter to your audience.
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| Finding an RSS feed| 00:00 | By now, you understand that you need
the RSS feed to hypersyndicate, but
| | 00:05 | finding it could be a little bit tricky
depending upon which site you're trying to grab it for.
| | 00:11 | For example, you see here I've
navigated to one of my personal blogs.
| | 00:15 | If I'm using Safari, there's a little
RSS icon right up here in the Address
| | 00:20 | bar and if I click on that it's going
to go ahead and switch and give me the
| | 00:25 | choice of my feeds.
| | 00:26 | One's for comments and one
is for my regular stories.
| | 00:30 | So, when I choose that you'll see we
get a streamlined version of the website
| | 00:35 | and it has the articles in it.
| | 00:37 | You could summarize those articles and
do all sorts of things to quickly browse
| | 00:41 | all the content on the site and
find what you're interested in.
| | 00:44 | But notice that this address is
different than the normal website address.
| | 00:49 | It's going to become necessary to use
this feed in order to re-syndicate this
| | 00:54 | content to additional websites.
| | 00:56 | If you're in an application like
Firefox, it could be a little bit trickier.
| | 01:01 | Older versions of Firefox also had an
RSS icon up in the Address bar, but now
| | 01:07 | you need to turn it on manually.
| | 01:08 | So, if you go under View>Toolbars>
Customize, you'll see a collection of icons
| | 01:14 | and of course just to taunt you, they
put it all the way down at the bottom but
| | 01:19 | you can drag that up to your toolbar to
customize and then when you click on it
| | 01:25 | it's going to go ahead and give you
the ability to jump over to that feed and
| | 01:29 | you can copy that URL or you'll notice
here, you've got the ability to actually
| | 01:34 | subscribe or make a live bookmark.
| | 01:36 | This is going to help you find
that feed in order to use it.
| | 01:39 | Personally, I find that the Safari
method is a little bit easier to locate
| | 01:44 | the feeds, and remember Safari is a cross-platform
application available for both Mac and PC.
| | 01:50 | So, if you're on a PC consider
downloading it because I think it has the most
| | 01:55 | elegant and easy to use
implementation of RSS feeds.
| | 01:58 | Many social media sites such as
Facebook also offer RSS feeds.
| | 02:04 | Now, they're not available for all
pages, you will find them on things like
| | 02:08 | business pages and author pages and
public pages for celebrities but it's not
| | 02:13 | that hard to set up your own
Facebook page for your business.
| | 02:16 | If you scroll down, you'll see that you
have the option to get updates via RSS.
| | 02:21 | So, when you click that, it's going
to actually take you to an RSS feed for
| | 02:26 | everything on your Facebook page.
| | 02:28 | This will make it easy to take this RSS
feed and push it out to other websites
| | 02:32 | or other social media channels, so you
can re-syndicate any post to Facebook
| | 02:36 | on to other places.
| | 02:38 | So, it's pretty cool.
| | 02:40 | Of course, many of you are also taking
advantage of Twitter and Twitter made it
| | 02:44 | very easy to find your RSS feed before.
| | 02:47 | Of course, they changed things and hid it but
I'm going to show you how you can still find it.
| | 02:53 | So, this long URL you see on the screen is
a method to actually find your Twitter feed.
| | 02:59 | Twitter creates a feed for
everything that you post to your timeline.
| | 03:03 | So, if you simply replace that USERNAME
text with your own Twitter username, you
| | 03:08 | will see all of those posts
that you have recently made.
| | 03:11 | This is going to make it easier to
re-syndicate your Twitter content elsewhere.
| | 03:15 | Of course, Twitter has its own
available widgets and you'll find those on the
| | 03:19 | Goodies page that makes it easy
to put Twitter on other websites.
| | 03:23 | Now, there's one more type of syndication and
that's a site like YouTube for video sharing.
| | 03:29 | I've gone to the YouTube page for Mommycast,
which is a video podcast series we work on.
| | 03:34 | You'll notice right up in the
top address bar is the RSS button.
| | 03:37 | So, just like a blog or any other
website that uses RSS feeds, you'll see that
| | 03:43 | we have an entry for every single
video posted to this YouTube page.
| | 03:47 | This is going to make it easier to
re-syndicate this content because you can
| | 03:51 | actually see all the videos on the site.
| | 03:54 | Now that you know how to find an
RSS feed, it's time that we actually
| | 03:57 | do something with it.
| | 03:58 | We're going to take a look at two
helper applications that will enable you to
| | 04:02 | take any RSS feed and push it
out to your social media outlets.
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| Syndication with Twitterfeed| 00:00 | The whole crux to
hypersyndication is to work less.
| | 00:04 | Now that you know what an RSS feed
is you could start to push any content
| | 00:09 | contained in the RSS feed to multiple websites.
| | 00:12 | The first one we're going to look
at is a service called Twitterfeed.
| | 00:16 | Now, Twitterfeed is absolutely free.
| | 00:18 | So, to say the least you get what you pay for.
| | 00:21 | The benefit with Twitterfeed is that you
can take any RSS feed and actually push
| | 00:26 | it out to multiple social media websites.
| | 00:29 | So, if you have a YouTube page or a
Vimeo account or a blog, you could take
| | 00:34 | everything you post there and push
it out to several sites all at once.
| | 00:38 | Now, you might be thinking yourself,
isn't that already built-in, can't I sync
| | 00:42 | my YouTube account to my
Twitter account, my Facebook account?
| | 00:45 | Yes, you could sync it to one account
but using a service like Twitterfeed, you
| | 00:50 | could publish to multiple accounts.
| | 00:52 | So, chances are your organization has
more than one social media presence.
| | 00:56 | You can now target those sites and
actually push that stuff out without having
| | 01:01 | to do a lot of work.
| | 01:02 | Here's how it works.
| | 01:04 | All you need to do is copy the RSS feed
and then set up and log into Twitterfeed.
| | 01:10 | Again, it's an absolutely free account.
| | 01:13 | Give a unique name to the feed, so it's
easy to find, then paste in the URL and
| | 01:20 | click the test rss feed button.
| | 01:23 | You'll notice hopefully
that the feed is corrected.
| | 01:26 | If not, we'll explore ways to
correct RSS feeds later in our class.
| | 01:32 | You could twirl down and take a look at
Advanced Settings and this is where you
| | 01:36 | can actually tell it how often to check.
| | 01:39 | Let's zoom in a little bit
to make this easier to read.
| | 01:43 | Set up a frequency as well as choose
which link shortner service you want to use.
| | 01:49 | By using a link shortner you can have
more room left for non-link characters and
| | 01:55 | this is really important
with services like Twitter.
| | 01:59 | You can also customize bitly, so it ties
into your own account helping you track
| | 02:04 | results and even tag it with a unique bitly URL.
| | 02:10 | You can then add a
prefix or suffix to your post.
| | 02:14 | For example, we could put a prefix in
the post here saying, New episode and
| | 02:21 | that will automatically be put onto the
actual post, so people know that that's there.
| | 02:26 | When you're ready, just click Continue to Step
2 and this is where you start to connect things.
| | 02:34 | You'll notice that you have options
for Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn as
| | 02:38 | well as a few other social networks.
| | 02:41 | If I want to connect this to my Twitter
account, I'll just click Twitter and it
| | 02:45 | will actually send me over
and ask me to authenticate.
| | 02:50 | So, I could choose an account
and then tell it to authenticate.
| | 02:55 | Once you authorize, the two will be connected.
| | 02:58 | There we go, and I just clicked
Create Service and it'll let you know if
| | 03:06 | it's set up correctly.
| | 03:08 | If needed you can continue to click on
additional services to go ahead and set those up.
| | 03:14 | The key here with Twitterfeed is to
remember that you could set up multiple
| | 03:18 | Twitter and multiple Facebook accounts.
| | 03:21 | This really is the goal of the hypersyndicate.
| | 03:23 | So, if you have a show or a blog or a
podcast or a YouTube channel that you want
| | 03:28 | to get out there, simply connect it
to as many services that are relevant.
| | 03:33 | Don't spam your followers but make
sure that you take all of your relevant
| | 03:37 | content and put it into all of the
appropriate social media outlets.
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| Syndication with HootSuite| 00:00 | Another useful service is HootSuite,
which is a paid service that takes
| | 00:05 | hypersyndication and makes it easy.
| | 00:08 | Now with HootSuite what you see here
is that it's pretty straightforward.
| | 00:12 | It allows you to connect multiple
social networks together and adds the
| | 00:17 | important feature of being
able to schedule your posts.
| | 00:20 | Now, you can take an RSS feed from your blog
and set things to come out at a specific time.
| | 00:26 | For example, you're not going to hit
the same type of people at 10 in the
| | 00:31 | morning on the East Coast as
you would at 2 in the morning.
| | 00:34 | So, you might want to think about when
you tweet or post your Facebook page, so
| | 00:38 | important messages don't get overlooked.
| | 00:41 | You'll notice that once everything is
set up, post will look just like any other
| | 00:45 | Facebook or Twitter status update, the
only difference is, you'll see the little
| | 00:50 | HootSuite icon indicating that the
post was generated from HootSuite.
| | 00:55 | So, let's take a look at
how you put this into action.
| | 00:59 | HootSuite offers both a free and a paid version.
| | 01:02 | I recommend most people start with the
free version and see if they like it and
| | 01:07 | I suspect, if you find it useful the
$5.99 a month won't set you back too bad to
| | 01:11 | switch on over to pro.
| | 01:14 | The way HootSuite works is that it
offers a couple of key features that matter
| | 01:18 | to those who want to hypersyndicate.
| | 01:19 | Let's go ahead and take
the RSS feed for my blog.
| | 01:23 | I'll just click the RSS
button and copy the feed.
| | 01:29 | I could then head over to HootSuite
and click the Add an RSS Feed button.
| | 01:36 | Click the button to add new feed
and then simply paste the URL in.
| | 01:42 | You will likely need to change the
front text to http then click to choose any
| | 01:49 | profiles that you want to target.
| | 01:51 | If you don't have social networks
loaded just click the plus button and you
| | 01:55 | can add a variety of social networks
ranging from LinkedIn and Twitter to
| | 02:00 | WordPress and Facebook.
| | 02:02 | I'm going to go ahead in this case, and
tell my blog to re-syndicate out to my
| | 02:09 | Facebook page, my company's Facebook
page, my business Facebook page, my
| | 02:17 | business account on LinkedIn. You get the idea;
| | 02:20 | it's pretty easy to target multiple accounts.
| | 02:23 | If I want, I could put a text in front
like From my blog and choose a link shortner.
| | 02:31 | The default is ow.ly, which will tie into
statistics and reports that it generates.
| | 02:36 | When you're set you just click Save
Feed and it goes ahead and adds it to
| | 02:43 | your list for tracking.
| | 02:45 | You'll notice there're other features
here inside of HootSuite including the
| | 02:49 | ability to add multiple users to
share accounts and collaborate and very
| | 02:54 | importantly reports.
| | 02:56 | One of the things, I really like about
HootSuite is that it generates a weekly report.
| | 03:00 | You get extreme details all about
your social networks and your assets.
| | 03:05 | You can find out how often your content
is getting read and if it got picked up
| | 03:09 | or republished to any other websites.
| | 03:11 | So, for the few bucks a month of cost
I find HootSuite a really good tool for
| | 03:15 | the toolbox for the
average modern media producer.
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|
|
3. Targeting ComputersUsing video-sharing sites| 00:00 | When it comes to hyper-syndication in
the web, the biggest audiences you want to
| | 00:04 | hit are people on their computers.
| | 00:07 | Sure, mobile phones are sexy, but
more people spend their day sitting in
| | 00:11 | front of a computer.
| | 00:12 | than anything else.
| | 00:13 | So having a reliable solution that's
cross-platform, Mac, Windows, Linux, it's
| | 00:19 | going to be important.
| | 00:20 | You don't want people to have to
download special plug-ins or keep refreshing
| | 00:24 | their page or sit there
waiting for long downloads to come.
| | 00:28 | Fortunately, there are a lot
of services that fit the bill.
| | 00:32 | Here are a few popular ones for you
and you've probably heard of things like
| | 00:36 | YouTube and Vimeo, but you may not
realize that social media networks like
| | 00:40 | Google Plus and Facebook
offer their own video players.
| | 00:44 | You can go ahead and upload videos for
free to your social media accounts on
| | 00:48 | both Facebook and Google
Plus and get great performance.
| | 00:51 | There are also third party solutions
like Blip.tv and Veoh that are going to
| | 00:56 | work very well for you.
| | 00:57 | In fact, we use Blip.tv a lot here in my own
office to publish podcasts and client videos.
| | 01:04 | You need to look for video sharing
sites that offer their own hyper-syndication
| | 01:08 | tools that make it easier to
put your content out there.
| | 01:11 | You need to keep in mind
that it is a volatile market.
| | 01:14 | In my years of publishing video to the web,
I've frequently seen companies come and go.
| | 01:19 | You don't want all of your eggs in one
basket and you want to make sure that
| | 01:23 | you've got your stuff backed up.
| | 01:24 | What's there today could be gone tomorrow.
| | 01:28 | And social media integration
is also going to make it easier.
| | 01:32 | Can you tie your Facebook and
Twitter or other accounts together?
| | 01:36 | Do people have the ability after
viewing the video to click a single button to
| | 01:40 | send that video to their social media site?
| | 01:43 | Social media is going to be one of the
critical ways that your content is shared
| | 01:48 | and enjoyed, so look for that integration.
| | 01:50 | It's very, very important.
| | 01:53 | A service that we
frequently use is that of Blip.tv.
| | 01:56 | You're free to try another one as well
as a trial version of their account to
| | 02:00 | see if it works for you.
| | 02:02 | What I really like are the
detailed controls that you get.
| | 02:05 | You can upload several shows and
program them with a release date and see great
| | 02:10 | statistics about your content.
| | 02:12 | You also get a precise Dashboard where
you could target additional locations.
| | 02:17 | Let's go ahead and take a look at the site live.
| | 02:21 | Once you've created a page on the
account, you can upload all of your
| | 02:25 | content and it will actually set up a
dedicated page like most other video sharing sites.
| | 02:30 | All of your podcasting content can
live there, your videos, etcetera.
| | 02:35 | And you see that this works
really nice for people just to browse.
| | 02:39 | You'll notice that their player
offers several options for sharing.
| | 02:43 | You could target social media sites,
get the link, or grab an embed code.
| | 02:48 | This is going to make it easier to use
this as the blog player on your website
| | 02:53 | or encourage others to do the same.
| | 02:55 | What's really nice are the Dashboard controls.
| | 02:58 | You notice how easy it is to target a video.
| | 03:01 | You just click the Choose
button and grab it off your computer.
| | 03:04 | You could Add caption files, manually
Upload thumbnails, and set that up to go.
| | 03:10 | Once the videos are uploaded, you can
actually set the release date as well and
| | 03:15 | see detailed viewing
history of how a video has done.
| | 03:19 | Blip.tv also offers their own options
for monetization if you'd like them to
| | 03:23 | insert ads into your content.
| | 03:25 | But that's a tough choice that you'll
have to make based upon your objectives
| | 03:29 | for producing the content in the first place.
| | 03:32 | One other area that's
really important is distribution.
| | 03:36 | You'll notice that you can configure
lots of destinations, including an iTunes
| | 03:40 | podcast, social networks, messaging
services like Twitter, and even televisions
| | 03:46 | which we'll come back to later
in one of our upcoming lessons.
| | 03:49 | Blip.tv is a nice service
for targeting multiple devices.
| | 03:53 | I find it's a very solid player for
websites, and it's very easy to use and it
| | 03:58 | also gives you the added benefit of
letting you connect multiple destinations,
| | 04:02 | such as iTunes, Twitter,
Facebook, and even a television set.
| | 04:06 | 2
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| Always read the terms of service| 00:00 | Chances are if you're not a lawyer,
you probably haven't thought about the
| | 00:04 | concept of Terms of Service.
| | 00:06 | But here's what really happens.
| | 00:08 | If you use somebody else's servers to
deliver your video, you have to grant them
| | 00:13 | certain rights when it
comes to that video content.
| | 00:15 | The same can be held for blogs
and other social media services.
| | 00:20 | When you put your stuff on someone
else's site, you must grant them some
| | 00:24 | specific rights on how to use that content.
| | 00:27 | For example, let's take a quick look at YouTube.
| | 00:31 | Now YouTube posts Broadcast Yourself.
| | 00:35 | In fact, more video is uploaded to
YouTube than you could possibly imagine.
| | 00:39 | 48 hours of content every minute of the day.
| | 00:43 | That's just insane, and the truth of
the matter is YouTube really doesn't have
| | 00:47 | time for expensive lawsuits.
| | 00:49 | So they make you agree to some pretty
specific terms when you put your content up there.
| | 00:56 | Now this may look like
gobbledygook and you could read it by going to
| | 00:59 | YouTube's page directly.
| | 01:01 | Just type in YouTube and search for Terms
of Service and you'll find this document.
| | 01:06 | What I want to really point out
to you is Your Content and Conduct.
| | 01:10 | The section that really matters
there is, what rights you're giving them.
| | 01:15 | Some keywords that really stand
out are things like sublicenseable,
| | 01:19 | transferable, without limitation.
| | 01:23 | By posting your content there, you are
giving YouTube the rights to re-syndicate
| | 01:28 | your material without your expressed permission.
| | 01:31 | Once you've posted it, they don't have
to ask if somebody else wants to embed
| | 01:36 | it on their website.
| | 01:37 | Now you have certain privacy controls
you could turn on and off, but you have to
| | 01:41 | realize that you are
giving them these broad rights.
| | 01:44 | That's what the phrase
without limitation actually means.
| | 01:48 | Now I highly recommend that you
actually head over YouTube yourself and look up
| | 01:52 | the Terms of Service.
| | 01:54 | You could find it off of the support
page or a simple Google search for YouTube
| | 01:58 | Terms of Service will take you there.
| | 02:00 | Keep in mind though, it's not just YouTube.
| | 02:03 | Every website is going to have Terms of
Service and those rights that you give
| | 02:07 | up are going to vary depending upon the site.
| | 02:11 | This all ties into copyright and do
you have the rights to post what you're
| | 02:15 | posting, and what rights are you
giving away to that hosting site?
| | 02:20 | Generally speaking, the paid services
such as those like Vimeo don't take as
| | 02:26 | broad of rights with your
content, as the unpaid services.
| | 02:30 | But these all have strengths and
weaknesses and what it really comes down to is,
| | 02:34 | don't be afraid to talk your lawyer.
| | 02:36 | You should have somebody on your
site who is looking up for your rights.
| | 02:40 | Make sure you have a
discussion before you start publishing.
| | 02:43 | Now this isn't something you're going
to have to do every time for every single
| | 02:47 | post, but you should probably sit
down and talk about what your plans and
| | 02:51 | objectives are and see if
there's any potential hurdles.
| | 02:55 | What you're going to find when you do
this is that there's a lot of things you
| | 02:59 | probably took for granted.
| | 03:00 | And as such, you don't want to make assumptions.
| | 03:04 | When it comes to being a publisher,
you do actually have some legal rights
| | 03:07 | and responsibilities.
| | 03:09 | Make sure the content you are posting is
content you have right to post and that
| | 03:14 | you're not going to get yourself in
trouble for putting stuff out there into a
| | 03:18 | public venue where you
pretty much give up all control.
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| Compressing files for computer playback| 00:00 | In the past when you want to publish
video to a computer, it was pretty difficult.
| | 00:04 | You had different media
players for different platforms.
| | 00:07 | Maybe it was Windows Media on a PC or a
QuickTime Movie with the Sorenson Codec
| | 00:12 | on a Mac, it was just confusing.
| | 00:14 | You had to put out lots of different
formats and it wasn't uncommon to have a
| | 00:18 | small, medium, and large for three
different platforms on your website.
| | 00:22 | This was a lot of stuff to manage to
keep track of, lot of things to do, just
| | 00:27 | a lot of extra work.
| | 00:28 | And it really was just a pain in the butt.
| | 00:31 | Well, these days it's gotten easier and
that's because we could take advantage
| | 00:34 | of more standard formats like the
H.264 format, which is an MPEG-4 file.
| | 00:39 | What I'd like to show you now is an
application called Adobe Media Encoder.
| | 00:44 | Adobe Media Encoder is bundled with
most of the applications that are designed
| | 00:49 | for web work or video work
in the Adobe Creative Suite.
| | 00:52 | So chances are if you're using Adobe software,
you have Adobe Media Encoder. Now don't worry.
| | 00:59 | In another exercise we're going to go
ahead and cover other compression tools.
| | 01:03 | We're going to just use Media Encoder
because it's cross-platform and chances
| | 01:07 | are you already own it.
| | 01:08 | Let's take a look at how it works.
| | 01:10 | When you launch Adobe Media Encoder,
it's a big window with not much in it.
| | 01:15 | Remember, this is not creative
software; this is a utility.
| | 01:20 | You go ahead and click the
Plus button to add an item.
| | 01:23 | Now when you export a video file,
chances are it's going to be pretty big.
| | 01:29 | If you're working with an Adobe
software tool, you also have the option to send
| | 01:33 | directly from programs like Adobe
Premiere Pro or Adobe AfterEffects, directly
| | 01:38 | to the Encoder without having to
export a self-contained movie first.
| | 01:43 | You'll see the file is in there.
| | 01:45 | If I click Format, we have
several options to choose from.
| | 01:50 | Notice here, there's way more choices
than you probably have knowledge to use.
| | 01:54 | After all, when was the last time you
needed to create a DPX file, unless you
| | 01:59 | were out there working in Hollywood?
| | 02:01 | What you're going to most
commonly choose is the H.264.
| | 02:06 | Not the Blu-ray option;
| | 02:07 | just the straight-up H.264 file format.
| | 02:11 | When you do that, you'll notice that
there are several presets next to it.
| | 02:16 | These presets equate to different
devices that you want to target.
| | 02:22 | You'll notice that we have settings for
common electronic devices like iPods and iPads.
| | 02:27 | But for computers, I typically recommend that
you choose something between Apple TV and HDTV.
| | 02:35 | The benefit of these settings is
that they're very high-quality,
| | 02:39 | high-definition video.
| | 02:41 | The Apple TV preset is
well-suited for playback on a television.
| | 02:46 | The HDTV ones are actually good
enough to use on broadcast television.
| | 02:51 | But they are significantly
smaller than the original file size.
| | 02:56 | The use of H.264
compression is a very modern tool.
| | 03:00 | And what it allows you to do is
significantly reduce the file size of your file
| | 03:06 | before you upload it to a video sharing site.
| | 03:09 | This is going to cut down on the
upload time and also reduce the limits that
| | 03:14 | might be placed on you, because most of
these sites will place a restriction as
| | 03:18 | to how big of a file you could post.
| | 03:21 | Precompressing is usually the only way
around these limitations and it will give
| | 03:26 | you much better results.
| | 03:29 | Now you'll notice in the same list that we
actually have presets for Vimeo and YouTube.
| | 03:34 | So if you are targeting one of those
video sharing services, you can also
| | 03:37 | choose that as well.
| | 03:38 | I'm going to go ahead and specify
that this is a 24P material and I want a
| | 03:44 | high-quality HD file.
| | 03:47 | If I want, I can go ahead and simply
select that and choose Edit>Duplicate and
| | 03:55 | then choose another preset such as
YouTube HD and duplicate that again.
| | 04:06 | And choose one more.
| | 04:09 | In this case, I'll go
ahead and make one for Vimeo.
| | 04:14 | Now you might be thinking,
why all these presets?
| | 04:18 | Each website has slightly different settings.
| | 04:22 | Now you don't have to make a custom one for
YouTube and Vimeo and all these other sites.
| | 04:27 | The advantage though if you do is that
your upload time is faster and the end
| | 04:32 | image is going to look cleaner.
| | 04:34 | When you upload the video following
the website specifications, your video is
| | 04:39 | typically not recompressed or smooshed as much.
| | 04:42 | It's going to look better, because
you've followed their recommended technical
| | 04:46 | settings and you'll get a cleaner file.
| | 04:48 | This means that your video will be
ready to serve up that much faster and it's
| | 04:52 | going to look that much cleaner.
| | 04:55 | When you're set, just click the Play
button and everything will start to encode.
| | 05:00 | If you want to, you can click the output path
to rename the file or choose a new destination.
| | 05:06 | I'm going to go ahead and just rename
these output files, so it's clean and
| | 05:10 | we're going to call this one YT for
YouTube, and rename this one VM for Vimeo,
| | 05:17 | so it's clear that I know
where these are going to.
| | 05:21 | Once I look the setting is over and
I'm all set, I just click the Play button
| | 05:25 | and it begins to encode.
| | 05:27 | You'll notice that it gives you an
estimated time on how long it's going to take
| | 05:31 | to complete this compression.
| | 05:33 | And it will tell you a little
bit more about the file as it runs.
| | 05:38 | Now there's much more to video
compression, and if you look here on Lynda.com,
| | 05:43 | you'll find some very comprehensive
titles on compression that will help you get
| | 05:46 | more out of your specific application.
| | 05:49 | But these presets are a great
starting point and really make things easier.
| | 05:54 | By sticking to the H.264 preset, you
will get broad compatibility with both
| | 05:59 | computers and video sharing websites.
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|
|
4. Targeting Portable Media PlayersNormalizing your audio| 00:00 | Podcasting is a very popular way
to reach portable media players.
| | 00:05 | The benefits of podcasting are vast,
but there is one thing to keep in mind.
| | 00:10 | Chances are when you have a podcast;
| | 00:12 | you're listening on the little tiny
earbuds directly plugged into your brain.
| | 00:17 | Now if the audio quality is bad,
people are going to stop watching.
| | 00:21 | So if the volumes keep going up and
down and gets really dramatic all of a
| | 00:25 | sudden, they might be prone
to stop playback or pause it.
| | 00:29 | All of these things are going to
interrupt the viewer's enjoyment.
| | 00:33 | Now what you need to realize is
that there is an easy way to fix this.
| | 00:38 | Most video editing tools offer
a feature called Normalizing.
| | 00:42 | You can go ahead and select the
audio in your timeline and then apply a
| | 00:46 | Normalization Effect.
| | 00:48 | If it's not available in your timeline,
it might be found in a companion audio
| | 00:53 | tool that's included with your
Video Nonlinear Editing System.
| | 00:57 | Remember, here on Lynda.com, we
have comprehensive training on many
| | 01:02 | different software tools.
| | 01:03 | So if you just do a search for
Normalize Audio, you'll find a lot of
| | 01:08 | different movies that pop up.
| | 01:09 | Just look up the Essential Training
for your Nonlinear Editing Tool of Choice
| | 01:14 | and you could fix the audio track.
| | 01:16 | The benefits with normalization are immense,
but they really come down to a simple fact.
| | 01:22 | That is that audio is
more than half your picture.
| | 01:25 | What we mean by that analogy is that
people will forgive poor video quality,
| | 01:30 | but they will absolutely stop paying attention
when the audio cuts out or gets hard to hear.
| | 01:35 | Normalization is going to make things
cleaner and easier for the end listener or
| | 01:40 | viewer to get your content.
| | 01:43 | Always take advantage of the normalizing
features of your nonlinear editing tool.
| | 01:47 | And if it's not available in the
nonlinear editing tool, it's often an option
| | 01:51 | inside the compression software as well.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating a podcast| 00:00 | Chances are you've watched a podcast
before but maybe never thought about
| | 00:04 | creating one for yourself.
| | 00:06 | The good news is it's really not that hard.
| | 00:08 | There are a few simple things
that make a podcast, a podcast.
| | 00:13 | Now, compatibility with Apple
devices is not a requirement.
| | 00:17 | Nobody says you have to be listed in
iTunes or that it's only for an iPod.
| | 00:22 | The term Podcast could be thought
of as Portable On Demand Casting, the
| | 00:27 | idea that you want to reach a bunch of
people quickly on their portable media players.
| | 00:31 | There are several benefits to podcasting.
| | 00:35 | They include the fact that everybody who
gets your podcast is an Opt-in audience.
| | 00:40 | This means that they specifically
asked for your content and subscribe to it.
| | 00:45 | These days with people being concerned
about spam, the fact that your audience
| | 00:49 | is choosing to receive the content is good.
| | 00:52 | It means that you can't be accused of
being a spammer or harassing them online.
| | 00:57 | Additionally, a podcast has the
benefit that those who subscribe can watch or
| | 01:01 | listen at their own convenience.
| | 01:04 | This means that they don't actually
have to have an Internet connection.
| | 01:08 | If you deal with people who are
commuters in an urban environment, Internet
| | 01:12 | connections often go out.
| | 01:14 | Perhaps they're in a car or a moving
train, they probably don't have satellite
| | 01:18 | Internet attached to their car.
| | 01:21 | Now portable electronic devices with
3G connections and 4G connections are of
| | 01:25 | course increasing, but the data
plans can also be expensive on these.
| | 01:30 | Allowing subscribers to download
content at home on a broadband connection and
| | 01:35 | then keep the file, ensures that they
can easily take the media with them, as
| | 01:39 | well as consume it in unlikely places
like planes, trains, and automobiles, or
| | 01:44 | when they're out on the go
without an active high-speed connection.
| | 01:49 | Another good thing about podcasting is
that it's an emerging technology with
| | 01:53 | very little competition.
| | 01:54 | For example, we have been
producing podcasts for years at my company.
| | 01:59 | Regularly, we see impressive results.
| | 02:02 | Results that just don't make sense
like, why would my show on digital
| | 02:06 | photography outperform
every major television network?
| | 02:10 | Well the truth of the matter is, is that,
people who subscribe to podcast, want
| | 02:15 | content that's very specific.
| | 02:17 | And when you feel the need for a niche,
that niche is going to support you.
| | 02:23 | This is good news for content creators
because it means that not only can you
| | 02:26 | reach a passionate audience, but they
will support you and make sure that your
| | 02:31 | content is watched and shared with others.
| | 02:34 | This all ties together to the fact that
it's a viral communications medium, it's
| | 02:38 | very easy for people to
share that content with others.
| | 02:42 | They'll write reviews, they will post
it, they could actually download it and
| | 02:45 | pass it on to a friend.
| | 02:48 | So, if you have to define a podcast,
it's important to think of it this way.
| | 02:53 | All podcasts work as a Web video
but not all Web video is a podcast.
| | 03:00 | In order to be a podcast, you
have to have multiple occurrences.
| | 03:05 | A one-off video is not a podcast.
| | 03:08 | This means you're going to produce a series.
| | 03:10 | That series can have a new episode
every week, every month or just on-demand
| | 03:15 | when new content arises.
| | 03:18 | You also must give the people the
ability to subscribe to your podcast.
| | 03:22 | Typically subscriptions are free.
| | 03:25 | If you offer a podcast in the iTunes podcast
directory, you cannot charge for that podcast.
| | 03:31 | There are private podcasting methods
out there, to make subscription-only
| | 03:35 | podcasts, but most of the
directories only take free podcasts.
| | 03:41 | So keep that in mind if you're
looking to monetize your video content.
| | 03:44 | You can of course at a private
podcast feed that you only share with your
| | 03:49 | customers that they can
subscribe to with a unique URL.
| | 03:54 | Remember, Real Simple Syndication;
| | 03:57 | we've already covered this in earlier modules.
| | 04:00 | The use of an RSS feed is the key
ingredient to podcasting, that RSS feed uses a
| | 04:05 | technology called ID3 tags that enable
media files to be attached with important
| | 04:11 | metadata and descriptions, so people
can actually find and enjoy your content.
| | 04:17 | Lastly, people can join or
leave your podcast at any time.
| | 04:22 | You must make it simple for people to
click with a single button and actually
| | 04:26 | leave a podcast or join a podcast.
| | 04:30 | An easy analogy I often offer is,
think of a podcast like TiVo or a Magazine.
| | 04:36 | First off, a subscriber can
watch or listen when it's convenient.
| | 04:41 | They don't have to tune-in live, they
don't have to sit there with an active
| | 04:45 | Internet connection with high speed data.
| | 04:48 | They can get it and watch it
when it's convenient to them.
| | 04:52 | Additionally, they could select
multiple episodes and download
| | 04:57 | without subscribing.
| | 04:58 | This is good for those who want to
browse or choose or try things out.
| | 05:02 | Of course, this is the same idea like a
magazine where people could buy one at a
| | 05:07 | time from a newsstand.
| | 05:09 | But ultimately, what you want to see happen is
that people subscribe so they get every episode.
| | 05:15 | This makes it easier to grow your
audience with consistent numbers and you will
| | 05:20 | see exponential growth.
| | 05:22 | So, where do you put a podcast?
| | 05:24 | It's ultimately up to you.
| | 05:26 | You could put a podcast file on your own
server, use a standard Web server to host it up.
| | 05:31 | There is great utilities like Podcast
Maker or the Podcaster's RSS Buddy that
| | 05:36 | will automate a lot of the tasks and
let you use WYSIWYG tools, what you see is
| | 05:40 | what you get to create a valid RSS feed.
| | 05:44 | Of course, this puts a pretty heavy load
on your Web server and it can get expensive.
| | 05:48 | Web servers have more expensive data,
and if you don't have an unlimited data
| | 05:53 | plan, you probably don't want to bog
down the weight of your standard Web server
| | 05:57 | with a bunch of large media files.
| | 05:59 | In this case, I recommend turning to
a dedicated podcast hosting company.
| | 06:05 | Here are three popular ones.
| | 06:07 | We took a look at Blip.tv earlier and
they have an easy service that cleanly
| | 06:11 | integrates in with iTunes.
| | 06:13 | You can also utilize services like
Libsyn or PodHoster, and of course there
| | 06:18 | are more on the market.
| | 06:19 | There are lots of services
out there for hosting podcasts.
| | 06:23 | The whole thing really isn't that difficult.
| | 06:26 | Just try one of the services I
recommended here or find your own, upload a
| | 06:30 | bunch of content, attach a piece of
artwork for your show, typically a square
| | 06:34 | logo about 800x800 pixels, and then submit it
for approval to different podcast directories.
| | 06:41 | We're going to tackle how
to do that in iTunes next.
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| Submitting a podcast to iTunes| 00:00 | The iTunes podcast directory is by far
the most successful podcast directory.
| | 00:06 | This is where the bulk of your
subscribers and views are going to come from.
| | 00:10 | Submitting a podcast is really straightforward.
| | 00:13 | All you need is your RSS
feed and a couple of clicks.
| | 00:17 | You can go ahead and copy
your RSS feed for your program.
| | 00:22 | I then recommend that you
use a service like FeedBurner.
| | 00:27 | FeedBurner is a free service from
Google.com, and it allows you to paste in
| | 00:32 | an RSS feed and it will go ahead and track
that, as well as set up a dedicated feed.
| | 00:39 | So I can give this a title and a
unique name such as uappodcast.
| | 00:46 | The benefit of FeedBurner is that if
your hosting company changes, you can
| | 00:51 | always update the original
source feed for FeedBurner.
| | 00:55 | iTunes doesn't allow you to
change an RSS feed once you submit it.
| | 01:01 | So, using FeedBurner as an
intermediate service can come in handy.
| | 01:05 | You could then head over to iTunes and
click the Podcast button for the store.
| | 01:10 | In the Quick Links column, you'll see
a button that says Submit a Podcast,
| | 01:17 | simply paste-in the URL of
your podcast and click Continue.
| | 01:23 | After this, you may need to login
with your account to validate it and it's just
| | 01:27 | going to ask you to go ahead and choose
which category you want your podcast listed in.
| | 01:33 | It's really a pretty straightforward process.
| | 01:35 | Now, when you submit a podcast, it
could take up to a couple of weeks to
| | 01:40 | get approved by iTunes.
| | 01:41 | You need to put it in there with
enough time because an individual person is
| | 01:46 | going to actually review your show.
| | 01:48 | Now, they are not going to give you feedback
like, change this or get rid of this video.
| | 01:53 | What they're looking for is does your
description for your program actually
| | 01:57 | match the content of your program?
| | 02:00 | If your content is labeled as being
explicit, does it violate the iTunes terms
| | 02:06 | of service, or if you say it is a clean
podcast which is one that's suitable for
| | 02:11 | grade school-age children, do you
talk about inappropriate things?
| | 02:15 | All Apple is looking for as well as
the other podcasting directories, is that
| | 02:20 | your show is actually
about what you say it's about.
| | 02:24 | And once a real person has looked at
it and validated your show, they will go
| | 02:28 | ahead and bless it and it will go live.
| | 02:31 | So, that's the process of
submitting a podcast to iTunes, it's really
| | 02:34 | pretty straightforward.
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| Getting found on iTunes| 00:00 | One you post your content to iTunes, you're
going to want to make sure it could be found.
| | 00:04 | These days that gets a little bit more
difficult because there is a lot of podcast.
| | 00:08 | Your show is going to go head-to-head
with stuff put up by major TV networks.
| | 00:12 | But if you do things right, you'll
be found and you can stand out from
| | 00:16 | the crowd, here is how.
| | 00:19 | It all comes down to search and
there are really three things you can do.
| | 00:24 | First up, you can optimize your search.
| | 00:27 | This involves using the iTunes
Search field so your content comes up.
| | 00:32 | Typically, results are going to be based on
the popularity of your program and relevance.
| | 00:37 | Now, there's not much you
could do about popularity.
| | 00:40 | This is the number of new
subscribers in a certain time period.
| | 00:44 | If you have a bunch of fans or people
that work at your company or a built-in
| | 00:48 | audience, you could push them to all go
download your podcasts on the same day.
| | 00:54 | This'll create a little spike
and help get your program noticed.
| | 00:58 | What you can do something about is
relevance though, and this is pretty easy.
| | 01:03 | Make sure you write a detailed
description for your podcast.
| | 01:08 | Don't just put a bunch of keywords with
Commas in it, but finding a meaningful
| | 01:12 | way to discuss your program
and reuse several key terms.
| | 01:17 | It's going to help your podcast show
up when people search by those terms.
| | 01:21 | Another method you could use
is attempt to get featured.
| | 01:25 | Now this is like getting an end cap in a
bookstore or having the prime seat at a live event.
| | 01:32 | It's not that easy to do.
| | 01:34 | Of course, if you have a lot of money,
you could push an attempt to get featured.
| | 01:41 | But what really happens is that
regularly the iTunes Store will feature normal
| | 01:45 | content made by everyday
folks that they think is great.
| | 01:50 | The quality of the content is
the strongest consideration.
| | 01:54 | The iTunes staff wants
to feature the best stuff.
| | 01:58 | So focus on making your stuff good.
| | 02:01 | Make sure it's enjoyable, short,
brevity, to the point, that you keep your
| | 02:05 | audience in mind throughout the whole process.
| | 02:10 | You also want to make sure that
the show has attractive artwork.
| | 02:13 | This is especially true for the logo
graphic for your podcast and the broadcast
| | 02:19 | graphics used within your package.
| | 02:22 | A very big no-no is to use Apple logos or
electronic devices in your podcast artwork.
| | 02:29 | Don't put an iPod or an iPad on your artwork.
| | 02:33 | Not only will you not get featured, it's
actually listed in the terms of service
| | 02:38 | as something you could do to
get your program kicked out.
| | 02:41 | Apple takes it very seriously if you
try to encroach on their brand and use
| | 02:46 | their likeness to help yourself.
| | 02:50 | Another thing they look at is
content that is regularly released.
| | 02:54 | This means, you want to have a
consistent schedule, is it every other week or
| | 02:58 | once a week, every ten days or once a month.
| | 03:02 | It doesn't really matter but the
iTunes staff is not to shine a spotlight on
| | 03:07 | you if they don't know your content is going
to consistently come out for people to enjoy.
| | 03:12 | The whole reason that they spotlight
content is to improve their customer's
| | 03:16 | experience using the iTunes Store,
and they want folks to see lots of great
| | 03:22 | content that is designed to work
with their Apple electronic devices.
| | 03:27 | The last thing you could do is try to
make the top list, and of course everybody
| | 03:32 | wants to be number one or a bestseller.
| | 03:35 | There is no magic formula.
| | 03:38 | What matters however, is that
each category has a top list.
| | 03:43 | So you might want to closely think
about the categories that iTunes offer and
| | 03:47 | how they relate to your content.
| | 03:49 | You could choose multiple categories,
but really it's the first one you
| | 03:54 | pick that matters most.
| | 03:57 | Also, keep in mind that this
list is based on new subscriptions.
| | 04:01 | So if you have a bunch of loyal
readers for your blog or you have a lot of
| | 04:06 | employees in your company, mount a
coordinated effort for everyone to go and
| | 04:12 | download the Podcast on the same day.
| | 04:14 | This will push your new subscription
numbers up dramatically and make it much
| | 04:19 | easier to create a Blip.
| | 04:21 | We call this getting above the fold.
| | 04:24 | Another technique is to launch
a show with multiple episodes.
| | 04:29 | Instead of just putting one in there to
start, having several means that people
| | 04:33 | will click and download multiple
shows when they first discover you.
| | 04:38 | This will increase the total number of
downloads and increase the likeliness
| | 04:42 | that people will subscribe to your program.
| | 04:45 | Finally, if you make a top list it
is critical that you maintain your
| | 04:50 | schedule and quality.
| | 04:52 | What you are going to want to do is
work to stay on top, getting there is hard
| | 04:57 | but falling off of that
top list is even harder.
| | 05:00 | Personally, I have had shows that have
gone on the list and off the list when I
| | 05:04 | get distracted or we go off the air for a
little bit and don't release a podcast regularly.
| | 05:10 | Getting back on the list is just as much
work the second time as it was the first time.
| | 05:15 | Many people don't click the Subscribe button.
| | 05:19 | They somehow think that by clicking
Subscribe their iTunes account is going
| | 05:22 | to be charged money.
| | 05:24 | When you stop publishing
regularly, you're going to lose people.
| | 05:29 | So instead of worrying about having
lots of content up there all at once, pace
| | 05:35 | yourself, put some content out there
over time, or if you have a long video, cut
| | 05:40 | it up into several smaller
pieces and release it as segments.
| | 05:44 | Remember, when it comes to podcasts,
portable media players, and especially
| | 05:48 | mobile phones, people want content
that is brief, engaging and to the point.
| | 05:54 | If you give them what they want, the
likelihood that they are going to pass that
| | 05:58 | on or tell a friend, is dramatically increased.
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| Compressing files for portable media players| 00:00 | When it comes to compression,
there are lots of tools on the market.
| | 00:04 | Earlier we looked at Adobe Media Encoder.
| | 00:07 | Now I'd like to show you Apple Compressor.
| | 00:09 | Now Compressor is an application that
used to be bundle with Final Cut Studio,
| | 00:14 | but it's now available as a separate
standalone application through the Mac App store.
| | 00:19 | Priced at $49 US, it's a very
affordable tool that offers great
| | 00:24 | compatibility with Apple
devices. Let's take a look.
| | 00:29 | The way Compressor works
is you need to add a file.
| | 00:33 | With Compressor, you can export
directly from applications like Final Cut X or
| | 00:38 | simply drag in a QuickTime Movie.
| | 00:42 | Once you've done that, you just need
to specify the settings that you want,
| | 00:46 | you'll notice that Apple Compressor
offers a whole slew of settings for Apple
| | 00:52 | devices, you could choose High
Definition and you'll see this first preset works
| | 00:58 | well with Apple TV
second-generation, iPad and iPhone.
| | 01:02 | If you need to go after older Apple
devices, you'll find a lower quality HD and
| | 01:08 | standard definition setting.
| | 01:10 | Simply drag the preset onto the file.
| | 01:14 | When you do that you could drag
through your program and actually see a split
| | 01:19 | screen of what the compression is going
to look like, this helps you see how the
| | 01:24 | device is going to playback the video
and get an idea of how much the video is
| | 01:28 | going to be degraded for final quality.
| | 01:32 | You could then give it a name and
choose a destination, clicking the
| | 01:38 | Destination's tab, lets you set
different default destinations.
| | 01:42 | For example, I can go to my
Desktop or target my Movies folder.
| | 01:48 | When I do that I can look it over.
| | 01:50 | If you want, you can choose multiple outputs.
| | 01:53 | For example, maybe we want to also
make a standard definition version and put
| | 01:59 | that out to the desktop.
| | 02:02 | When you're all set, you just click the
Submit button and the process will ask
| | 02:08 | you for a name, this is just so you can
track the job, and then click the Submit button.
| | 02:16 | You'll see the progress
indicator telling you what's happening.
| | 02:20 | Keep in mind that video compression takes time;
| | 02:23 | depending on speed your machine,
that could be lots of time.
| | 02:27 | You don't do video compression
when you have other things to do.
| | 02:30 | I recommend that you set up video
compression jobs at the end of your workday or
| | 02:35 | when you decide that you want to go out
and have a long lunch with your family.
| | 02:38 | Modern computers are much faster at
compressing video than they used to be, but
| | 02:43 | it is still a time intensive process.
| | 02:46 | Make sure that you budget and put
that compression time when it's most
| | 02:50 | convenient and won't impede upon your life.
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|
|
5. Targeting Television SetsComparing 1080p to 720p| 00:00 | The last frontier for web publishers is
the television set, but it keeps getting
| | 00:06 | easier and easier to get into the living room.
| | 00:08 | This is because portable electronic
devices can actually play the television
| | 00:12 | sets wirelessly and we're seeing
set-top boxes that make this so much easier.
| | 00:18 | You can actually get a DVD player or
Blu-ray player in fact that has wireless
| | 00:23 | streaming built-in, and this is
going to make it easy to connect popular
| | 00:27 | services like Vimeo, YouTube and Blip TV.
| | 00:30 | It's important that you understand
though that there still are a few technical
| | 00:34 | limitations to delivering
high-definition video to television devices.
| | 00:40 | If HD is what you have in mind, you've
got a big decision to make between 1280 x
| | 00:45 | 720 versus 1920 x 1080.
| | 00:48 | Many purists feel that the 1080 size
is the true HD size, but there is a lot
| | 00:54 | of merit to delivering HD video at a
723p frame size, this is because it leads
| | 01:00 | to significantly faster download times, and
in fact, many people can't tell the difference.
| | 01:06 | If you're looking at streaming players
delivering to the living room and the
| | 01:10 | size of most people's living rooms,
because 720 content often looks better than
| | 01:16 | the 1080 equivalent.
| | 01:17 | You can deliver video up to 11/2
megabits per second and 30 frames per second.
| | 01:24 | Now when we look at this here, you'll
see that there are lots of different sizes
| | 01:28 | supported and it gets a little tricky.
| | 01:31 | The newest phones do support true
HD the 1080p size, both the offerings
| | 01:37 | from Apple, Android.
| | 01:39 | However, most set-top boxes, as well as
devices like the iPad are capped at smaller sizes.
| | 01:48 | When we look at the Apple TV device in
particular, you notice an important trend
| | 01:53 | and that is that if you deliver video
that's 720, it stays 720 when you're
| | 01:59 | delivering at 24 frames a second, which
is the frame rate that most movies and a
| | 02:04 | lot of web video is produced.
| | 02:06 | If you're dealing with 1080 frame sizes,
it's almost always going to get dumped
| | 02:11 | down, either 1280x720 or in fact to an even
smaller size of 960 X 540, this is a tough decision.
| | 02:21 | You're going to have to decide if you
want to produce video in true HD 1920 x
| | 02:25 | 1080, but realize that that does add cost.
| | 02:30 | For many web video creators the only HD
that they need is 1280 x 720, this is a
| | 02:36 | choice that you'll have to make, and
make sure you think through all the
| | 02:40 | factors, including storage and computer
processing power, as well as what it's
| | 02:44 | going to cost for you to
serve that data up over a network.
| | 02:47 | The 720 sizes are going to be much smaller.
| | 02:51 | Now the path to the TV is pretty
straightforward, there are devices such as
| | 02:55 | Apple TV, TiVo, Western Digital
Television, as well as the Windows Media Center,
| | 03:01 | Roku and of course, Blu-ray Players.
| | 03:05 | The good news is as a
hyper-syndication the barriers just keep going down.
| | 03:10 | Thanks to stores like iTunes and Amazon.com
and Roku, people are expecting to
| | 03:15 | get HD video content over the
net, right to their television.
| | 03:19 | This is an area that's just going to
get easier and easier, and I highly
| | 03:23 | recommend that you pick a hosting
service that supports delivery to
| | 03:27 | television sets.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using Blip.tv | 00:00 | When it comes to deliver to
televisions, one service stands above the rest,
| | 00:04 | and that's Blip TV.
| | 00:06 | If you take advantage of their pro
account offerings, which are currently priced
| | 00:09 | around $100 a year, you could target
multiple consumer electronic devices.
| | 00:15 | All you need to do is login to your
Control Panel or the Dashboard to see which
| | 00:20 | networks you're targeting.
| | 00:21 | Once I login and I go to my Dashboard,
you'll see that one of the tabs is for
| | 00:26 | Distribution, you could then scroll
down and you will find Television, this
| | 00:32 | allows you to target multiple accounts.
| | 00:35 | Now for example, let's click on Sony,
to target Sony consumer electronic
| | 00:40 | devices, like WiFi
enabled TVs and blu-ray players.
| | 00:44 | You'll need to just click
the button to Request Approval.
| | 00:49 | You'll notice that not all accounts are
going to get instant access, there is no
| | 00:54 | guarantee that Sony is going to want
to carry your coverage, but most of the
| | 00:59 | services are pretty straightforward.
| | 01:01 | You'll notice for example that my
podcast series has already been approved
| | 01:04 | for things like DivX and Boxee, as wells as
the Samsung television networks and Vizio.
| | 01:10 | While there's no guarantee that you
will get picked up, these are great options
| | 01:15 | to petition to get let into.
| | 01:17 | Again, you fill out a simple
application and right through your Blip TV account;
| | 01:22 | they can re-syndicate to all of these
different televisions delivery streams.
| | 01:26 | This is a really cool way and
an easy way into the living room.
| | 01:30 | Now if that doesn't work, you can
always take advantage of the traditional
| | 01:34 | podcast feed or services like YouTube
or Vimeo, which are often bundled in with
| | 01:39 | blu-ray players and set-top boxes.
| | 01:42 | But in this case the viewers are going
to have to do a little bit of searching
| | 01:46 | to find you and then locate
your content and click Play.
| | 01:49 | The benefit of a podcast stream is
you can literally setup a dedicated
| | 01:52 | channel that could be searched for, that
also contains all of your episodes in one place.
| | 01:58 | Hey, you could be your own TV
Network in just a couple clicks.
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|
|
6. Targeting Mobile PhonesThe rise of smartphones| 00:00 | One of the areas of technology
that's booming is that of smartphones.
| | 00:04 | People are really interested in
targeting these portable devices.
| | 00:09 | Now you might be wondering why
smartphone growth is booming so quickly?
| | 00:13 | Well, it has a lot to do with money.
| | 00:15 | As technology matures, cell phone
companies want people to increase their plans,
| | 00:20 | instead of just simple 20 bucks a month
plan for phone calls, people are signing
| | 00:24 | up for hundreds of dollars a month for
data and text and video and chat, and all
| | 00:29 | sorts of features that you
could never live without.
| | 00:32 | Now whether or not you like these
features, they are reality and most people are
| | 00:37 | choosing to add them to their life.
| | 00:40 | Over the last couple of years, we have
seen smartphone ownership just spike, and
| | 00:45 | this rate of growth is truly
impressive, it outpaces most other consumer
| | 00:49 | electronic devices from history.
| | 00:52 | Similarly, if we look at specific
age groups, you'll see that smartphone
| | 00:57 | ownership is very, very
high with young professionals.
| | 01:02 | Truly impressive is how people
would choose to give up their television
| | 01:07 | before their smartphone.
| | 01:09 | Almost 60% of all folks would choose
to get rid of television before giving
| | 01:14 | up their smartphone.
| | 01:15 | There are some pretty
impressive numbers and think about that.
| | 01:20 | People would rather have a
smartphone than a television.
| | 01:23 | If they give up their television, how
are they're going to see your video?
| | 01:27 | Well, the good news is that the
smartphone brings them video, text messages,
| | 01:31 | blogs, social media text
post, interactive content.
| | 01:35 | If you know how to embrace it, you
can really hit a much wider audience.
| | 01:41 | One tool that I recommend is that from
Adobe called Device Central, this useful
| | 01:46 | program will give you a lot of
information about how video should be sized for
| | 01:51 | different mobile phones.
| | 01:53 | You'll find all sorts of specs, as well
as the ability to generate projects with
| | 01:58 | the correct settings.
| | 01:59 | This makes it a lot easier
to target some obscure phones,
| | 02:02 | especially BlackBerrys.
| | 02:05 | Earlier, we discussed
the H.264 format of MPEG-4;
| | 02:10 | this is definitely the way that
most phones are moving towards.
| | 02:15 | Staying with H.264 makes it easy to
target a wide range of consumer electronics,
| | 02:22 | and as we move forward, devices like
smartphones and portable media players are
| | 02:27 | becoming one and the same.
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| The importance of adaptive streaming| 00:01 | When it comes to targeting mobile
phones or devices with mobile data
| | 00:04 | connections, Adaptive
Streaming is really important.
| | 00:08 | This is a technology that allows
this video stream to adapt based on
| | 00:12 | the connection speed.
| | 00:13 | For example, if I were to watch this
video on my 3G phone, it's going to be a
| | 00:19 | different video quality than watching
the same video over here on my iPad, which
| | 00:24 | happens to be connected to a WiFi connection.
| | 00:27 | If I were to go off my WiFi connection
and switch to 3G data on this iPad, the
| | 00:32 | quality would drop down.
| | 00:33 | So what really happens
here is different speeds.
| | 00:36 | Notice that this video took a little
longer to play on the phone, because it had
| | 00:40 | to adapt to the network speed, it's
serving up a lower quality file than the one
| | 00:45 | that started playing on the WiFi device.
| | 00:48 | Same player going to my computer would
serve up an even higher bit rate version,
| | 00:52 | and that's all about the
speed of the network connection.
| | 00:56 | The good news is, is that when you
pick a service that supports adaptive
| | 00:59 | streaming, which things like
YouTube and Vimeo do, your service will
| | 01:04 | automatically serve up the right video
based on the network connection speed.
| | 01:08 | This means, you only need to upload one
HD video file and then what will happen
| | 01:14 | is that file will get recompressed and
optimized for different connection speeds
| | 01:18 | by the service itself.
| | 01:21 | So, if you go ahead and pick a service
like Vimeo or YouTube, it's going to take
| | 01:26 | advantage of adaptive streaming for you.
| | 01:28 | This is critical if you want to target
smartphones or other devices using 3G or
| | 01:33 | even 4G network connection options.
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| Using YouTube for mobile phones| 00:00 | When it comes to YouTube, I have a
little bit of love-hate relationship.
| | 00:04 | YouTube is great, it's everywhere,
it works on practically every device.
| | 00:09 | The problem is everybody else is there as well.
| | 00:12 | So what I say to most folks is YouTube is a
great tool for reaching an existing audience.
| | 00:18 | Just about everybody could see a video
that you post to YouTube, however, don't
| | 00:23 | expect YouTube to
generate tons more views for you.
| | 00:27 | Just use this as an easy way to
reach devices, like mobile phones.
| | 00:31 | In fact, when it comes to YouTube,
nothing is better for hitting a mobile phone.
| | 00:37 | Now the thing is with
YouTube, everybody uses it.
| | 00:41 | If we look at viewership with YouTube,
we see that there's been steady growth
| | 00:46 | for people who watch content every month.
| | 00:50 | Right now we're pushing up on almost
half of all Americans watching a YouTube
| | 00:55 | video within the last month.
| | 00:56 | This is just going to continue to
grow with the time and Google is a very
| | 01:01 | well-connected network.
| | 01:02 | People search Google, Google serves up
results for YouTube and they're taking
| | 01:06 | advantage of technology like
Transcripts, Captions, and Search Engine
| | 01:10 | Optimization to drive more and more
people to viewing video on the YouTube site.
| | 01:16 | When you look at the numbers, it's pretty
staggering that how many people use YouTube.
| | 01:20 | For example, 48 hours of video are
uploaded every minute to youTube.
| | 01:26 | Think about that sheer volume.
| | 01:29 | Now 48 hours going up every minute, probably
means that not everything going up is good.
| | 01:34 | It gets pretty easy to get lost in the clutter;
| | 01:37 | there are lots of mobile videos
being posted right from phones that are
| | 01:40 | capturing them, as well just gobbledygook
that people have accumulated through the ages.
| | 01:45 | People may not want to see your son's
birthday party or that funny video when
| | 01:49 | you're out with friends,
but it's there on YouTube.
| | 01:53 | If you do things right though,
your stuff can still be found.
| | 01:57 | Over 3 billion videos are
viewed everyday on YouTube.
| | 02:01 | 3 billion videos get played
back and consumed by folks.
| | 02:06 | This means that more videos going
up in one month, than all three major
| | 02:11 | television networks
produced in the last 60 years.
| | 02:14 | That's pretty staggering when you think
about how the process of creating video
| | 02:18 | has been democratized.
| | 02:21 | At the start of our title we talked about
how expensive it used to be to create video.
| | 02:25 | Now if you have a mobile smartphone,
chances are you have a whole video
| | 02:29 | production studio right in your pocket.
| | 02:32 | Related to this is the fact that
YouTube's demographic is very broad.
| | 02:37 | They're getting people who are in school,
as well as people who are approaching
| | 02:41 | senior citizen status.
| | 02:43 | Everybody watches YouTube;
| | 02:46 | it is the most popular
channel for online viewership.
| | 02:49 | 800 million unique users visit every month.
| | 02:54 | More HD content than any other
website and the mobile channel of YouTube is
| | 03:00 | getting more than 400 million views
everyday that means that 13% of all video
| | 03:07 | viewed on YouTube is coming from mobile devices.
| | 03:11 | So if you want to target a mobile phone,
just about any manufacturer, YouTube
| | 03:18 | is the way to do it.
| | 03:19 | When you upload a video to YouTube, you want
to put up the highest quality that you have.
| | 03:24 | If this is a 1920 x 1080 file or a
720p file, post that, immediately YouTube
| | 03:32 | will make that size available.
| | 03:34 | Over time, and it may be a little bit of
time due to backlog on the server, more
| | 03:39 | sizes will become available.
| | 03:41 | For example, here's a
video that I uploaded recently.
| | 03:46 | You'll see that multiple sizes
are offered for desktop viewing.
| | 03:51 | We could choose from 240
pixels all the way up to 1080p.
| | 03:56 | Well, this 240 pixels is perfect for
most mobile phones, and YouTube will sniff
| | 04:02 | out and automatically detect what type
of connection that user has, and it will
| | 04:08 | oftentimes be able to tell.
| | 04:10 | The YouTube player can
dynamically switch between Flash and HTML5;
| | 04:16 | this means that you could hit just
about every modern device on the market,
| | 04:21 | since both of those formats
pretty much cover everything.
| | 04:25 | So, if you want to hit a
mobile phone nothing beats YouTube.
| | 04:29 | Of course, as we discussed earlier when
talking about terms of service, you may
| | 04:34 | need another alternative and
for that we'll turn to Vimeo.
| | 04:37 | 2
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using Vimeo for mobile phones| 00:00 | In recent years another service
has come on the scene called Vimeo.
| | 00:05 | This is a very popular choice for
those who want precise control over where
| | 00:10 | their videos play and how they look.
| | 00:12 | Now Vimeo started off as a free service,
and then started to involve and offer
| | 00:18 | different levels of paid accounts.
| | 00:20 | When it comes to Vimeo
it's pretty straightforward.
| | 00:24 | The Vimeo Plus product is designed for
those who want to use Vimeo frequently,
| | 00:29 | but not for commercial purposes.
| | 00:32 | This lets you upload 5 GB of material
every week, and it lets you upload HD content.
| | 00:39 | It also lets you customize the video
player and take advantage of some pretty
| | 00:44 | specific privacy controls, as
to where your video can play.
| | 00:48 | For example, you could tell it that
you don't want your video to playback on
| | 00:52 | other websites, besides vimeo.com and your blog.
| | 00:57 | On the other hand if you need to step
up, you could take a look at Vimeo Pro,
| | 01:01 | which is specifically
designed for companies in mind.
| | 01:05 | This product gives very advanced options
and will give you commercial hosting choices.
| | 01:11 | You get the ability to see extremely
detailed statistics about how your videos
| | 01:16 | were used and where they were played.
| | 01:19 | You also get the support of the HTML5
and the Universal Player, which will again
| | 01:25 | make the video work well on mobile phones.
| | 01:28 | If you specifically want to target
Mobile delivery with a video, there is a
| | 01:33 | setting you need to change.
| | 01:35 | When you're logged into your account,
just click the Settings button, you'll
| | 01:39 | then see several controls.
| | 01:41 | Click on Video File and you'll see
the option to Make a mobile version.
| | 01:48 | This is going to make sure that the
video does work on portable players.
| | 01:54 | Now the Make mobile version is
available for both Pro and the Plus accounts.
| | 02:01 | If you want to control Privacy this
will allow you to say where the video can
| | 02:06 | appear and you could tell it if you
wanted to work on portable devices, only on
| | 02:11 | vimeo.com's website, or on
specific pages that you determine.
| | 02:17 | When it comes to control, Vimeo
really has a lot of great options.
| | 02:21 | I particularly find it useful for
detailed statistics and the fact that the
| | 02:26 | player works very, very well on mobile phones.
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|
|
7. The Importance of BrandingWhy visual branding matters| 00:00 | Throughout this course we've been
talking about the importance to go where
| | 00:04 | people are, that met hyper syndication.
| | 00:08 | Putting your videos in social
media content where people are already
| | 00:11 | congregating, Facebook, Twitter,
YouTube, Vimeo, well, that's great!
| | 00:17 | Except all of those websites have
their own branding and by default, they're
| | 00:22 | going to try to pull
people back to their website.
| | 00:24 | What you need to think about
is Visual Branding, and this is
| | 00:29 | pretty straightforward.
| | 00:30 | Chances are you have a logo, maybe a
color palette that you use for your
| | 00:34 | organization or product.
| | 00:36 | Using that consistently throughout all
that you do, your webpage, your video,
| | 00:43 | your social media favicons, all of
those things are going to make sure that
| | 00:47 | people can find you.
| | 00:49 | Now it may seem redundant to always be
so rigid and think about branding, but
| | 00:54 | the truth of the matter
is it really does matter.
| | 00:58 | With branding you want a consistent message;
| | 01:02 | you want people whether they've watched
your video one time or a hundred times
| | 01:06 | to know where to go next.
| | 01:08 | This all comes down to things like a
Call to Action, URLs, ever present logo
| | 01:15 | that comes and goes off your video as a bug.
| | 01:18 | You cannot be too blunt when
it comes to Visual Branding.
| | 01:23 | Now we don't mean flashing text
and all sorts of noxious graphics.
| | 01:28 | What we do mean is a consistent look to
your video and what you're putting on screen.
| | 01:33 | People live very busy cluttered lives.
| | 01:37 | If you don't respect the fact that
they've got a lot on their mind and a lot of
| | 01:41 | content to track, you're going
to miss out on opportunities.
| | 01:44 | Always make sure that the customer
knows what they're watching, that your
| | 01:48 | audience knows who you
are and where you came from?
| | 01:52 | Visual Branding is going to help
you with that, let's take a look.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating a consistent look from site to media player| 00:00 | If you're not a brand expert or a
graphic designer, the concept of Visual
| | 00:04 | Branding can seem daunting at first.
| | 00:07 | How do you weave a
consistent look, what's it take?
| | 00:11 | Well the key thing there
is just that, consistency.
| | 00:14 | Making sure you always weave the visual
brand, the logo, the colors throughout
| | 00:19 | your website and the products that you do.
| | 00:22 | You don't have to be a painter
in order to put paint on a canvas.
| | 00:26 | You just need to have a few key techniques down.
| | 00:28 | Here we are with MommyCast;
| | 00:31 | this is a podcast series that we get a
chance to work on and they do a great job
| | 00:36 | with Visual Branding.
| | 00:37 | Notice that they have a consistent look to
their website, the use of a flower background.
| | 00:43 | The player controls on the Video window
actually match the typography in their
| | 00:48 | logo, as well as the other
buttons on their website.
| | 00:52 | When you look at a podcast episode of
theirs, you'll quickly see that it's
| | 00:56 | actually consistent.
| | 00:58 | Notice that we carried over the same
look of the website and the graphic
| | 01:02 | controls into the podcast series.
| | 01:06 | This works really well and helps
establish what the show is all about.
| | 01:12 | See how the two are tied together nicely,
font choices, colors, everything else.
| | 01:19 | And here's their new set which is a
simpler refinement of the old set, same
| | 01:24 | color palette coming through,
use of consistent graphics.
| | 01:29 | The lower set you see there only
takes about two hours to put together.
| | 01:33 | So it's very easy for them to have a
consistent look without a lot of effort.
| | 01:39 | When the show goes out into the field they
try to keep a consistent look there as well.
| | 01:45 | You'll notice on the set we have
coffee mugs with the show logo.
| | 01:49 | This is pretty easy to do;
| | 01:51 | you can just go to a website
like cafepress and order them.
| | 01:54 | You'll also see flowers carried onto the
set, because that's part of their motif.
| | 01:59 | This isn't to say that your show
should use daisies and that's the solution.
| | 02:03 | All we're getting at here is that you
just want to have a consistent look.
| | 02:07 | This will carry over into things
like mobile applications as well.
| | 02:12 | As you start to look at mobile websites
or mobile apps, you'll want to carry the
| | 02:17 | branding there as well.
| | 02:20 | Make sure that your customer
knows who they're watching.
| | 02:23 | There are a lot of similar products out
there and a lot of people writing blogs,
| | 02:28 | posting videos, doing all
sorts of online content.
| | 02:32 | It's necessary that you have stuff up
there that's clearly identified as yours.
| | 02:39 | Having that consistent look that ties
back to your website will create an anchor
| | 02:44 | and this is going to help people find
your website and know that as they stumble
| | 02:48 | through the Internet,
they got to the right place.
| | 02:51 | Visual Branding isn't hard;
| | 02:54 | it's all about being consistent.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Having a call to action| 00:01 | Years ago I had a chance to work on
Infomercials, those late-night TV programs
| | 00:05 | that encourage you to lose weight or buy
this particular product for this great benefit.
| | 00:11 | Well, it turns out that
those infomercials actually work.
| | 00:14 | Not necessary the products that they are selling,
but the fact that they sell a lot of products.
| | 00:19 | What they do well is they tell people
exactly what they want them to do and how to do it.
| | 00:26 | This concept is called a Call to Action.
| | 00:29 | Now the Call to Action is just telling
your audience what you want them to do next.
| | 00:35 | When it comes to social media and
online video, you don't want to give them too
| | 00:39 | many choices, it's not, go to this
website, follow us on Twitter, find us on
| | 00:44 | Facebook, subscribe to our
Podcast, that's too many things.
| | 00:49 | You want to tell your audience,
one or maybe two things to do.
| | 00:53 | If you give them more than that,
they're just going to get confused.
| | 00:58 | So, when it comes to a Call to
Action, you want it to be clear.
| | 01:03 | At the end of your video programming,
have your host or narrator tell them one
| | 01:07 | thing to do, like, hey, why don't
you follow me on Twitter at RHED Pixel
| | 01:12 | that's R-H-E-D P-I-X-E-L.
| | 01:15 | Nice and clear, because it's easy
for them to misspell my Twitter name, I
| | 01:20 | spelled it out, I did it
casually, it sounded natural.
| | 01:24 | That could also be done like this, hey,
why don't you follow me on RHED Pixel?
| | 01:29 | As you see here, here's our Twitter URL,
just follow it online and you'll get
| | 01:33 | great news and information.
| | 01:35 | Putting it on screen as a lower third
graphic helps reinforce and gives them
| | 01:40 | both an auditory and a visual cue.
| | 01:43 | Of course, you don't always want to do that.
| | 01:46 | Sometimes you are just going to go
ahead and put that at the end of a program,
| | 01:52 | you're going to have a bumper graphic
at the end of your video saying, for more
| | 01:56 | information visit, or come see us
online and discover, putting up a screenshot
| | 02:00 | of your website and
talking about some great things.
| | 02:03 | Remember, you want to keep it simple.
| | 02:06 | If it's a long URL, use a shortener
or like bitly or tiny URL to make it
| | 02:11 | easier to remember.
| | 02:14 | If you're doing this in a Facebook
post, it's no different than a video;
| | 02:18 | you've only got so many characters,
so you have to get right to the point.
| | 02:23 | If I post a link or an article to
Twitter, Facebook, My Blog, you always want
| | 02:28 | to have something at the end that is a
compelling reason for the reader to do something.
| | 02:33 | Maybe it's to checkout a new book that I
just finished, or hey, launch a post to
| | 02:39 | comment here and let me know your
thoughts, asking an open-ended question is a
| | 02:42 | great way to get participation.
| | 02:45 | The big thing here is you want to
embrace the fact that modern media is two
| | 02:50 | ways, you can publish, but it's far
more effective when you create and
| | 02:55 | others react or respond.
| | 02:57 | When you do this, the hyper-syndication
process is in full swing, and this means
| | 03:03 | the chance of people favoriting,
tweeting, liking, posting to Google Plus,
| | 03:08 | forwarding on to a friend, emailing
themselves a reminder, bookmarking it or
| | 03:13 | subscribing to your
podcast is that much greater.
| | 03:16 | The modern media producer whether
it's print, web, anything else, needs to
| | 03:21 | engage their audience and get them involved.
| | 03:24 | A clear Call to Action with one thing
to do is the right way to go about it.
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| Choosing a color palette| 00:00 | One area of Visual Branding is that
of color, the use of a consistent color
| | 00:05 | palette across your product.
| | 00:07 | Now chances are your company has an
official color, it's probably one.
| | 00:13 | In today's day and age it's either red
or blue, those seem to be the two most
| | 00:17 | popular colors that people use for their logos.
| | 00:19 | Now of course your company could be
unique and hopefully you don't fall into the
| | 00:23 | red or blue trap, but the thing is it's
not that hard to extend a single color
| | 00:28 | into a full color palette.
| | 00:30 | So you have a primary color and some auxiliary
colors that you can use to extend your brand.
| | 00:36 | Those who know me know that my
wardrobe pretty much consists of three things
| | 00:41 | black, gray and blue.
| | 00:43 | Now I have a few other colors that I
occasionally pull out, but those are pretty
| | 00:47 | much the colors I wear all of the time.
| | 00:50 | When it comes to branding my websites
and everything else I do, I find though
| | 00:54 | that it's important to think a
little bit beyond that and open up to a
| | 00:58 | broader color palette.
| | 00:59 | So what you want is a big box of crayons,
you don't want to use all the crayons
| | 01:05 | all of the time, but every color
is going to convey a different mood.
| | 01:09 | If you look at some of the courses on
design here at Lynda.com, you'll see that
| | 01:13 | we do have coverage on things
like color theory and color choice.
| | 01:17 | You can also do a web search on the
term color theory or emotional response to
| | 01:22 | color to see what's out there.
| | 01:24 | There is a great website that I love to
use from Adobe called kuler.adobe.com,
| | 01:31 | this website allows you to browse color
and search by popularity, you could see
| | 01:37 | highly rated themes of color, as
well as look at the most popular colors.
| | 01:42 | You can also use the
random generator to experiment.
| | 01:46 | What I really like is you load up a
single color, such as the base color of your
| | 01:50 | corporate logo or maybe
the product that you have.
| | 01:54 | You'll then see that there are
several color models to choose from like
| | 01:57 | Analogous, Monochromatic,
Complementary, Custom and Shades.
| | 02:02 | These allow you to go through and
build color models based on that original
| | 02:07 | base color, and you could generate colors that
are going to work well with that particular color.
| | 02:13 | These will be from different positions
around the color wheel, but follow the
| | 02:17 | precise theory and science of color and
allow you to create color combinations
| | 02:23 | that are designed to work together.
| | 02:26 | Additionally, you could see how
colors are doing out there in the community
| | 02:30 | and take a look at what other people are
doing around the globe for the use of color.
| | 02:35 | So, this is a great website, it's
absolutely free, even if you're not an Adobe
| | 02:40 | customer, that's just kuler.adobe.com,
and it's a really useful way for you to
| | 02:45 | play with color and explore.
| | 02:47 | Plus, once you find a palette that you
like, you can export them for using Adobe
| | 02:51 | software or copy down the RGB or Web
Hex values to use in an online project.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
8. Essential Tools to Keep It All RunningValidating your RSS feed with Feed Validator| 00:01 | When you've an RSS Feed, it's
pretty easy for things to go wrong.
| | 00:05 | Maybe your RSS Feed got too big and it's
breaking or you have a bad entry in it.
| | 00:11 | Not all systems automatically generate
good RSS Feeds, so it's useful if you
| | 00:17 | could spot a problem.
| | 00:18 | For that we have Feed Validator.
| | 00:21 | Now Feed Validator is a free service at
feedvalidator.org and what it allows you
| | 00:27 | to do is really simple, you just paste
an RSS feed into the Validate field and
| | 00:33 | click the Validate button.
| | 00:35 | What it's going to do is it's going to
look at the RSS Feed and it will tell you
| | 00:40 | if something is wrong.
| | 00:41 | Now the cool thing here is that it
will actually identify the error and
| | 00:45 | recommend solutions by links to
articles on how to fix things.
| | 00:49 | You also see that there's links for
docs and terms, which can help you find
| | 00:54 | resources for fixing an RSS feed, let's take
a look at how it works in a live web browser.
| | 01:02 | Here I have the RSS Feed for my blog,
I'm just going to copy that to my
| | 01:07 | clipboard, go on over to
feedvalidator.org and paste that in.
| | 01:13 | When I click Validate, it will analyze the Feed.
| | 01:17 | Notice it's telling me there are a few
problems and it goes through and says
| | 01:23 | what the issues are.
| | 01:25 | Now everything is highlighted and
it tells you click here for help.
| | 01:30 | The thing to realize is that some of
these errors may not be that big of a deal,
| | 01:35 | but as you see, you can go through and
it highlights all the problems, it looks
| | 01:41 | to me like I'm having a few issues
with some of the embeddable video players.
| | 01:46 | With all of that said these are yellow
errors though, not red errors and the
| | 01:51 | content is still working and playing back.
| | 01:54 | So Feed Validator will flag
potential problems and critical problems, a
| | 02:00 | few problems in your RSS Feed are
not that big of a deal as long as
| | 02:04 | they're not critical problems.
| | 02:06 | Chances are that you'll always find an
error or two or something that could be better.
| | 02:11 | When it comes to code, there
are some very specific rules.
| | 02:15 | The good news is that Feed Validator
helps you find resources to identify how
| | 02:20 | to tweak and fix an RSS Feed and
we'll spot any particular problems in your
| | 02:25 | Feed for you.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Validating your RSS feed with FeedBurner| 00:00 | Like many things to do with the web,
Google tries to make it better.
| | 00:04 | That's where FeedBurner comes in.
| | 00:06 | FeedBurner is a free service from
Google that lets you take an RSS Feed and it
| | 00:10 | optimizes it. The good news is, is that
FeedBurner can track usage of your RSS
| | 00:16 | Feed and fix common problems.
| | 00:19 | Here is what it does.
| | 00:21 | With FeedBurner, you just
paste in an existing RSS Feed.
| | 00:25 | And what it does is it
streamlines the republishing content.
| | 00:29 | You can get a box for your website that
allows people to subscribe via e-mail to
| | 00:33 | your RSS Feed or simple widgets for one
click adds for things like Facebook and
| | 00:39 | Twitter and RSS Readers.
| | 00:42 | feedburner.com is an absolutely free service.
| | 00:45 | It used to cost money, but Google
bought it and rolled it out absolutely free.
| | 00:51 | And what's really nice is the detailed
statistics that you get about how things
| | 00:55 | in your RSS Feed were accessed.
| | 00:58 | You can get details by country, you can
see which stories were the most read or
| | 01:02 | most clicked and this all really comes in handy.
| | 01:06 | Another thing that I like about FeedBurner
is it could serve like a post office box.
| | 01:11 | You could take your Podcasting Feed or
a Feed from Twitter or Facebook and run
| | 01:16 | it through FeedBurner as an
intermediate middle ground.
| | 01:20 | What happens here is you take that new
URL, the optimize URL that FeedBurner
| | 01:24 | makes and then publish that
to the re-syndication services.
| | 01:29 | Why would you do that?
| | 01:30 | Well, sometimes you can't
update which RSS Feed is used.
| | 01:34 | For example, if you submit an iTunes Feed,
it's only going to let you submit it once.
| | 01:39 | What happens if your hosting company
goes out of business and you have to move
| | 01:43 | to a different server?
| | 01:44 | Well, you would lose all of your iTunes
Subscribers, because you would have to
| | 01:49 | submit a new Feed and start a new
Podcast, unless you used FeedBurner.
| | 01:53 | You can go ahead and take that initial
RSS Feed, run it through FeedBurner and
| | 01:57 | assign it basically a post office box.
| | 02:00 | Then when you move, you just update the
post office box and it will continue to
| | 02:05 | serve that new Feed out of iTunes,
keeping you from losing customers.
| | 02:10 | Now other services are going to be
the same way, and FeedBurner is a
| | 02:14 | great middle ground.
| | 02:15 | It also adds things like the ability
to splice in Amazon affiliate codes
| | 02:19 | or recommended links.
| | 02:21 | Let's take a quick look at the interface.
| | 02:24 | All you need to do after you login to
your account is paste the RSS Feed and
| | 02:29 | click the Next button.
| | 02:30 | If it specifically for a podcast,
just click the, I am a podcaster button.
| | 02:36 | So, once you click the Next button,
you just need to give it a Title.
| | 02:40 | This title is for your benefit.
| | 02:46 | And you can give it a new URL here as well, like
I could say youtuberhedpixel, I then click Next.
| | 02:57 | And it adds it to Feeds that you are tracking.
| | 03:01 | You also have great controls here.
| | 03:04 | If you take a look at a Feed, you'll
see that you have a lot of options.
| | 03:09 | For example, you can optimize it
and make it friendly for browsers, or
| | 03:17 | automatically integrate links or photos.
| | 03:22 | You can go ahead and put in
additional information about it.
| | 03:27 | You can choose to Publicize and target
things like Email Subscriptions or allow
| | 03:33 | it to be Social with social media, or
make Chicklets for your website that are
| | 03:38 | going to promote it and make it one
click access, for popular RSS Feeds.
| | 03:44 | You can even Monetize the content and
of course they needed one more ize, so
| | 03:49 | they added Troubleshootize.
| | 03:51 | But this tells you common
errors and how to fix that.
| | 03:55 | What's really nice is the FeedMedic
option which will automatically email you,
| | 04:00 | if there is an error with your RSS Feed.
| | 04:04 | When your podcaster or bloger, the last thing
you want to see is a problem with your website.
| | 04:09 | Of course what's worse is to find out
about it from your readers or your customers.
| | 04:15 | By using something like FeedBurner
with its FeedMedic service, you'll
| | 04:18 | automatically get an alert when
your RSS feed starts to act up.
| | 04:22 | This is a great way to spot a problem and then
it even offers useful links to how to fix it.
| | 04:28 | And of course, you can combine with
the earlier service we mentioned and take
| | 04:32 | advantage of Feed Validator to
further refine and fix the problem.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Tying search results together with Lijit| 00:00 | Once you start hyper-syndicating,
it's great, your stuff is everywhere.
| | 00:05 | Of course, there's a good
side and a bad side to that.
| | 00:09 | As the hyper-syndicate, your content is going
to get spread out to more and more websites.
| | 00:13 | And sometimes you are going to
post unique content to one website.
| | 00:17 | Well, the good news is that
people come back to your blog;
| | 00:20 | you want them to be able to find everything.
| | 00:22 | Using a cool tool called Lijit;
| | 00:25 | you can tie all your social
networks together for an integrated search.
| | 00:30 | Lijit is pretty straightforward.
| | 00:32 | What it allows you to do is
incorporate a search engine into your blog.
| | 00:37 | And that search engine can be tied
together with your social media and
| | 00:41 | hyper-syndication outlets.
| | 00:43 | What's also nice is you get a detailed
view of where people are coming from and
| | 00:48 | what they're looking for.
| | 00:50 | For example, I have
integrated Lijit into my own blog here.
| | 00:56 | And you see that it can
search across multiple places.
| | 00:59 | When someone does a search, it's
going to look at things that I have put on
| | 01:02 | to Digg, my Flickr account, YouTube,
Twitter, LinkedIn, Vimeo, and even another blog.
| | 01:10 | I could tie all of this together,
so when someone does a web search, it
| | 01:14 | generates multiple results.
| | 01:16 | For example, if someone were to look
for Photoshop Camera Raw, notice that
| | 01:22 | they get great hits.
| | 01:24 | Sites off of my website, as well as the
ability to look at other networks that
| | 01:28 | I've connected, for both Content such
as Twitter and Photo Sharing, as well as
| | 01:34 | other sites that are part of my network.
| | 01:36 | So this makes it really easy
to tie everything together.
| | 01:41 | Another nice thing about Lijit is it
doesn't actually take you off your website.
| | 01:45 | So while it uses a Google search engine, they
don't have to go to Google to do their search.
| | 01:50 | Up here in the Lijit are a
couple of other cool things.
| | 01:54 | You can see a Visitors Map to get an
idea of where people are coming from.
| | 02:00 | Notice you get updates for both Direct
views, people who came to your website
| | 02:04 | directly by typing in the URL, as
well as those who came from search.
| | 02:09 | You also get a recent readers list,
which is a very useful way to see where
| | 02:14 | people are coming from.
| | 02:16 | And you might not realize just how big of
an impact you are having around the world.
| | 02:20 | It's also great to see what people
are trying to find on your website.
| | 02:25 | And this will let you know what
sort of topics you should be covering.
| | 02:28 | The use of Lijit is absolutely free.
| | 02:31 | There is a Monetization option if you
want, where you could type Google AdWords
| | 02:35 | in and actually share on the profits
for anything that's generated, but even if
| | 02:39 | you don't want to do that,
it's still a free service.
| | 02:42 | I find it's a great way to integrate a
search Lijit into my website that uses
| | 02:46 | the power of Google search, while
tying all of my hyper-syndicated networks
| | 02:50 | together, into one search field.
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ConclusionFinal thoughts| 00:01 | When it comes to hyper-syndication,
the concept is really
| | 00:03 | pretty straightforward.
| | 00:05 | Throughout today's lesson, you saw
that we took simple technology like RSS
| | 00:09 | Feeds, blogs, video sharing
sites and tied them all together.
| | 00:15 | Remember, what it really comes down
to is having a consistent network.
| | 00:20 | Once you take the time to set
this network up, it's not that hard.
| | 00:24 | Things can essentially run on autopilot.
| | 00:27 | This means you post once and it goes
out to 10, 20, even 50 different websites.
| | 00:33 | This is great, because it serves the
cardinal need, which is going where the people are.
| | 00:40 | So, when you take the time to set up
your network, remember, it may seem like
| | 00:44 | a lot of work at first, but then you're
going to see tremendous gains and efficiency.
| | 00:49 | Whether you're an individual
publisher, a small-business or a large
| | 00:53 | corporation, the use of
hyper-syndication techniques can go a really long way
| | 00:58 | to extending your message.
| | 00:59 | Taking the time to set up the
network is going to free up your publishing
| | 01:03 | efforts, leaving you much more time to
both create new content and respond or
| | 01:08 | reply to all of the great
new folks you're attracting.
| | 01:11 | My name is Richard Harrington.
| | 01:13 | Feel free to check out on lynda.com a
bunch of more titles we have, and keep an
| | 01:17 | eye out for new social media
training that will be coming in the future.
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