Social media outlets provide a wealth of video marketing options these days. Pundits say it’s a huge attention-getter, but is video marketing right for authors?Perhaps there are exceptions but yes, nowadays we’d have to recommend that if you can put a moving picture up — whether that be you being interviewed on TV or by fans on a social media site, or a professionally done video book trailer, it’s time to “roll tape.”
To get you in a video frame of mind, here are six outlets and ways your video might be seen:
- YouTube: The big daddy. The advantage is you can not only have a YouTube channel, but they make it so easy to imbed videos on your own blog/website or add links to your social media.
- Vimeo: Ditto the ease of uploading and sharing, and we love the happy heart “like” and “share” buttons at the side of their videos, too.
- Google+ Hangouts: Did you know you can have up to 10 readers/fans on webcam in a Google Hangout? Better still, you can record the session right to YouTube, then use that video to share on other social networks. So maybe you want to record a webinar? Or someone interviewing you about your newest book?
- Twitter Vine: Vine lets you create easy six-second looping videos to share on Twitter, or Facebook. Show off a glimpse of your book cover and “Available at…”
- Instagram: With its own 15 second video (non-looping) you can share a longer snippet, and share it anywhere you’d share an Instagram photo, including Twitter and Facebook, Tumblr, Flickr, etc.
- Facebook: It’s simple – folks click on videos in Facebook. And the videos you upload there can be up to 20 minutes long, plenty of room for book trailers, author interviews, portfolios of your work, a video message to fans of an upcoming book signing… Sky’s the limit!
So, show and tell time: Are you incorporating video into your author marketing mix? Do you prefer to feature appearances of yourself, or feature a video book trailer, or both?
I’ve made a video promotion for my book inspired by movie trailers, here it is on youtube; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-cXPvMwaxI . They’re a necessity to any crowdfunding operation, which I recently launched (igg.me/at/king-of-the-sun). My assessment, videos are a great hook and visual, but a bit useless unless you already have a youtube following or can get someone who does to pick it up.
Oooh… interesting video and definitely made ME want to read the book, so I’d have to put that as a ticked box in the “Yes” column. You make a great point, too about the crowdfunding – thanks for adding that insight!
Interesting. I hope some of your subscribers share their videos…I don’t think I’v seen a book trailer video yet, though I know there are ;lots of them available. I just don’t associate a video with a book! I’m more pat to make the association to a movie or a song.
Here’s a few seen recently:
http://cashkushel.com/ and http://www.craigfaris.com and one of my favorites (love the use of printed words with tension-building music): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pe85WtX0hd8&feature=youtu.be — They’re not for everyone – think actual trailers work best for thriller/mystery/horror/YA genres and any work appealing to younger readers. Personal opinion is the more lit fiction or women’s fiction stuff perhaps served better by videos of author interviews/readings/launch parties/etc. But either way video is an enhancement that website visitors are coming to expect…