Current wisdom says YouTube.com is a must-have social network in your pot of social media stew. So how can an author put YouTube to work for them? Here are five possible ways:
- Get a friend to videotape you at a book signing or conference.
- If you haven’t yet booked a reading, you might want to talk to an area bookstore and offer to do one; then make sure you get it taped!
- Build a “playlist” and share your favorite videos (i.e. that deal with issues your own writing deals with) and link or imbed them on your website. If you don’t know how, YouTube can walk you through it easily – we’ve shown an example imbedding our small playlist below.
- Do you have an area of expertise? You may want to videotape yourself speaking about that issue and/or offering a tutorial. With today’s tablets and smart phones, making a quick video is as easy as taking a digital photograph.
- Produce a video book trailer. Not only can you post it front and center on YouTube, but doing so will let you easily share it (without re-uploading) on other places, including your website, your social media networks, even your Amazon author profile page.
Hints:
- Keep videos short and sweet (just like blog posts are “drive-by” reading, videos are drive-by viewing.
- Longer videos can be busted up into segments. Free video tools exist to do this (one we like on Macs is 4Media Video Converter).
- Don’t skimp on lighting – make sure the setting for your video is light and bright!
- WWW produces book trailer videos – learn more here.
So now, your turn – tell us if you have a YouTube page and how you’re using it to promote your words!