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Platform Strategies with James Wedmore

I think one of the things people would struggle with when they're putting stuff out there is there making a bold assumption that they know what people want and that is a dangerous, dangerous path to go down and, you know, I'm the expert, so I know what people need. It doesn't matter what they need right now. It's what are they? What are they looking for? Because you got to meet him halfway, then you can do your jiu jitsu and flip it on them and say, like, this is what, let me give you great example and we were talking about this yesterday. Um, I used to do some stuff in the dating and relationships space and their young men out there who type into google all day long, how to attract a woman or how to attract women and the if you do, the research will show you how to do the research on any of these key words in a moment, the searches are like this, you know, hundreds of thousands of searches of people, guys, young man typing in how to attract women, and we would create courses on how to...

attract women and the course just taught them how to be confident. But if you were to go and do the research on the key word, how to be confident it's like this and that's what a lot of us is people who are building our platforms we tend to do we start with I'm going to create a block post on how to be confident no, because no one's looking for that no one wants to be confident they want to know how to attract a woman it just so happens that attraction woman is all about being confident this year I see the difference it's about creating content about what they want and then you could deliver what they need okay, so the content that your audience is looking for some questions look at what questions what questions is your ideal audience have and what tutorials reviews and trainings are they searching for these air already questions that you guys should already be asking yourself but it's still just a broad spectrum would be like well, okay, I'll do one on I like how to upload a facebook image to my fans pagers okay, that zen idea but we're still not for me it's still not enough um here's some other things that I don't know if amy mentioned all these um one of the things that I like to do is send out surveys and uh, google drive and google docks actually has a free survey function in it, which is really cool that we use asking questions on facebook one of the things I love doing is make a facebook post with an image that asked people to choose between two or three options so I just say like which one do you like the best a b or c and it's like a graphic a b and c and then there's like taxed or an image and they choose you're literally creating this like a live voting poll ah and you can get huge insight from your fans and followers on there yahoo answers is a place where people are asking the questions right uh amazon reviews we've done this where we go find uh books and products that are in the same marketplace and you read what what people are struggling with like what are their concerns? One of their frustrations and this is like a blockbuster solving this problem right here and other block comments from other blocks that you follow I went over that really fast because those that stills for me is just like those air ideas that's like that's gets you started it gets the gears working and at the end of the day that you can't stop there and this is where I come in with the whole left brain stuff so although our right brain creatives they're going probably have a little trouble when you go to do this but I'm here to tell you it's gonna be okay it's it's really not that hard but you want to play with this andi stems from this idea of the fact that when we're using let's say we were using youtube, uh, sixty percent of youtube video views come from search, so people think when they're going to youtube market, and they think I got to make a viral video, which means I need the cute cats and the babies and something funny, and I was gonna be twerking while doing the harlem shake so great we got some work to do, even though we do that in our videos. That's, that's, not our strategy. Uh, it all comes down to search, and I said already youtube is considered the sec. You are just search engines, so seo search engine optimization combined with youtube video, we get video ceo, and if you were to go to my youtube channel, I used to do a bunch of bartending videos, so they're still in there. But if you were to look at the most popular videos by popular mean the most viewed videos um, all of those videos are ranked at the top of youtube for their perspective, keyword phrase. So let me give you another example if you type in how to get more subscribers or how to get more subscribers on youtube, my video comes up number one, and there is one of my most viewed videos, um have another one on royalty free music how to create your youtube custom youtube custom thumbnail it's right up there at the top uh number number two so point being the re the way I'm getting views in the way all my students who are successful the youtube are getting views is they understand that people are searching in specific words that literally like a one word difference convene can make or break you like how to get more subscribers versus getting more subscribers is two completely different keywords one gets no searches the other one gets a fair amount okay, so you need to be able to identify that and I'll show you how to do that uh I'll see if I have any more on this one I don't so this is it you speak all the google keyword tool now they've changed the name a lot people are freaking out on my gosh they changed everything they didn't change everything they just change the name and how it looks and a few little simple stuff in fact I think it's easier to use and, um more friendly but that's my opinion it's called the google keyword planner you could just type it into google it's a free tool typing keyword planner keyword tool and you're gonna, uh have a page that looks similar like this and all you need to do is type in a broad keyword idea so personal finance even just starting with pallotti's or plot is marketing branding stuff like that and see what happens and what does happen is google will produce the key word that you typed in and how many search results it gets as in how many people a month are typing that exact word into google plus on a limited amount of suggestions of related words and so all the strategies that amy taught and all the ones that I quickly went over a few slides ago about how to come up with ideas is like to get the ball rolling, but you don't produce a piece of content unless you find a relevant keyword that is getting a lot of searches otherwise no one's looking for it so what's the point right? And as you can see, the videos that get the most viewed on my channel are the ones where I picked a keyword you got it ranked up at the top and then they're it's been sitting for some of those videos for five years now and it's just everyday people search those and they find those videos first cause people always pick the first one or two result, right? So we use this cue word planner tool like I said for ah left brain ing analytical person doing we'll pick this up instantly it was very easy for me a lot of my students who are right brainers are like finest, really challenging it first. So it's something I like to call it, you're just like sifting for gold. You're just looking for these key words that could become blawg post or videos or podcast episodes or, uh, whatever you want to create. So there was one types in video marketing. Oh, cool eighty one hundred searches a month. I could do a video just with the topic video marketing, but then they're all the relevant words so here's kind of the process I take people through, we won't go over this too much, but because we share this, I showed this in my youtube creative life, but it's a really cool process to go through on your own were whether using excel, document or scratch, piece of paper or whatever you make three columns and, um, and you just take time to come up with thirty keywords. These key words become your list of content to using this google keyword planner, and you start writing down the keywords suggestions they give you and then what I do is that I write down the monthly searches that they get. Okay, video marketing put that in the first column, uh, eighty five hundred results a month cool, and then what I do is I go to youtube type in video marketing and I see how many convenient competing videos show up it'll tell you will say eighty three thousand other videos in results so I write that number down and when you do this for about thirty keywords which can take you about an hour of your life yet and it's not sexy like this is not the sexy stuff but this is market research this stuff is so important you do that you start to see oh, wow okay, this one might have a lot of searches but it's got a lot of competition this one has less searches but there's no other videos about it, okay? And you start to prioritize and get a clear picture of what you should really be executing your content about. So, like I said it's very left brain and for some people that like what we've been talking about what's a keyword so let me ask you a quick before we continue is this going over anybody's head? Is it is it too confusing? I know rachel's like I got this I've already done this so good. I know we'll probably get some question from the audience and the internet audience from a moment okay, so let me show you examples of how I've done this even with past videos because this is this is my favorite part when I kind of reveal the keyword part all these people you can liken like here the smack of the hand hit the head over the internet people like, oh, I felt like fifty videos on youtube and I never thought about this and that's when I laughed in my great this is a great starting point. You don't need to make a new video. A lot of people like you think I can double their views without ever having to create another video all you do back, all you do is go back to the existing videos and you change the title. The keywords and stuff will show you how to do this is when I was over christmas last year can see the date was december twenty and I was a little bored. I decided not to work a bit. I took a video that was totally flat lining. I wasn't doing a thing for me and I said, what is it it's dead it's not working and I realized I didn't have a good enough keyword, so I went back and I did that exercise. I went to the keyword plan and I chose the keyword that a different one that I liked uh, I just changed the title that takes six point five seconds and boom boost of use twenty seven hundred views because I changed the title like that's, how close you are to the gold that you're digging for and we stopped short every time don't wait. So this is why I like doing this because you can make these little analytical tweaks and see these results, and I do this all the time. Here's another one, I had a video, I remember this one this one was called how to create a video testimonial quickly realized, quickly realized no one is looking for that just like flatlined, so I just changed it to social proof, and it just boosted and that got twenty, eight hundred views on that was like in a week. So that's that's the power of doing the keyword thing, so I hope people don't go in and maybe maybe I'll do this if you're going to youtube. It's, it's, it's a must if you're relying on a viral video, good luck with that. Um, but at the end of the day, the secret that makes us all work that's the word that I know amy said yesterday, I will say this to the day I die and that's consistency. I like to say that consistency breeds mo mentum. If people say, you know, we talked about this yesterday, I feel behind, um, they're if we're in a race it's, it's, a marathon and it's just how long you can sustain and people that stay in the game the longest other ones that win we're all all of us up there we're up here yesterday were all overnight successes ten years in the making uh and that's how it works with everybody so consistency everyone today khun right a block post it's not it's not even impressive that you have a website it's no big deal anymore because everyone has a log and everyone can upload a video from their iphone in thirty seconds. What is impressive is the person who's been doing it for a year consistently nonstop like antonio's antenna with two hundred videos in one year, five point six million views so consistency but then you go ok? Is that really true? Here is actually a graph legitimately me taking my own advice and deciding to be more consistent this is a twelve month run of my youtube channel and the way I like tripled my views when I actually decided to take my own advice and be consistent. Um you can see I was actually lagging down here and then at the end of summer last year about a year ago I decided I'm going to do this I'm gonna I'm gonna be consistent and you can see I went from twenty thousand less than twenty thousand views to his highest sixty thousand views in a matter of two months on ly thing that changed was that I put out a video every week during that time, and then of course, you know, the final quarter came in, I was come close to christmas, so I was like, I'm not gonna work as much salt dwindle down, I started the new year and it improved a little bit um, it really does make a difference, especially on youtube, because you're building momentum. You too, I mean it's a whole other game that on time for but youtube rewards thie the people that are posting regularly on there so it helps um what I want to do and then we're going, we'll get to some questions I'm going to race through this last part, this is kind of like a bonus stuff for because I've got here, we got this house come up with content. I get the question all time when people see my youtube videos, they say, james, I'd love to see your entire process for how you create, come up with an idea for a video and actually created and, you know, see it to fruition, and so I'm going to go through this, um in, like, five minutes or less, and then I want to just be bombarded with questions number one is choosing the topics, um, we used the key word tool and then questions from customers but I won't answer a question from customer if I can't find a keyword that matches it so sometimes I'm just not I'm you know it's a little selfish but I won't answer question because I'm like they're the only one that's asking it apparently so weii matched everything that comes in every idea with a key the word and then there are those random inspired posts and stuff which those the ones I don't really care about I just put those out those air usually just in a block post um we're gonna give an example uh I think everyone brought up lead pages yesterday we paige is a great piece of software and uh there we go there's little circle around it and we decided to do a review for this so anyone could do this a product you like a piece of software, something that you're using every day this can help people because I've been able to tell people about lead pages and they're like, oh my gosh, this is saving me so much time I can create awesome web pages in three minutes or less so I did a video about what mean pages is and how to use it as my complete review of it well to kind of take you through the process so chosen topic lead pages awesome next thing we do is we would come up with like ten video ideas the next thing we do is I would I create an outline for these kind of like here that points I want to hit, um, I follow the same temple every time. I don't really want to take you through this, but this is really important in that we follow the same template for every video it's a little frustrating when we are creative people because we want to do something unique and different special every time, and this kind of becomes more of like a factory assembly line type video, but it just that's how you become more productive and more efficient. We have the same intro every time we have the same outro every time, and we follow very similar format, which allows us to scale, be more efficient and get more videos out there, which I think is really important. But I don't think I've ever told anyone this, but I actually worked with a script writer. This is one of my really good friends, uh, michael who's sitting down there's a picture, but I think we're actually posing for that picture. I don't think that's really us working, um, but but I work with a script writer, so I given my outlines and I say, go and he actually writes fills in all the gaps, writes the scripts and then brings it back to me, and we polish him up so I don't do my videos on the flier, at least ninety percent of them. I don't it's actually all scripted because for reasons we don't discuss it, just they become more entertaining. Mohr like engaging when we do that, uh, then I do a film day we actually have, I have to back to back coming up next week, which gets pretty intense where we film as many videos as we can in those two days, all it is is about pump it out as much content in that short amount of time as possible. Um, and then we've developed a system actually have ah, editor, who is the videographer? Same person who will deliver the videos we use to really cool tools that we talked about yesterday base camp to discuss the notes of the changes. So we have a complete, uh, list of everything we've discussed and dropbox to transfer all the files, and then we begin what we call the video optimization process. Now we won't talk much about this. I wish we could talk more, but one big mistake people make is they think that uploading video to youtube is or even a block post or anything is like their last step there like done cia and that's actually where our work begins because with it you know that I forget the number now there's like a good gillian hours of of youtube videos uploaded every second right? So you're a needle in a haystack and so there's certain things you can do to optimize your videos all over him really quickly but what we've done so I don't have to do any more as we use the website I mentioned yesterday called sweet process dot com we've developed a system of very methodical step by step approach we do with every single video and I gave that to someone on my team who does that for me every time so I don't even have to worry about it uh some of the things you'll look at that we d'oh which is very important um whatever our keyword was from step one lead pages this one's royalty free music we put it in the title we put it in the description when you upload the video on youtube will ask for your tags so you put it in the tags and then finally and this is so cool uh we upload a transcript with our keyword in the transcript so there's a video we've done this several times there's videos on youtube or I'll say something random like I love purple ice cream after midnight and even though the video has nothing to do with that, you type that phrase in and your video will come up because youtube and google are reading every line of your transcript so if your video was how to get kalai ints to your pallotti's business and you start your video out gina here I mean this is going to show you how to get clients to your pallotti's business and in the end he'll thank you for watching my video on how to get clients to your pallotti's business you've just told youtube and google this is exactly what my videos about so that's what we do, we have someone who goes in and we make sure they have the right title, the right description they've optimized for that specific keyword and then then we use social media and we share it now the question that was asked earlier was, how do we how do I use video for liz bill? At the end of every single video, we have a call to action, which basically tells people to sign up for my free report on if you watched any of my videos, you see how we execute that it's basically like a little mini commercial for yourself, you've just given value for five minutes and you're like, hey, if you like more, go often for this free report uh then we use social media to promote it, get the traction, get people to share it. And also not an email to my listen, I'll say, if you really like the video, I'd appreciate if you shared it and then that's when we get the most shares because you asked, um so then here is the end result. We did a little video when he was a screen capture video. It was nothing, uh, for the topical lead pages. Oh, hey, look, it's number one on youtube. So if you typed in lead pages, you see that video and the best part, this is when you hit the jackpot. Uh, when your video is number one on google for your work, that's the goal that's what you want with anything you produce, I mean that's that's when you got a winner. So we're really happy because all the views aren't coming from from people who already know me. They're coming from brand new people that we're interested in learning more about lead pages, and then they find my stuff. So if all of that was really complicated because I went by really fast, the good thing to know is that my little sister did this as I mentioned earlier and she made her first video this is reverse video now her top because she does a lot of energy work on dh yoga and spirituals stuff her first video was on a key word she went through my course didn't talkto I'm like I'm not talking I'm not helping you how to clear the energy of a room shows james come around like you're cameron like you can't borrow my camera and get your own she's like one of the money to get a new camera like use your iphone she filled this entire video on her iphone uploaded it on her own and take this one shot video titles how to clear the energy of a room and in one week she got it to the number third spot on youtube for that for that key word so I don't want to sound like like if my sister can do it anybody can s oh so that's it I wantto answer questions and if there was anything that you guys still don't get to like I pretty much make a video of every thing that we've discussed here and that's over on my youtube channel you too dot com for its lost james what more do we have any questions from from you guys before we go to the interwebs okay so what did you say your sister got the video to the number third spot is it just this stuff that you just told us about were the optimized keywords and those kind of things oh yeah she she hasn't even like we do some more advanced stuff which I would a lot of people's brains would start splitting open uh where we do some like back linking strategies and stuff like that which really helped um but we do that first and we see where the video lands so she's she's in a really good spot where all she did if she put it on her blawg and and then put the right key words in the title the description and her tags and I said just give it a week see what happens but it takes a little time and she literally text me tomorrow or yesterday no, michael I gotta add this for my presentation she's like it's not the number three spot already so now we would go back in and we would do or she would not me hey, um do some back linking and and other social sharing type strategies to get it to the number one spot because that's the goal number one spot that's a great question anyone else here gina when you edit our change a video like that, does it affect the ranking? I mean, other than positively when you've added social sharing and thing but does does youtube no, when you changed the title or altered the video and I do, and you wouldn't s o I'm a big fan of if it ain't broke, why fix it? So we like to go in at our, you know, eighty, twenty rule, right? So you don't touch the top twenty percent of your videos that are getting eighty percent of your views, so I go down to the bottom one, the ones that have flat lined, and I change those and that doesn't hurt you like youtube isn't going to be upset that you change that, they're going to reward you for it, because if you choose the right key word, if you chose correctly, it's going to go up three presentation, thank you. So I know you guys can see the value of using video, and your businesses, especially from instructional point of view, are a topic for tutorial that you could teach from, um, because of my experience with commerce, I want to talk really quickly before we go to break about how we use it for foreign commerce and service base. So what I always like to dio a me mention this yesterday in during the panel, and also her presentation is model the best and for e commerce, zappos dot com uses video on their web site, tio. Sho sho shoes and just do a quick walk through and like, have a person just holding in front of the camera and talk about the proctor what they like about it and it's. Amazing. I can remember the exact numbers from the study that I saw a review I think they posted on their block, but talk about what a difference it made and how they had this multiple year plan. Tio have a video for everyone of their millions and millions of products because was making such a difference more than even though they have tons of images and lots of text descriptions and even a three d viewer made a big difference toe watch someone alive person actually holding and manipulate the shoe and just talk about their opinion of it. So that's, really great free commerce, especially if you're doing anything with luxury love your items. People want to see it through his many modalities as possible the product and as many different lights they can have. You guys seen any of the amazon revue videos that customers make about their products? That's always like the tipping point. Okay, final by yes need also from a customer's point of view, uh that could be you definitely have to have that strategy if you're smaller business trying to it's almost like a testimonial for a specific products you know, and so for service based, obviously testimonial video testimonials or super powerful in a coaching or ah tutorial based what you think about the boundaries that just go down or the walls that you build up here comes the sales pitch when it's just like a customer with a shaky cam going like, all right, I just bought this new thing and it's pretty cool, you know, I always and totally different light when it's not coming from the market and you're trying to judge, you're looking for the whole like, is this guy's this where's where's? The problems I should be looking for blood it's a customer like it's, a totally different positioning, so especially in your small business, you have to have that worked in your strategy with, like a customer follow up, and that could be definitely good with an email fall up sequence when you can ask for a testimonial and then if they do provide their contact information, they were really happy give a really good review or testimonial those people, because you service them really well and gave them something, complete the transaction and give them what they really wanted, and they're excited they'll go the extra moan like they feel like they want to reciprocate and you know you have to give you a good review or even do a video review on the product or the service that they bought. So another good couple ways to use video for not just coaching or ah tutorial but any calmer so we can throw out some of those examples for the stores out there yeah, we got a great session I'm really tended for so the session is going to be all about facebook promotions and advertising on facebook, so I'm going to start out the session a little bit talking about which social media platforms we use across our diff erm isn't says both e commerce and service based and how we made that decision and why it was right for us in our business and then we'll get into we're going to bring amy up our resident facebook expert she's going to talk all about how to get started with facebook marketing and most importantly how to be doing it inexpensively for maximum results would talk about when it's the right time to get started with advertising on facebook how you know it can be intimidating to start actually paying for traffic it's a big step in a business but if you do put the right pieces in place it was one that's when your business will really scale and start to really grow and explode great, well, awesome. We wanted to share some of these great quotes that we're getting from online for james noodle on it, says wu. Great way to start the day with sir james, you're sir, now you're sir, uh, rhonda grew said, we're so excited to see james again after his last creative life course, he's beyond good and last, but not least, the rainy day store says after james course in creative live, I did my first youtube video for my ebay store. I sucked, but I jumped in and I posted it less. Now, the next video, I will know how to improve and make it better, and I will not be so scared, awesome, helping people.