How to Use Online Video as a Tool to Market Your Practice
Naren Arulrajah
Health care practitioners, including chiropractors, should consider online videos as a key element of their Internet marketing strategy. In the next three years, videos are expected to account for nearly 70 percent of all consumer online traffic, according to Cisco. YouTube alone receives more than a billion unique visitors every month. Video production costs have reduced substantially in recent years, and user-friendly tools have made it easier to create video content.
Creating a Video
You don't have to invest in outsourcing video production to a professional company in order to promote your practice. The Internet provides a number of creative options to produce quick and simple videos as a part of your marketing strategy. Here are just a few popular video creation tools you may want to test drive:
Screencast.com: The format of Screencast allows you to produce videos by taking screen shots and adding your voiceover in the background. You can use this tool to create demos and visual explanations about a health care procedure. You can also use the voice-over feature in PowerPoint presentations to make a greater impact on your target audience.
Animoto.com: Animoto has made online video production simpler than ever. You can create a video simply by using high-quality visual backgrounds, motion formats and edits it provides, and integrate them with videos or still pictures. Animoto also includes a music library so you can add background sound or music to your video.
Getbravo.com: This is an innovative tool that encourages interaction between you and your patients or other associates. Your patients can use Getbravo to create testimonial videos and send them to you for review. You choose to approve and showcase these user-generated videos on your practice website, blog or social networks.
Setting Up a YouTube Channel
YouTube lets you create and customize your own channel that exclusively contains your videos for public view. To set up a YouTube channel, just follow these simple steps:
Create your own Google+ account, if you do not have one already.
Visit YouTube.com and sign in with your Google+ login and password.
Click on your profile image in the upper-right corner of the screen to display the Google Account Menu.
Click on the "My Channel" link shown in the upper half of the screen to reveal the "Create Your YouTube Channel" screen.
Click on the "Edit" button to customize your Google+ profile, which will be your online identity for the people viewing your videos.
Click on the "OK, I'm Ready to Continue" button.
Congratulations! You've just established your very own YouTube Channel. Now you can begin uploading videos of your choice and sharing them with others on the world's second-largest search engine.
Creating Video Content
Whether you create your online videos yourself or hire the services of a professional online marketing company, the content of the videos must be highly appealing to your target viewers. Focus on the most pressing problems and concerns of your potential patients, empathize with their situation, and explain how you can provide the solution. Once you have adequately addressed the problem and the most effective solution, move on to talk about the strengths of your practice.
Explain how your practice can be differentiated from most others, and what kind of innovative or unique procedures and services you offer. Focus on a few key benefits that will influence the viewers most positively. Finally, make sure you end the video with an impactful call to action. Ask viewers to check out your practice website, connect with you over social media, sign up for your online newsletter, or simply phone you for an appointment.
Make sure your video is concise and relevant to the context to keep the viewer glued to the screen. Try to keep the total length of the video to less than four minutes whenever possible; the longer the video, the greater the challenge to retain the interest of your audience. Therefore, choose only subjects or procedures that can be described adequately through a brief video. If you can do justice to an entire subject in a short video, you can embed the video in a descriptive article or blog.
Videos are an effective marketing tool for you because visuals attract more attention and provide greater understanding than other forms of content. People instinctively use the human face as a collection point for information and trustworthiness. A human voice delivers rich information and leaves a more meaningful impact. Human emotions are contagious, and a person's body language and voice can convey the right emotions very effectively.
So get started! Begin creating and sharing videos on topics directly related to your chiropractic passion. You will be pleased with the impact it has on your practice and your overall online reputation.
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