Today’s featured expert guest blogger is Janet Slack. Janet shares how to power up your social media with multimedia.
Multimedia encompasses any media that isn’t just text. Think audio, video, slideshow presentations, teleseminars, or webinars and you’re thinking multimedia.
Using various types of media with your blog or social media posts gives you many ways to connect with your audience members. People like to consume their information in a range of different ways, and by providing your content in multimedia format, you give your subscribers or followers a choice of how they want to interact with you.
Here are some of the most popular multimedia choices and why you should consider adding them to your social media marketing arsenal.
Audio: Podcasting and Content Downloads
Audio content has really taken off in the age of the iPod, iPhone, Android and tablet. Just about everyone has a portable audio player available in one of their electronics now.
Having your content in audio format makes it easy for people to listen while they’re on the go. It’s especially appealing for people who like to learn, but don’t want to set time aside to read a book.
Instead, they like to listen and learn while they’re on the bus, in their car, walking to lunch or while exercising. The audio format makes it easy for them to do that.
Video: Letting Them See the Real You
How you appear in video approximates who you are in real life in a way that isn’t available in other media.
When reading text, people often form images of you that just aren’t how you actually are. When you’re on video, however, it’s a lot easier for people to get to know the real you.
The visual connection helps to build the sense of community with your audience. Your viewer is developing a relationship with you as you really are. This in turn results in more trust, more sales, more backlinks and more partnership opportunities.
Webinars & Online Slideshow Presentations
Other common forms of multimedia are webinars and online slideshow presentations.
One benefit of both of these types of media is that they help you to establish yourself as an expert in your market. Both are powerful ways of getting your message across and to help your audience be familiar with your skills and ability to assist them.
Another benefit to using these types of media is that they offer you a stellar opportunity to sell products. Online presentations can build a great deal of trust for audience members and it’s possible to generate significant sales from a well placed and carefully crafted offer.
Multimedia Free or for a Fee
The most basic way to
deliver multimedia is in a free online format. Simply encode your audio content in MP3 format or upload your short video content to YouTube or Vimeo and make it available online. Webinar systems will record your presentation for you and SlideShare and Prezi are ways to share your slideshows with your audiences.
A more complex way of delivering your multimedia content would be to charge for it. The revenue generated from video or audio content is often much greater than for the same material in written format.
In order to use multimedia to generate revenue, you’ll need to have a fulfillment system of some sort. You can deliver your content electronically with an autoresponder such as in an online membership program. If you want to deliver physical products, you could burn and mail CDs or DVDs. However, if your website gets significant traffic, you’ll probably need to work with a fulfillment house for production and distribution of the physical products.
Using multimedia with your blog and other social media marketing is one of the best ways to take your business up a level. Give people the opportunity to interact with you in a variety of different ways and watch them respond with increased trust, connection and sales.
Janet Slack is a well-known author, coach, speaker and blogger on topics related to running a successful small business. She has guided hundreds of other entrepreneurs in their use of social media to grow their businesses and fatten their wallets. You can get a free copy of her popular book Biz Tips for Entrepreneurs filled with dozens of ideas for marketing YOUR biz here.
Ready to learn other ways to build your business. Check out Janet’s book Biz Tips. Click here
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