Speaker 1: how to optimize your videos for the web. Welcome to Video Marketing Made Easy, where we believe video is the most powerful way to monetize your message, stand out in the market, and grow your business. When it comes to optimizing your video for the web, here are some important tips and strategies to consider. First, you wanna make sure you have the right file type. This is where it gets pretty technical, so ideally you have a video editor on your team or you work with an agency like us at videosupply.com, because when it comes to this detail, you wanna make sure that you have the video file type prepared for how you're being distributed. You wanna make sure your video file type is exported and customized for how it's going to be published. Then this comes with the first step. When you go to plan and create a video, you ask yourself, where is this video gonna be published at? Is it gonna be on YouTube first, on Instagram? Is it gonna be for an event? Whatever it may be, you wanna understand where exactly it's being distributed. And also, if you're considering your website where it's being distributed, that can be multiple forms. Maybe you're embedding a YouTube video, so that's YouTube slash website, or maybe you're embedding a Vimeo or Wistia or Vidyard, whatever it may be, know what that is because each of those platforms often call for a slight variation with the file type. Most often, it's an MP4, H.264, compressed for the web, and programs like Adobe Premiere Pro really help you in an easy way export for each specific platform, be that YouTube, Vimeo, et cetera. So understand what video file type you need. Along these lines, you also wanna understand how to frame your videos. Part of this comes down to optimizing it when you go to film, and you should plan this before you even hit record. Is your video gonna need to be in a vertical mode, which fits great for most social media platforms nowadays, or a square mode for many ads that go on social media? Or is it horizontal? Understanding exactly like, hey, is this video going to be for Instagram specifically, Instagram video, vertical on that feed, TikTok, then you can film natively that way or originally that way. I often recommend though that all videos should start, especially if it's not done from your phone camera, should be horizontal, landscape mode. Because that way, if you end up using it for any other platforms or uses in the future, then you're not like limited based on framing. You see here, I'm filming wide enough with me in the frame, so that way I can crop it out. And my cropping out doesn't end up being like my face is really tight on that vertical screen. And there's also space and use on the side that I can add graphics. My team can add animations over here, things like that. Again, coming down to your platform and your channel of choice for how you're gonna publish your videos, you wanna make sure you understand that you have the right length of your video. I have videos that are often scripted from a teleprompter, so I know the exact length, or other videos like this have talking points, but they're not scripted. So I make plenty of mistakes. I maybe ramble sometimes. And so the length can feel like it varies quite a bit. But when you know the end use of your video, how it's gonna be published, whether it needs to be 60 seconds for like an Instagram reel or TikTok, or 10 minutes, 60 minutes, you can adapt the video length and the structure and planning of that video appropriately. Another tip is to consider compression. Compression is just a simple way to shrink down that file size. As you've gotten into video, you've probably seen this, video files can take up a lot of storage. You no longer get into the multiple megabytes, which is what often photos or designs may be, but you get into the multiple terabytes, and then that builds up into terabytes of footage. We even had petabytes at a previous company that I've worked with. And so it's pretty insane the amount of file storage that you need. And so you should plan accordingly. You should optimize your videos to know, hey, is this going to crash when I try to upload it? If you're uploading from your computer to YouTube, that's a bit easier. You can have a larger file size, so you don't need to do much compression. But if you are trying to airdrop it or transfer it to your phone to then upload it native to a social media platform, there may be some issues there. Maybe there's not enough storage on your phone to hold that file if it's multiple gigs or more, or maybe the platform doesn't support that. So understand what are your limitations and opportunities for how the video is going to be distributed. Again, this all comes down to that initial planning question where you ask, how is my video going to be published? Where is it going to be published? You also wanna make sure that your videos are optimized for mobile. You wanna prioritize, in fact, mobile because you're gonna get the most views when you cater to how people are actually consuming videos nowadays on their phone. I think of my wife, she's watching Vampire Diaries from her phone while the kids are using the TV, watching some kid show, and she can get her fix of her current flavor of the week, favorite show. And you find that many other people are doing the same, whether it's a blockbuster movie or TV show from their favorite streaming app on their phone or oftentimes social media, right? Jumping on YouTube from your phone, from a tablet. Desktop happens, it does, but it's not near as frequent nor should it be prioritized the same way. So again, coming down to, hey, where is my audience hanging out? What is that platform, that channel that I need to prioritize and then how can I customize video content for that platform? So ask yourself that and prioritize having mobile first content. Another strategy for optimizing your videos for the web is to have a content delivery network. This simply is where you go to upload your final videos. This may be YouTube specifically or something a little bit more customizable and private that works well for your video marketing like Wistia, Vidyard. There are other tools, video hosting platforms out there, but these content delivery networks are a powerful way to build up a video library, a resource library for your customers and your company. This may look like a library of internal trading videos for often more larger corporations or even small startups, or it may be, hey, I'm gonna build up a resource library specific to this industry or type of client on my YouTube channel in a playlist, but that playlist also lives on a landing page on my website where in outreach emails, I can send that link to say, people in the knowledge industry, course creators, and they can see how we are an authority and an expert on the topic and best serve them. Another strategy for web optimized video content is your streaming strategy, the apps and softwares you use. Video streaming, live broadcasts, whether it's directly from your phone, professional camera like this, your webcam, whatever it may be, having streamlined processes in order to broadcast live your message is really important and it's a great way to optimize your video for the web. Part of that comes down to having a fast internet, an upload speed for your streaming to happen without any kickbacks or lags, but also you want to have a few more bells and whistles to make your live experience better. If it's native to say the Instagram platform and you're joining with someone else, you're doing kind of a tag team live stream or a solo live stream that works specific to that platform, but something like YouTube or Facebook or other platforms that you're broadcasting your message on, a great way to add more to it is using something like Ecamm Live or StreamYard, a way that you can add live graphics onto your video. And in doing so, you do want to, again, make sure that you've tested it beforehand, that there's no lag and you don't have an interruption in your broadcast. And that's a great way to optimize and prepare videos for the web in a live experience. And another quick tip to optimize your videos for the web is to understand the requirements for HTML5. When you go to upload, say to your WordPress, Squarespace, Webflow site, whatever it may be for your website, you want to know that, hey, my video is optimized and compressed and ready to go in order to be embedded on my website. So that way there's no lag or interruption in that experience. If you're trying to bog down a page and your load speeds are dragging down, slowing down, because videos are not properly prepared and optimized for your landing pages, your blog pages, whatever it may be on your website, then you're interrupting the customer experience. So you want to improve that as much as possible, but understanding the limitations and again, opportunities that are available to using HTML5 and any additional compression that may be needed, whether you're doing an upload on your intranet or your internal distribution platform for video or your external one, like on social media and that embed on the website and seeing what restrictions may exist and how to improve page load speeds for your website. When we talk about optimizing your videos for the web, it simply means optimizing it for SEO. An easy way for people to hop into Google or Bing or Yahoo, if you are Yahoo enough to use those other ones, jump into Google, search for it on Google, YouTube, which is the second biggest search engine, by the way, and they can find your videos and your content that way. Removing that interruption, optimizing with keywords, titles, metadata, all of that good stuff when it comes to SEO. So that way people can easily find you, see how amazing your business is and then buy and work with you. Thanks for tuning in. When you're ready to get started creating professional and high-performing video content from anywhere in the world, go to videospy.com, set up a free account, click on that get started button and explore our creative marketplace of video production services. We have services customized for YouTube marketing, growing your YouTube channel, a video strategy consult, if you don't know where to begin with video to grow your business, writing video scripts, doing video edits, growing your brand on LinkedIn and other video production opportunities, all available in our creative marketplace at videospy.com. And let us know if you have any questions along your journey of building a video supply in order to stand out and be amazing for your audience of customers.