Young Successful Entrepreneur

I am very proud to announce that the first season of Living the Startup Life is now complete!  (Yes I know… took quite a while, huh?) Video is becoming more and more powerful, and I have noticed that a lot of entrepreneurs and Gen Y bloggers are starting to use it to add a more transparent, personal element to their blog.

Just some of my favorite Gen Y Vloggers:

• Brian Linton
• Ryan Stephens
• Rebecca Thormon

I taped Startup Life episodes from Summer 2008 - Winter 2008 and had a blast doing it, but more importantly, I’ve learned the Do’s and Don’ts of creating your own video show.  If I had to start things all over again, I think I would have done things totally differently.  Luckily, I’m taping Startup Life Season 2 starting next week! So I have plenty of time to create a much better show.

Follow these tips that I have developed and you will create the most Awesome Video Series in the world!

1. Make the show a part of something larger

I had two videos shows last year: Living the Startup Life and Future Delivery TV.  I really had no direction with the shows other than to brand Future Delivery.  This was the key mistake here - I started the shows with no end goal in mind.  Most of you don’t want to be online actors; rather, you want to build your personal brand and become more transparent. Therefore, the goal is NOT to create an online show that attracts thousands of subscribers and hardcore fans; instead, the goal is to make the video show a part of something bigger.

Startup Life and Future Delivery TV will now become a part of JunLoayza.com.  My blog is about teaching young entrepreneurs how to build a successful startup company, so both shows fit perfectly with my blog’s vision.

Awesome Bloggers is a part of Viralogy.com.  By promoting the Aweseme Blogger videos, I am promoting the Viralogy platform.

Before you start your online show, think about how it fits in with your overall goals.  The video show is NOT the main product; it is a tool to help promote your main product.

2. Combine websites rather than create a separate one

As a follow up to point #1, do NOT create a separate URL for your video show.  I made the mistake of getting LivingtheStartupLife.com and FutureDelivery.tv, and also working on JunLoayza.com.  Individually, I had pretty decent traffic on each website.  The difficulty was that I was constantly trying to market each website individually, which was a HUGE suck on time.

Can you imagine how much greater my traffic would have been and how many more subscribers I would have on my blog right now if I had combined all the sites into JunLoayza.com from the beginning!?!  It would be seriously ridiculous!

This is why we are NOT using a separate website for Awesome Bloggers.  We are using Awesome.Viralogy.com.  In this way, we share the same traffic (which is great for sponsorships later on), and marketing one is like marketing the other.

3. Think about revenue from the very beginning

I started my first shows with the mindset of doing it only to brand the company.  This was a completely ridiculous mindset!  As a startup company, your goal is to make money as quickly and as often as possible so that you can stay alive!  Yes, it’s great to brand your company; however, your video show is going to take up A LOT of your time and energy.

The best way to monetize is to get sponsors for your video.  This can be done pretty easily actually.  Just go to video shows like LuckyStartups.com, look at who is sponsoring them, contact those companies, and tell them that you would like them to advertise on your video show.  This is a numbers game guys; do not get discourage when people will not pay to sponsor your videos.  Keep calling because eventually one company will say yes.

Focus on web 2.0 savvy companies.  Instead of going after Payless Shoes, go after Zappos.com.  They understand the power of social media and if you can prove that your audience is their target demographic, then you may just be able to convince them to sponsor your show.

4. You don’t need the best editing in the world!

Look, you don’t have to be a Final Cut Pro master to make a video show.  A simple knowledge of iMovie is really all you need.  But know that even if you are doing very simple editing, these videos are going to take a ridiculously long time to make!  I’m serious, my friend Chris and I would spend an entire weekend editing 2 episodes.

The trick is to be as efficient as possible with your taping. My first attempt at Living the Startup Life was a complete disaster!  I taped absolutely everything, thinking that if I got enough footage, we would go over the whole thing and pick and choose the best scenes.  This took such a long time that we decided to scrap the footage that I had taken and start over.  The best way to film a reality show is to tape ONLY the footage that you know you will use.  This greatly cuts down on editing time and will make your life much easier.

If you’re taping an interview show like Awesome Bloggers, your goal is to make sure your questions are in chronological order.  In this way, you don’t have to rearrange the order of the interview which can take a very long time to edit.

5. Keep each episode under 10 minutes

Our attention spans are close to nilch!  In order to adjust for this increasing epidemic of web sufer ADD, make sure that your episodes are under 10 minutes in length.  Our first season of Startup Life had episodes of up to 20 minutes in length!  I honestly thought that we were THAT interesting; I now know better.

The best way to keep your videos short is to make sure the footage is focused on 1 of 2 things:

• Does this footage bring unique value to my readers?
• Is this footage really hilarious and add an entertainment factor?

If the footage you shot does not fall into one of these two categories, then you can scrap the footage completely.  Remember, you goal is not only to create a more transparent company culture and have your viewers fall in love with your company, but more importantly, your goal is to make sure that your audience is as large and widespread as possible so that you can monetize your video show.

6. Keep your show updated at least once a week

Unfortunately, we were not able to keep Living the Startup Life up to date.  We had episodes that were shot in August of 2008 launch in November of 2008.  No one cares what happened to your company 2 months ago!  People care about the now and the present!

The best way to do this is to have 1 episode debut once a week.  This keeps your audience engaged and always eager for the next episode to come out the following week.  Something terrific that comes out of this is that your videos are naturally kept short.  It is difficult to get more than 10 minutes worth of amazing footage in a span of a week.  Also, the less footage you have, the easier editing is.

Filming, editing, and debuting videos in a span of a week is an absolutely beautiful thing for your video show!

7. Intro and Outros matter

I’ll be honest with you - the intro for Living the Startup Life kicks ASS!!!  Seriously, the editing is amazing, the sync with the music is flawless, and it really gets you pumped to watch the show.  I’ll be even more honest with you - the 30 second intro took a WHOLE weekend to make.

I have found that the best combination of Intros and Outros is to do the following:

First 10 seconds of vid: Find the most interesting 10 seconds of the episode and put it in the beginning.  This will captivate the viewer and make them want to see the entire episode to see what happened during those 10 seconds.

25 - 30 second unique music intro: This just makes your video show look Legit!  If you’re making an online documentary, then people will watch the 30 second intro because they just feel that a video show should have one. If you’re creating an interview show, similar to Awesome Bloggers, you’ll want to create an intro that is much quicker.  I’m currently in the process of creating our 5 second video intro for Awesome Bloggers.

20 second outro: I have found that the “Next time on Living the Startup Life” was extremely popular.  It made people want to keep watching the shows.  Of course, it is impossible to do the “Next time” when you haven’t even filmed next week’s footage.  Therefore, I recommend using something similar to what Brain Linton has done.  At the end of an episode, he will do a voice over where he either alludes to something that is coming up next week or asks his viewers a questions.

First of all, voice overs are really nice and very easy to do.  Secondly, by alluding to the future episode or asking the viewer a question, you further engage her and entice her to keep watching more shows.

8. Don’t use other peoples’ music

This one is a no brainer right!  Well, we DID use other peoples’ copyrighted music for Season 1.  The reason we did it was because we weren’t planning on making money with the videos; we just wanted to brand the company.

Since you should be thinking about monetizing from the very beginning, do NOT use copyrighted music.  If you have to, use the music that comes pre-built in the iMovie platform.  Heck, if you have a friend who is a musician, ask him to compose an intro and outro for your.  If you don’t make the ask, then you’ll never find out if he’ll do it.

9. Video brings you no SEO credit

The thing about video is that there is no written content for Google to index.  I have found a great solution to this.  If you check out Awesome Bloggers, you’ll notice that I have a complete, to the minute conversation breakdown of my interview.

This does two things:

1. It gives my viewers a great guideline of what happens during the episode.
2. It gives the search engines something to crawl and index

Do you know what is the number 1 source of traffic for my blog?  It’s Google.  Do NOT assume that you don’t need the power of Google to bring search traffic to your video show.  Make sure to create to the minute summaries of your videos and not only will Google’s bots thank you, but your viewers will thank you for putting in the extra time and effort.

10. Create interaction and community with the viewers

This is Web 2.0 people!  It’s not some TV show where you can’t interact with the characters; this is your online show and you want to interact with your audience as much as possible.

For example, I will Tweet out who I am interviewing next for Awesome Bloggers.  If my Tweeples have a question for my guest, they can @ me their questions and I’ll make sure to credit them during the video.  My Tweeples love this because they get to interact with me before the video interview, and even more importantly, they get credited during the interview so that viewers could potentially look up their Twitter profile and begin following them.

There are countless ways that you can generate a community and conversation with your video show: have contests and giveaways, put the Monitter widget on your sidebar (check out the Awesome Bloggers side bar), or do some Ustream episodes and interact with your audience live.  You are not just creating a web series; you are creating a conversation around your personal brand or product.

Bonus: It’s not about you; it’s about your VIEWERS

The point of creating your video show is NOT to boost up your own ego.  From the very beginning, your goal is to create a video show that will benefit your viewers in some extraordinary way.  Maybe your show teaches people how to properly plant flowers in your garden, or maybe your show is about personal development and motivating your viewers to become happier people.  Whatever your goals are, your number 1 priority is to make sure your viewers are happy and are greatly benefiting from watching your content.

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My goal is to be as detailed as possible with my posts from now on.  Yes, I know that it’s quite a read, but I feel that if you’re benefiting exponentially from my content, then the content is definitely worth the read.

I want you to start your own online show!  If you have any follow-up questions, make sure to ask me in the comments section.

Discussion: What is holding you back from starting your own web show?  What kind of web show would you like to create?