infopreneur
Increasing Your Video Stream Quality
Live video streaming is quickly becoming one of the next ‘big things’ in internet marketing. This is a platform that really gives consumers the ability to watch live feeds from people all around the world, effectively becoming a ‘fly on the wall’ or seeing the world through their eyes. The potential uses are almost limitless and because of that it is creating a lot of excitement and buzz.
This is the real appeal of live video streaming and so the quality of the content doesn’t really matter. A lot of the footage is going to be filmed on mobile phones, which means it will be low resolution and the filming will probably be shaky.
So if you want to provide the best possible content for your audience, you’ll need to think about how you can improve your video quality. Here are a few things that will affect your video quality:
Camera
Most live video streams will be filmed through a camera phone, or in the case of Blab, a webcam. Because of this, most videos are likely to be relatively low-quality, and this is made even worse by the fact that the majority of the phone footage will probably be done using the front-facing camera.
So the first thing you can do to make your resolution a little more crisp is to consider investing in a better camera phone with a higher resolution front facing camera. And don’t forget to also look at the temporal resolution – AKA the framerate. This is more often an issue with webcams.
Sound
You also need to think about your audio. This will be partly determined by your camera but you also need to consider your recording environment (how are the acoustics?) and how close you’re sitting to the microphone.
Environment
Environment affects your sound and also your visual appeal i.e. you will also need to think about the backdrop of your videos. Ideally, you will want to create a professional feel to your video, so that means you should have a clean and tidy professional backdrop i.e. don’t film in your front room with washing piled up in the background!
You will also need to think about the lighting. The best way to ensure even lighting is to have separate light sources on your left or right side to create what’s known as ‘Rembrandt’ lighting.
Connection
Something that many people will overlook is to make sure that you have a stable internet connection! There’s nothing more frustrating than a video that keeps buffering, freezing or stopping halfway through. You should make sure that you have a good connection and always stream over WiFi rather than a data connection where possible.
Getting Started With Live Video Streaming
If you’re a complete newcomer to the world of live video streaming and you’ve never streamed a video before, then you may be nervous going in front of a camera. This is a natural fear as you’re going to be exposing your true self live on the feed and the whole process is different to any other form of marketing. Where do you start? Hopefully this article will get you set up and hopefully give you the confidence to begin making lots more videos.
Setting It Up
The first thing you need to do is to set up your account on one of the 3 major streaming platforms; Periscope, Meerkat or Blab. The simplest way to do this is to install the app. Periscope, Meerkat and Blab each have apps on iPhone and Periscope and Meerkat also have Android equivalents. If you’re looking to use Blab and you don’t have an iOS device, then you will need to access it on your PC/Mac and point your browser to https://blab.im/
After you have created your account, the set-up process is similar for each of these platforms; decide whether you want to sign in using your Twitter account or a phone number and then enter a username and password if you chose the latter.
Now you can choose whether you want to start following your existing Twitter contacts, or, in Meerkat’s case, your Facebook contacts.
Roll Camera!
So how do you begin streaming?
To start streaming is quite straightforward; the app will have a button that says ‘Start Streaming.’
Give some thought when creating a title for your stream and with Blab choose relevant tags that will define what category of content you’re creating. These are important features as they are what will dictate whether or not people can find your live stream and whether they decide to check out your footage.
Don’t worry if you find it a daunting prospect when first turning on your camera and letting anyone watch. If you are REALLY nervous why not start with a very small test – just point your camera at something and film. As these are relatively new platforms you’ll probably find that this alone is enough to land you a few new followers and this in turn should give you the confidence you need to set up something a little more ambitious in the future.
It really is that simple and straightforward to start live streaming and while there are many more options and things you can learn, this is more than enough to get you started! And who knows, the camera may love you, and you love it!
How to Start Making Money in a Small Niche Using a Simple Business Model
When it comes to succeeding as an online marketer most people will make the same mistake. And what is that mistake? Their ambition!
Unfortunately, being too ambitious is a very common downfall for new many online marketers as they basically bite off more than they can chew and this causes them to give up too easily.
Instead of aiming to become rich or change the world right from the start, be more sensible and start off small. Aim to accomplish a small goal first and then build on each success to eventually reach your ultimate goal. There is nothing wrong with dreaming big but you need to be realistic in your expectations in the very beginning.
So what might this look like in practice?
The Micro Niche Site Business Model
SmartPassiveIncome.com is a blog owned by internet marketer Pat Flynn where he shares his methods to make money. One of his most successful recent ventures was a website aimed at food trucks. This is a very small niche and the benefit here is that the small size of the niche made it easy for him to find highly effective marketing techniques (ways to communicate with the target demographic).
If you compare this with creating a website in a huge niche such as fitness, you can imagine how much easier it is to get noticed and to reach the right audience when the niche is small.
Pat monetised his website by selling an eBook aimed at those food trucks that would help them make more money and apply smart business skills.
THIS is a perfect business model for new online marketers to start with. You need to decide on an appropriate niche (sticking with a career is a popular choice) and you may decide that you’d rather sell an affiliate item. This general model simple to set up and a good place to start for the inexperienced marketer.
Why does it work?
So what’s so good about this business model? Well, choosing a small “micro”niche to operate in means that it will be MUCH easier for you to get noticed by your potential prospects. If you decide to use PPC (Pay Per Click – a form of paid advertising) your advertising costs will be lower in this niche compared to what you would pay for a larger niche and subsequent keywords such as a bodybuilding or dating related keyword.
This will also help you to come up with a very clear value proposition and offering. Ideally, your product should set out to solve ONE specific problem for a very specific group of people. This makes it much easier to market and promote such a product to the people most likely to buy it.
Facebook and email marketing
Facebook has 1 over billion users and over 600 million active daily users. And it also has the broadest age-range diversity, and all this means that you can get in front of a giant that caters to the needs to every business, every marketer, no matter what niche they are in.
Because it has such an active users base, and such diverse demographics, any serious business MUST be on Facebook.
This is why all businesses need to have a Facebook fan page. And the good news is that with the Facebook Fan page and its additional promotion tabs, you can combine Facebook and email marketing together to reach people and, most importantly, engage them!
This is great news for you in two ways: it adds value to your social media efforts and it also helps you build your email list efficiently.
There are numerous ways that a marketer or a business can increase their social presence on Facebook and engage their fans, hence creating brand awareness and building brand trust, while at the same time making sure they are building their email subscriber list.
However, out of the many methods available, only a handful are truly worth your time, effort, and the money you invest.
After all, even if you do need to spend money in order to make money (which is generally true), you know that the key is to have a great return on investment (ROI) and this means that you could effectively be getting subscribers for free! If you are spending $1 to gain a subscriber and your average ROI per subscriber is $1 you are building your list for free; in this case the key to building a list quickly is to spend more!
Next time we’ll look at how you can use Facebook promotions to engage your audience and how you can use those types of promotions to increase your email list.
How to use articles and free reports to build your list
Well, this is the the final post in this list building series. I hope you have enjoyed these posts and learned a lot about building and maintaining your first email list. In this post you will learn how to use articles and free reports to build your list.
Getting new customers for your business should be your number one priority. It is every bit as important as providing a high quality product or service and this should go hand in hand with providing the best customer service you can, because happy customers are repeat customers.
Email marketing is a very low cost strategy that is proven to be very effective when used properly. Your email list gives you the chance to communicate information about your business, products and services to your subscribers on a regular basis. It can also be used to market new products and ideas and to provide excellent customer service.
As stated in a previous post, once your website visitors subscribe to your list they basically have given their consent for you to send them information, promotional materials and also to follow up with them after they make a purchase. It is essential when using email marketing that you present your promotional items in a way that grabs the attention of your subscribers and keeps them wanting more.
One of the best ways to do this is to provide fun, entertaining and high quality informational articles. Well written articles packed with useful information will help you to build your list and keep your subscribers on your list for longer.
Many entrepreneurs already understand the importance of using articles to increase traffic, attract new customers and for search engine optimization. Well written articles will not only provide the information people are looking for, but it will also help them find you.
Whenever you write and post an article online, whether that be on your website or blog, or submitting it to an article directory such as Ezinearticles.com, it will be indexed by the search engines. Then when people go online to search for information related to the topic of your article you will have a much better chance of being found and thus attracting their attention.
The real magic of using articles in this way is to use them to provide a link back to your optin form via the signature block. Use this for every article you publish or submit online. The signature box is simply a short note at the end of your article that may include some basic information about you (the author), your business and a link back to your website/blog where they can find more information.
A tried and tested way of improving the results you receive from every article you publish is to offer readers a free report containing more information on the topic to anyone who clicks the link and subscribes to your email list.
If you have ever subscribed to an email list in exchange for a free report or short course then you have seen this technique in action and you know first-hand that it works!
When you start building your first email list it’s important to remain focused on your main objectives. There is a lot to learn and the process may take some time, so do your research, learn everything you can and you will have no problem getting the results you desire.
Now go out there and build your list. You won’t regret it…