{!date dayname+0}, {!date long+0} Dear {!firstname_fix} Well, it's been another busy week but as we approach the end of the school year in the UK, it is a reminder that the summer hols are almost upon us. Unless you work in travel or tourism, the coming few weeks are likely to be amongst your least busy in the year. That means you will have some extra time to reflect on your business and plan for the future. Most people leave future planning towards the end of the year; but that's when the days are short and dark and when you feel less positive. Far better to use the summer weeks to plan for your future business as you will do it with a much more positive frame of mind. So, instead of laying on the beach with a trashy novel, why not take a notebook and scribble down your ideas for your business? Now, to this week's question - and you may even
be able to consider my answer as part of your planning
activities...! YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED: How important is online video? Every minute of every day some 24 hours' worth of video is uploaded to YouTube. That means if you had a spare hour a day to watch some video you would need a year just to view what was uploaded onto YouTube today...! Each year, almost 13m hours of video is uploaded to YouTube - and considering each recording has a maximum time limit of 10 minutes, that's a heck of a lot of video...! Yet, in spite of all this frenetic uploading, video is still a comparatively minority online activity. For example, only 31% of people who use the internet look at educational or business videos online. Overall, half of adults watch some online video. But much of that usage is by people under the age of 29 who are mostly watching comedy videos. Great if you are in the comedy business, not so good if you are in business trying to use video to promote your work..! The headline statistics allow us to avoid the truth, though. Even though 50% of adults watch video online at some time each month, we should not forget that 100% of online adults read stuff online every day...! In other words, reading is much more popular than video online. That means that writing is significantly more important than video recording in your business. Video is important - but don't get carried away with all the headlines and the hype. Video should be part of your "content mix", as should audio, presentations and so on. But written content should dominate. That means in terms of effort, you should put more time into writing than you do into video. But frequently people spend more time on a five minute video than they do on a 500 word article. TV companies, for instance, notoriously spend hours getting particular shots, re-recording material and making it "just right". It costs a lot of money for an hour of good TV. Factual TV can cost as much as £100,000 an hour and the programme may only make a couple of points that people can remember. How much do you spend on an article that will make the same points? True, TV can have a real impact on people and your online video can achieve the same. But don't forget that so can your words. Reflect for a moment on the things that have changed your life or had a real long-lasting impact on you or your business. Have you been most influenced by a TV programme, or by the written word? When people are asked this question, mostly it is the written word which wins. That means whilst you can use video to enhance your web offering and to make your content more interesting and engaging, if you have to decide where to spend your money for the greatest impact, the written word should get most of your resources. I am in the midst of writing a White Paper about online video and a report on best practices for online video. That will be on my website at the end of the month, so keep an eye out for it. Remember, you can always ask your question and get it answered in this newsletter by going to: http://www.grahamjones.co.uk/questions
WHAT I LEARNED THIS WEEK: Your energy comes from the people around you This week I went to my son's end of year school production - "Cinderella, Rockerfella". The main characters in this update of the old pantomime were played by Year 6 children (aged 11) with some help from the younger primary children. It was brilliant with some very enthusiastic pantomime dames...! We were encouraged to boo, hiss, cheer and sing along - as usual for pantomimes. But one of the teachers who had helped lead the children said to me during the interval that the performance I attended was better than the one the day before. Afterwards, when the head teacher gave a short speech, it became clear why. Our audience was much more enthusiastic in its booing and cheering it seemed...! The day before had been a little more reticent - partly because the previous day's audience was mostly made up of infant children, unused to the requirements of a panto audience...! But the head teacher pointed out that the children on stage had obviously felt the energy in the room and had responded to it. And that is an important point - your energy, enthusiasm and desire to do whatever you need to do is not entirely of your own making. We all depend upon the people around us to give us the energy we need to succeed. This means if you want to truly succeed you need to surround yourself with energy givers - the equivalent of an enthusiastic panto audience. If you are surrounded by "drains" - people who suck the energy out of you - then your chances of success are reduced. Finding the right people to surround yourself with is an important factor in your business success.If you want to check out what else I've been doing for the past week, you can always look at: http://www.grahamjones.co.uk/week
THIS WEEK'S "MUST BUY":
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So, that's it for this week - see you in seven days...! Kind Regards
Graham Jones Web: grahamjones.co.uk Tel: +44 118 336 9710 If you no longer wish to receive this newsletter than you can delete your name from the mailing list by clicking this link: {!remove_web} |
