Lets face the greatest thing about building a brand on the Interenet is that with a very small monetary investment you can build your local business brand in a relatively quick period of time.  Where in the past small local businesses could not compete in building a brand bigger then big corporations with deep pockets  today small local businesses can play with the big boys and get better results with very little investment capital.  You do this is by using social networks (Facebook, Linked, content voting sites (Digg, Mixx, Reddit), social bookmarking sites (StumbleUpon, Delicious) and micro-blogging sites (Twitter).  

There are hundreds sites that you can post your content and build a brand virally in a matter of months.  However  it could take you hours to syndicate one piece your content to all of these social media sites if not a coupe of days and that does not even guarantee that anyone will see your content let alone that it will take off virally.  Also if you do not have strong network of collaborators on these networks to vote, bookmark and share your content, it may never get the exposure it deserves and needs to create that viral brand.  That is where content syndication networks come in handy.  My personal favorite, because I found its so powerful, is Synnd.

Synnd is a network, a community of people who post, vote and bookmark content for each other on a credit membership basis.  This is similar to the collaborative communities that form on social networks the difference is that this is a paid membership that automates the boring tasks allowing you more time to create content, market and serve your customers.  The members will vote, bookmark and share your content and if your content is good this will give it a chance and the necessary exposure to go viral.  If your content is exceptional, powerful and educational all you will need is just this small push to create a viral effect for your content and virally branding your business by giving it social proof.  

Synnd is not a guarantee that your content will go viral or that you will build a strong business brand overnight.  However it help to give your business and local marketing a better chance.  It is dependant on how good your content and services or products are that will in the end be the deciding factor is you will achieve local business branding through the Synnd content syndication network.  It could the the missing power tool in your small business advertising arsenal.

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When it comes to local business marketing on the Internet today, a strong branding strategy is key.  An incredibly fast to brand your local business is by distributing videos online. Videos are a powerful branding strategy and the most popular video network is YouTube. However just posting on video on one social network like YouTube is not enough.  Youtube is the most popular video sharing site out there   but its only 60% of online video viewers use YouTube.

YouTube is only one video sharing site amongst approximately 60 or so other sites.   Another purpose for distributing videos online is for the search engine optimization (SEO) value to help you build more authority links to your business website. This means that if you just distribute your videos to YouTube not only are you missing out on the other 40% of possible customers but on about 60 quality links to your website.  That is a major reason to be submitting your video to all the video sharing networks not just the most popular one.

You have to have a strategy to distributing your videos to all these online video sharing sites.  To create a strong local business marketing strategy on the Internet you need to have videos in your arsenal.  Howerver just to submit one video to the 60 plush video sharing networks with the proper linking, tagging description and titles, it can take you hours. However there are ways and tools that can dramatically shorten your time to just minutes.  These are called video syndication software and the most popular isTrafficGeyser and there are a few other like TubeMogule, But I personally prefer the first one though most do the video syndication efficiently.

Alright so what this video syndication software does is it allows you to make just create description,  tags and titles for your video once and then it goes out and distributes these videos online to all the video sites.  This is done with a push of a button in a natural human looking way.  I love these because of spending your time submitting one video to 60 plus sites you submit it once to this software, it does the boring work for you and you can concentrate on creating more great videos for your local business and actually spend time serving your customers.

This is a very powerful branding strategy and if you create powerful magnet videos to brand your business you will draw potential customers to your website wanting more information or even to contact you to do business with you.  This video distributing strategy has also the potential to go viral is you combine it with social media marketing strategies like social content sharing (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn)  social bookmarking and social content voting sites.

Videos are a great branding strategy because people love to watch videos.  If your video is good, compelling or entertaining there is a huge chance that it could grow your business brand almost in weeks. If people like the video, they will want to share it with their friends and if their friends like it they will also share it with their friends and so forth.  Can you see how this has the potential to grow exponentially?

That is why distributing videos online is such an important strategy for local business marketing and why you should use all the video sharing sites, not just YouTube. So that you can reach a wider audience looking for information about your products or services on the Interenet. That way even if you just provide services in your town or city your local customers will be more likely to find you and trust to pay for your services because you have a strong brand and most importantly social proof.

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Posted via email from smallbusinessadvertising’s posterous

 many business owner feel intimidates about video creation when they shouldn't be.  As a business owner you have two options for creating professional online videos:

1. Do it yourself

2. Hire an Internet marketing and video marketing company.

Both options are inexpensive options when compared with traditional TV and radio commercials but also can return a greater return on investment since they can reach a very targeted audience who's looking for information on a particular niche product or services.  Wether you choose to do videos yourself or hire professional video marketing services there are generally three types of videos that can be made to  promote local business and to brand yourself as a local leader in your niche.  

1. Image and music videos.  This type of video involves having images and perhaps text that deliver the message for your business. This is basically a slide show of images with music to enhance the message.  This is the simplest form of online video, great if you are to shy to have your voice herd.  When the right type of images are used with complementary music these videos can look very professional. You can easily create a slide show using Microsoft Movie Maker if you are a PC user. 

2. Screen capture video.  These videos tend to be presentation or how to videos and usually require for the presenter to talk. To create a presentation video you can use PowerPoint presentation, or  Keynote for Mac , a screen capture software like Camtasia or Screen Flow (again for Mac users)  and a microphone with an USB connection.  You can also do pure how to videos of your screen.  For example if your product is software you could explain how to use your software and what it does.  you can also easily edit these videos to include introduction and background music.

3. Creating an actual video of yourself or actors.  These type of videos could include be an interview, a walk through of business, you just talking in to the camera about your product, customer reviews and testimonials as well as skits or commercials done by actors. Depending on what type of video you do these can be scripted or raw and

-scripted.   The best videos of this type when a you share actual knowledge or how to. Lets say you are a local business offers landscaping services you create how to videos on how to do a water feature.  These can be very powerful as marketing your business as the expert in the area and getting you eager customers who want nice landscaping but don't want to do it themselves.  Possibilities are endless with these type of videos that is why they are the most popular.  With the proper software you can also edit these videos to suit, by adding beginning and end credits as well as background music.  For best results be sure to use an HD camera that allows you to plug in an external microphone for better sound quality. 

It is quite simple to create you own professional video online and brand your leadership skills in your market.  But if the task of creating video is still daunting remember you always have the option to hire an online marketing company to create professional videos for you. The prices usually vary on what type of video you want as well as if you if you have a script written or need one to be written for you. However it is often a great option that saves you time, is cost effective and becomes a powerful local business marketing strategy that can become viral marketing in a short period of time and generate endless leads for your business.

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, your business YouTube channel and your Twitter.  It is easy to integrate all these social content networks by using what are called applications or apps.  For blogs I recommend an application called NetworkedBlogs, it migrates your blog posts to your Fan Page wall.  The best part about this app as opposed to just using the notes application, is that if someone clicks on the link to read your blog they are taken to your business blog where you can promote and sell any products and services for your business.  

To integrate you YouTube channel and Twitter to your fan page you need to get two apps from a website called Involver.com.  You can get two apps for free and I personally recommend YouTube, since videos will keep your customers engaged. Also video is a great way to get out any message to your clients in a fun, educational and entertaining way.  People love to watch videos.  The second application can be what ever social network or information sharing platform you may have for advertising your business, I personally use Twitter.  

Another plus for Facebook advertising using Fan Pages is that you can get reviews and give feedback from your present and past customers.  This is a great way to generate social proof and further brand your business, so always encourage your customers to leave reviews.  More features that are fantastic for marketing and promotional purposes are the Discussion Board and the Events features.  

The discussion board lets your customers or potential customers connect with your business. It enables them to get their ideas out in the open and lets you know what your customers and others think and want.  This is a great feature to really get to know your local market and what they really want when it comes to your business.  

The events feature is great for announcing events that you may have happening for your business.  These could include meet and greet with customers, free seminars, special offers or even announcing new products or services that you offer.  The possibilities are endless and what's more this is free advertising to a very targeted audience.  

If you already started using your personal Facebook page for business the best way to transition people on to your business fan page is to just simply invite them.  Most should accept especially if you share valuable information that they are interested in.  Another way to get more fans your you business page is to just promote it with Facebook ads.  This is very easy to do and if you already have a fan page you may have noticed that Facebook really wants you to do that and makes it really easy.  Just be sure to target your market demographic correctly. 

If you are a local business using Facebook advertising be sure to specify your area that you do business in, ie. the location.  This will specifically target your customers to your area of business and won't waist your ppc costs on customers who are out of your range.  Yes Facebook ppc advertising costs but it is inexpensive compared with Google Adwords and you can really specify your target demographic.  You should also promote your Facebook fan page on your website, this is done what is called widgets, and is really simple include into your business blog.  

Facebook advertising is about keeping your customers engaged, branding your business and standing you as an expert in your business niche at the same time. People who become fans of your business and services can easily become your future customers. These are people who have already raised their hands and shown interest in your products or services, this makes them more likely to do business with you.  Keeping your customers engaged on Facebook means you need to create quality contet on a regular basis.  Local business marketing with Facebook is an ongoing strategy but a very powerful one.

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