Penny Haynes

I have also placed it in podcasts and on other video sharing web sites - you never know who will see it and what business that can bring. So start letting people see who YOU are - literally! :)

Penny Haynes, Commercial Creation Center

In this episode of Marketing With Audio And Video, Debra Simpson of http://www.MagicInWords.com is Penny Haynes' guest. They discuss how best to repurpose content, and which social media and social networking sites are used the most, and why. Sponsored by http://www.CommercialCreationCenter.com.

Here is a link to the polled information we discuss regarding social media & social networking sites.

http://ping.fm/2hI62

For the entire hour-long audio show, click here: http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/29763

Join us live on Monday nights at 9pm EST.  Phone Number: (724) 444-7444, Call ID: 29763

The newest features are the Upload and Post features, which help you keep your multimedia in front of all of your networks, and in front of Google. Using TubeMogule and Ping.fm are two of the ways we help you do this.

I created a video from a 5 minute excerpt of our Marketing With Audio And Video radio show, and was on the 1ST PAGE of Google within 12 hours 'for marketing with audio and video' - four times on the 1st page!

Using the Commercial Creation Center multimedia production system and upload/post strategy will increase your search engine rankings and give you something to share with your networks and clients.  Try it out for free if you haven't done so already.  Go to http://www.commercialcreationcenter.com/.

CCC Members can also join us for our weekly mastermind sessions on Thursdays at 2pm EST, where we help each other come up with ideas for new audios and videos and ways to promote our businesses.  We also have monthly How-To classes to widen your range of multimedia influence.

If you'd like to know more about the CCC on a daily basis, please follow me on Twitter.  http://www.Twitter.com/pennyhaynes .

Echoing audio normally means that you are NOT using a headset microphone.  You are using either a built-in microphone or a desktop or web cam microphone.  It is picking up all of the sound in the room, and sometimes even the sound coming through your speakers.

I alternated between my web cam microphone and my headset microphone in this podcast, to demonstrate the HUGE difference that a headset microphone makes.  I also recorded it using the Commercial Creation Center Voice Recorder and Audio Mixer. I do all of my podcasts now with the Commercial Creation Center - whether audio or video.

So, use a headset microphone, (and if needed, turn your speakers down or completely off while recording) and you shouldn't have a problem with echoing audio!

For more tips about using audio and video to build up your business, tune in to "Marketing With Audio And Video", Monday nights at 9pm EDT on TalkShoe.  The link to the page to listen in is http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/29763.  The phone number to call is (724) 444-7444, Call ID: 29763.  We'd love for you to join us!

Penny Haynes, Commercial Creation Center 

First, when browsing your computer for images to pull into the Slide Show Video Maker, you may choose an image that is very large.  We have limited the size of images to 640x480 at the largest. 

What USED to happen is that you had to open up the Photo Editor and manually resize each image to the right size.  That was too annoying.

So now, when you try to add an image that is oversized, we politely ask you if we can resize it for you.  We just ask you which size you want it saved as (640x480 or 320x240), or if you just want to forget about that picture.

Next change: we previously determined when and how your images should stretch to fit your video.  I chose my own preferences, but decided you guys could handle this one extra choice.

If you choose YES to stretching, if an image is larger or smaller than your chosen video size (640x480 or 320x240), it will stretch to enlarge OR shrink your image so it completely fills the video frame.  If you choose NO, it will put the image in the video frame at its original size.

My Stretch reasoning for my own videos is this:

1. If one of the images I have captured is a nice, clean image, albeit small, I don't always want to blow it up to be bigger.  It will warp the picture and make it fuzzy most of the time.  So sometimes I DON'T want to stretch an image.
2. However, if I am using some images that are larger than my video frame, I like to use Stretch so they will be made smaller to fit the frame.

The best way to avoid having to make the "to stretch or not to stretch" decision is to simply resize all of your images to either 640x480 (or 320x240) before you output your video.  Then it doesn't matter what you select, because they will all be the right size.

If you have any questions about any other features in the Commercial Creation Center, please click on Help/Tutorials to learn all about how to use the CCC.  You can also go to the Forum.  Become a member by registering at http://www.AllBusinessMagazine.com, and you will be simultaneously registered there AND at the forum.

Also, active members may attend weekly Mastermind groups so you can make sure you create and post new content on a consistent basis.

I look forward to getting to know you and helping you to build your business with audio and video.

Penny Haynes, Commercial Creation Center

P.S. Don't forget Mondays at 9pm, we will be starting the "Marketing With Audio and Video" TalkShoe call-in show.  To find out more go to: http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/29763.  

While I was doing my latest Brain Storm! Business Podcast, I found it annoying to not be able to take an excerpt of an audio, or cut off the beginning or end of an audio.  So I decided to do something about it - I programmed those functions into the Audio Mixer.

You can use the Audio Mixer to take the beginning and end off of multiple audios and then combine them together, but you can also simply import ONE audio, create a new starting and ending point, and output the modified version as a new audio file. 

Did you also know that you can put background music behind only 1 audio file?  You don't have to combine audios to use the Background Music Mixer.  You just need to load at least one audio into the Audio Mixer.

Why would you need to choose a new starting or ending point? 

• What if you have a teleclass, and you don't want the extraneous talking at the beginning or the end included (or the endless barrage of "Goobye" and "Thank you")? 
• Or what if there was too much silence at the beginning or end of the audio? 
• Or maybe you just wanted to select an excerpt from a testimonial or teleclass? 

Want more ideas about how to use audio and video to market and build your business?  Starting on Monday, October 27, 2008, we will be starting the "Marketing With Audio and Video" TalkShoe call-in show.  We will have guest speakers who will tell you how to best utilize the multimedia you create with the Commercial Creation Center in order to make your business more successful.  To find out more go to: http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/29763.  

Penny Haynes, Commercial Creation Center 

• It starts with a web cam introduction from me.
• Then it moves to a slide show video about me and the CCC
• Then it moves to a screen recording of the CCC site (Screen recordings are better for full screen videos, and not reduced to 320 x 240)
• Finally, it comes back to a web cam outro from me.
• All of it was mixed together with the Video Mixer. 

For the full size video, go to http://www.tinyurl.com/cccmixers. 

People will pay for a $3,000 cover to a local magazine and they will be forgotten the next month. The trick is to advertise continually. The more people hear about you from different places, just like with referrals, the more credibility you gain. The more people who talk about their good experience with your product or service, the more trustworthy you become.

Referrals are the number one way to spread your business, but it restricts you to a limited scope. You need a larger reach than word-of-mouth to increase your business, which is where the internet comes in. You can present your "schpiel" over and over again without having to do it yourself, leaving you more time to take care of existing customers and serious new customers. The more you automate in your business, the more efficient you will be, and letting others learn about you even when you are not around is time and cost efficient.

Even better, now you can share your information in audio and video, not just text and images. In the 1990s, your website was like a static brochure, and search engine optimization meant something.  Those sites are basically becoming obsolete in today's Web 2.0 culture in several way. Sites are either static or dynamic, and dynamic sites that have changing content on them, are the most search engine optimized sites of all.

You actually need to please 2 different sets of eyes when you have a web site: human eyes and search engine robot eyes. Just because you build a website doesn't mean anyone knows where it is or who you are.  Human eyes only come after search engine robot eyes. Even having a blog does not mean that anyone will find it or read it - it is like having a business and not telling anyone about it.

You need to understand how Google finds websites and promotes them up the search engine rankings. You build a web site and the search engine robots come out to see it.  They only like fresh content - they are like animals that eat words, and won't eat the same words twice.

So they come out and eat all of your content, and leave. They return the next day and if nothing has changed, they leave and don't return for a week. If they return in a week and if nothing has changed, they leave and don't return for a month. If nothing has changed in a month, they just stop coming, and you don't go any higher in your search engine rankings. This means that nobody knows about your website outside of the circle of people you already know.

Unless you are completely booked for 3 months and don't need any more business, then you have to understand the new ways of doing business and advertising. People use Google to find businesses that they need - that's how I found my first local computer repair person. He showed up high in Google, and when I went to his site, it seemed professional and like he might know what he was doing.

But what if he had a video on his site, and showed me around his office, or shared information about computers, showing me he knows what he's talking about? Would that impress you and affect whether or not you used them? What separates or distinguishes you from every other business in your niche? One website looks like another.

YOU - you are the only thing that distinguishes your business from the others. You have to distinguish yourself from everyone else.  When they get to your site, what are they going to see? People don't do business with a business - they do business with a person. If you are not giving them an opportunity to get to know you personally, you are not separating yourself.

Also, this is like a commercial - you're telling them about yourself, but without the hard sell. People no longer want intrusive advertising - that's why tv ads gets so loud, so you can hear them when you go to the kitchen for a snack. Think about how many people watch the Super Bowl who don't care about football - they just want to see the commercials. When an advertisement is informational, educational or entertaining, we will not only watch it once, we will watch it over and over again.

The Justin Timberlake commercial even had a longer version available on the web site, and people watched it. Nascar has funny commercials that you want to watch every time, just because they are so funny. These are ways of drawing people to you so they can get to know you.

At networking meetings, everyone shares short tidbits of information in their area of expertise so everyone knows they are knowledgeable. If someone said the same thing every week, I wouldn't think they knew very much, and wouldn't be confident of them being an expert in their area. When you share something new on a continual basis, it confirms my belief that you know what you are talking about and are credible enough to do business with.

If you do one video, it is better than no video.  However, it's better to continue to have a conversation with people and offer information to people who are already interested in your area of expertise. It's a way to let them get to know you, and how much you know, so that when they are ready to purchase from someone, they'll think of you.

You can even send them emails with a link to your latest video so they can check it out. That means you remain in front of them over a long period of time, which is the entire point of continual advertising.

A client of mine had web site that used to be on the top of the search engines long ago. Now other sites are passing his quickly, and he told me they all have dynamic, changing content. Now, what does that have to do with me?

AroundCherokeeCounty.com is a software that lets you create videos and audios, and write articles. However, they don't only go on our site, but you can copy and paste some code back onto your own web site, so your content shows up there, as well. What will that do to the search engines? They will start coming back and reading/eating your content.

Additionally, search engines give you brownie points for certain things - changing content being one of them. Secondly, they like links back to your website on other people's web sites. It goes back to the referral idea - the more people that are talking about you, the more credible you are. And the more credible the website is that links back to you, the more credible the link is to the search engine robots, and the higher your search engine rankings go.

Well, you can put links back to your main website from AroundCherokeeCounty.com, increasing your credibility. Then, I go one step further and submit your magazine page link to other directories all over the internet, to give you more links back to your business website. Would you mind if a link to your business was on 20 other websites? And this doesn't cost you anything extra - I do it to make sure your advertising is effective and you are getting the most out of it. 

Another thing people do is Google your name to find out more about you. You want to show up there, and not another person with your name (who could be a porn star!). How do you think it looks when they see you listed on multiple sites? It gives you more credibility!

So, if you know of someone who can afford $10/month to write their own articles, or $30/month to SIMPLY create their own audios and videos with the software we provide, then send them to AroundCherokeeCounty.com. Every time people go to their website, they will see the latest audio or video, with a list of all of the previous audios and videos that they can watch or listen to.  You change the content on the magazine, and it automatically changes back on your website.

Penny Haynes, Online Community Magazines