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12seconds.tv was also a great social networking site. You could follow others and see their videos on your homepage. They offered badges to celebrate accomplishments on the site. You were awarded a badge for your 12th, 24^th, 36th, 48^th  etc. videos. You could post a video response to questions asked by the owners of the site. That even answered the “what do I talk about” question. All in all it was a wonderful idea and a great site.

However, on October 22, 2010 the site shut down. Those of us with videos on the site were given the opportunity to download those videos. I wonder if there will be a rash of 12 second videos on You Tube. We’ll see.

In the meantime, I’m searching for another site that makes creating videos as simple. I know of a couple of membership sites, but nothing I can recommend for beginners. If you know of a site, please let me know.

Video is still a great way to build a relationship with your readers. It’s worth a little effort. Keep reading here, and I’ll let you know what new technologies are available.

If you enjoyed 12seconds.tv, leave a comment and let me how you used it and how you feel about losing it.

If you found another great video site, leave a comment and share it.

Write on,

Lynn

If you would like to do some of this yourself, go to Article Video Robot.

Even more impressive is that half of Facebook’s users log in daily. How may sites do you belong to? How many of them do you visit daily?

The average session lasts 55 minutes. That’s incredible in the days of short attention spans. Most websites measure reader engagement in seconds, not minutes. Facebook’s user engagement is almost an hour per user.

I can hear you thinking, “That’s great, Lynn, but what does this have to do with me?”

Facebook’s milestone means a lot for you. Half a billion people are a LOT of people. Apparently, those people read because a lot of Facebook’s content is text, although they are now the #2 video site (behind You Tube).

If you can reach even a small percentage of those readers, you can grow your audience and increase your book sales.

How do you go about doing that? Here are a few things you need to know.

• Don’t use your profile for promotion.
  • Facebook will ban accounts they think are too promotional.
• Don’t connect with 5000 friends.
  • When you reach 5000 friends, people are told you aren’t accepting friends
• You must email friends 20 at a time.
  • It will be very time consuming to email all of your “friends”

I know you are wondering, with those restrictions, what is the great advantage of Facebook.

You need to set up a Facebook Fan Page or several Facebook Fan Pages.

• Facebook Fan Pages are made for promotion
  • Click “Advertising” to create your fan page. Promotion is encouraged from Fan Pages.
• You can have multiple Fan Pages
  • Set one up for yourself. Set one up for each book.
• You can have an unlimited number of Fans
  • There is no limit to the number of Fans your pages can have.
• You can email all your Fans at once
  • Mass emailing makes it easy to keep your Fans up-to-date with your releases, book signings, and other news.

Make Facebook’s milestone work for you. Set up your Facebook Fan Page today. If you need help getting started, a friend of mine has allowed me to offer you his videos about how to set up Fan Pages. He shows you some tips that I haven’t seen anywhere else.

Right now I’m offering this at a very low price. Soon I will be putting them into my social networking membership site. Click this link to find out how to set up your Facebook Fan Pages and let Facebook’s milestone work for you.

Write on,

Lynn

She was stuck in perfection paralysis.

She had been watching professionally produced, big budget videos. The fancy production had her stuck because she knew she couldn’t create anything to compare with those videos.

However, even professionally produced videos can miss the point. Book trailers one purpose is to promote the book. If you check out this website, you’ll see that even some of the studio productions lose site of there purpose which is promoting with video. Pay close attention to the category “least likely to sell the book”.

My client had been watching the wrong videos. There are lots of videos on the web that will give you the courage to start making your own.

Here are a few tips to help your videos stand out from the crowd.

• Practice
  • The first video you make will be your worst. You’ll improve with practice.
• Know your purpose
  • Are you promoting a particular title or are you building a relationship with your readers?

The most important reason to create videos is to build a relationship with your readers and potential readers. An excellent way to reach your readers is to appear on camera. Seeing you and hearing your voice will engage your reader in an intimate way.

Here are a few tips if you are going on camera.

• Comb your hair
  • Some people look as if they’ve filmed their video as soon as they got out of bed.
• Wear solid color clothing
  • Some folks wear wildly patterned clothing that causes the picture to vibrate.
• Smile
  • Picture a specific reader. Talk to that reader as you would talk to a friend.

Don’t let perfection paralysis hold you back. The more videos you do, the more comfortable you will become.

Get started. Make a practice video today.

Write on,

Lynn

I saw a commercial today that talked about how even older people were learning to use technology. That’s okay. I’ve helped people in their 80s and 90s learn to use computers.

However, the “older” person in the commercial was my age or younger. I fully realize my age. However, who do they think invented the technology they are discussing.

David Packard was born in 1912. William Hewlett was born in 1913. They met in college and founded Hewlett Packard in 1939.

Al Gore was born in 1948. (You remember he invented the internet? Actually he led the congressional support that made the internet possible.)

Paul Allen (1953) and Bill Gates (1955) founded Microsoft and soon dominated the personal computer market with their DOS operating system that evolved into the Windows OS that we all love to hate.

Or, if you are a total MacIntosh person, Steve Jobs was born in 1955 and Steve Wozniak (the “other” Steve at Apple) was born in 1950.

So I think I have a right to be miffed at the idea that it’s amazing that people in their 50s and 60s are learning to use technology.

What does all this have to do with writers using video? I think we’re in the early days of the development of video technology. Sure, the big companies and the expensive equipment has been around for a century.

And there are home videos of Al Gore, Bill Gates, Paul, the Steves and me taken when we were children.

However, carrying a video camera around in your pocket or purse and uploading the video easily to the internet where it can be shared around the world is a recent development.

This time reminds me of personal computing before Bill and Paul released DOS and led the IBM PC to dominate the field. At any one time, one computer was “the one” to have. Which computer that was changed often.

Now, the pocket video camera field is changing as rapidly. For several years now the Flip camera was the one to have. I’m on my third one, but that’s another long post. Now the Kodiak Zi8 has several great features and is ahead in the race for the moment.

Next month, or even next week, Flip will catch up or there will be a totally new contender.

Of course the higher end equipment is changing rapidly as well.

Worried about how to keep up? Let me help you navigate the technology seas. Right now my advice is the same as it was in the early 1980s. Find the equipment that works for what you want to do today. If you wait for a newer model, as soon as you buy it, another better model will come out.

Come to think of it, that advice could go for cell phones as well. Most of them take videos anyway, so I guess that’s appropriate for this post.

If you want to follow along as I delve into the changing technology, put your name and email in the box on the right. If you have questions about specific equipment, techniques, or technology, leave a comment below.

Write on,

Lynn