008: Tyrone Shum – YouTube Tactics for Photographers to maximise traffic and bookings with SEO and Engagement

008: Tyrone Shum – YouTube Tactics for Photographers to maximise traffic and bookings with SEO and Engagement

Tyrone Shum: Thanks very much for having me here, Andrew.

Andrew Hellmich: Mate, it's my pleasure. I'm so jealous of your lifestyle and what you do, and really stoked to have you on the show. And yeah, I guess the idea of today's episode is to help you, sorry, to get you to help me and my listeners understand the importance and the value of creating YouTube videos and how we can use that to leverage, I guess, traffic to our own websites, and maybe any other benefits that you can think of that are going to help our businesses.

Tyrone Shum: Sure, more than happy to share what I know.

Andrew Hellmich: Unreal. All right, so, mate, do you want to tell us a little bit about what you do before we jump into the, before I start hammering you with questions?

Tyrone Shum: Sure. All right, so we've got a YouTube channel called Five Minute Video Marketing. We've also got a podcast, which we released. Used to be every fortnight, now it's every week, because it's been so popular, a lot of people will be asking us and Justin and I, Justin my business partner, we create a lot of videos on YouTube to talk about how you can use video marketing on YouTube to increase your revenue and also generate new leads and customers to your business. So we don't necessarily just only apply in our own business, because that's been working really well, and we've had close to about a million views across all our channels and over 10,000 subscribers. So obviously from that, we've had a lot of success, and what we've done is a lot of our clients that we work with, because we've also got another business that focused on helping clients do this, have seen the results from this and wanted us to implement and I've mentioned in the previous podcast, we've had another success story from one of our clients, where one of the videos that we created for them have generated over $100,000 in revenue. So in a nutshell, we basically utilize online video marketing to help small business, sorry, small to corporate size businesses generate results and also get new leads, and, yeah, make money from all their videos.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so you basically go in and teach them or help them to understand what a converting video is, and how to produce that for their business?

Tyrone Shum: Spot on, spot on.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay. So most of my listeners, and myself included, are wedding and portrait photographers. So we, I guess our sole aim is to generate traffic to our websites and get people interested in booking our services so we can go and photograph their event, you know, or their kids, or whatever it may be. So can we use YouTube to help that?

Tyrone Shum: Absolutely, absolutely. Funny thing is, I was searching when I was getting my wedding done, because I was looking for a videographer and photographer as well. I stumbled across a few people who were doing that already. So it's, it's really, really works, because when I was on YouTube searching for wedding photographer and also wedding videographer, some people came up for that, not necessarily in Sydney, like I knew that they'll interstate somewhere, but it's obviously some people starting to do it, and it's amazing to see that happen. So personally, I definitely can say yes, it's possible, and you can apply the same strategies we use across all the different businesses that we help with.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so if I'm producing a video to bring clients or bring potential clients on my website, what style of video should I be creating? Is it a how to video? Or is it, is it all about me? Is it an ad?

Tyrone Shum: Well, if you did an ad, I think your response rate would be quite low. Honestly, it's really gone the days where you put a video onto YouTube and you hope that it's all about you, you, you, it's actually more about what kind of value can you provide a particular person who's going to be looking to use your services. So in this instance, with regards to wedding photography and also wedding videography, people are probably wanting to know what kind of style, what kind of videos are you creating? And obviously, if you go onto YouTube, you want to know what they do on the day, how the service is and so forth. And I think the kind of video that you'll probably want to create is sort of like a behind the scenes video, and you want to show them what do you do, like, how do you take your photographs? What kind of angles are you looking at? What makes your photos better than the rest of the other people out there, and that, I think, would help you stand out from the rest of the crowd, because it's quite easy to just come in, sit down with a photographer, look at all their pictures and talk about it face to face, but when you actually see them on site, with doing, say, a photo shoot for a wedding day, it's actually much more powerful. And plus, having a mixture of say testimonials in there from the weddings that you've done already, makes it even stronger. And it, you don't really have to sell, you just talk about what you do. And when people sort of hear that, listen and watch that, it creates that emotional attachment and that feel to possibly call you and say, "Oh, I love what you did on YouTube. You know that video that you created was behind the scenes that just really, really engaged me, and I really want to get started working with you to film my wedding or take photos for my wedding."

Andrew Hellmich: Sure. So, just to clarify that all of our listeners will be stills photographers, not so much video. There might be a few videographers out there, but mainly stills. So do you think that we should be including stills images inside that YouTube video. Or should it just be just a motion?

Tyrone Shum: For sure, yeah. Definitely include stills as well. Because if you're going to be taking photos, you probably want those inside the video to overlay pictures or photos of what you've done and show them for at least mostly two to three seconds at most in there. You don't want to be running for like a whole minute of one picture. You want to show multiple different pictures of what you've done as well. So definitely, yes, it's possible to take your stills and put them into a video and then upload it to YouTube.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, and what about the more sort of talking head style of video where you're trying to, I guess, say, provide value to the bride and groom or to a family looking to have family portraits? Could we, it would have been an idea to create videos where you give them hints and tips to have a better experience, will those videos work?

Tyrone Shum: Yeah, for sure. So I personally look at it from this way is, rather than talking about so much of what the business does, and I'm just trying to put it in a way where it's easy to understand for like a photographer, like you could talk about how you photograph, the wedding photographers, what locations that you choose to shoot, so that way, it shows them that you're not just doing on the day of the photo shoot. You might take them to on location shoots elsewhere to create that extra what's it called, extra emotional interest. You could also talk about the kind of equipment that you use, just to show that you are professional, and also how long it probably takes you to shoot certain video, certain photos and stuff like that. So talk about those things, because those are some of the questions that usually do get asked whenever, like I'm trying to think back when my experience of hiring a photographer, what kind of questions I was asking, and if you answer those questions in a video, more than likely, you've kind of already pre-sold a lot of people, because then you can impact a lot more people when they're watching these videos, rather than doing a lot of one on one appointments. Now coming back to when I was meeting my first photographer, the biggest thing that really what we were looking for in terms of photographer was how well we could connect with them as well. And if you can portray that inside video by just being who you are naturally in front of a camera, you can sort of already convey your personality, your emotions and what you do as well. And that way they can determine, "Oh, do I like this guy or not like this guy? Because at the end of the day, when wedding photographers are out there, they're wanting to connect with the bride and the groom, and if they can't connect with them and get them to smile, do nice poses, all those kind of things, or even just capture the natural moments, then it kind of doesn't convey through the shots. And that's what we're really, really looking at. That was what was important to us anyway. I don't know that's true for you, though.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, no, for sure. I mean, we all strive to make a connection, and that's, I guess that's why people book us, because there is some sort of connection there at that first appointment.

Tyrone Shum: Yes.

Andrew Hellmich: So breaking those videos down, so when you said answering questions, so I know that when you would have gone to book your photographer, and when I see my potential clients, it's usually in our appointment, and we talk about things like our backup strategies for rain, what we're going to do if it's overly windy, is there, you know, have you got suggestions on the best colors for bridesmaids dresses? Are they all things that I could answer in videos?

Tyrone Shum: Definitely. Oh yeah for sure. Like, if you had a list of questions that you could write down from whenever you've met your clients and remember what they've asked you, then those are your key things. So I would, I would probably even go to the point, if your other clients are comfortable, to ask them if they don't mind having just a camera in the back to record what you're discussing. Sometimes, you know, people don't mind having a camera just sitting there while they're having an appointment. Others, I know are not comfortable with that, but if you can find someone who's like saying, "Okay, I don't mind having the camera", you can really pick up some amazing questions from them, and you can even edit that to utilize and put on the websites marketing, as long as you get permission from them. But to start off, I'd say write down the questions that your customers would be asking, the common ones, and then create answers for them. And that would probably overcome a lot of the objections or anything that people ask you. And you could even take it as far as when they come to your appointment, you could even just say, "Look, I've got a quick presentation for you." Goes for less than five minutes and answers a lot of objections, or not objections, but questions before going into this appointment, that way, it helps sort of set the scene. And then once they've set the scene, then it's easy to sort of pretty much sell them, I guess, on what service you offer. So looking from that point of view, and it even makes a wow factor for you, because I don't think I've met any photographer out there who plays a presentation before they even start. Most of them get straight into showing their photos and say, you know all that, "This is what we do, etc, etc. "

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, sure. I do know that a few years ago, there was a couple of photographers that were doing that, and used to all use projectors and show images and have a slideshow, and then it's sort of, it's gone full circle. I've sort of gone back away from that again now.

Tyrone Shum: Yeah, maybe, maybe people just didn't want that big screen presentation thing. Maybe it's just more personal. We'll pull it out on an iPad or something and just have a quick, quick view of it. But the most important thing is to keep it short, because people's attention spans are very short, so maximum five minutes, and that should be enough.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so say that, okay, so you said make all that sort of stuff into a five minute video. And then, on the other hand, we're all listening to sort of other marketers saying 'content marketing is the big thing. You've got to keep producing blog posts and videos and podcasts and whatever else you can generate to get your name out there.' So should we be making sort of one display, I guess, video, and then a whole lot of sub, sort of smaller videos to bring people to our websites?

Tyrone Shum: Yeah, like what I, would do this is what we do with our clients as well. And it's pretty, it's very much applicable to every single business is, you probably want to create a lot of content videos first. And what we do is we firstly answer, say, the top 10 questions that your potential client has, and create videos around those. So one of them may be like, as you said, what happens on a rainy day? Okay, that's probably a very common question. Then you've got to talk about what's a backup plan. How do we go about approaching that if it does rain, etc., etc., that's probably a great content video to put out there. Then maybe another second video would probably be something like, where do you go for location shoots? Like, do you have specific places in Sydney that you do it in? And so forth. So let's say you answer those top 10 questions there, and what you can do is you can compile those 10 videos into one small, five minute video, but at the same time, you've got those 10 videos which you can also split out and post onto your YouTube to bring back, pretty much bring back traffic to your website. And that also helps with your ranking and also helping you get your brand out there as well too. So it's, it's what's it called, like killing two birds at once. You can create 10 videos, which we'll be able to use as 10 content videos, and then also creating one five minute video based on all this content as well. And we've done this multiple times over and over with a lot of our clients. And it works because some people have a specific question. They want it to be answered so they can look at that one video. Others just want to see a presentation of what your whole business does, or what you're offering in terms of services, and it's great for that too. So you're targeting many, many different angle, different categories, and different people at all at the same time.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, cool. So how, why do you keep saying YouTube? Why shouldn't we put these videos straight onto our websites?

Tyrone Shum: Well, you can. I didn't say specifically YouTube. I said, I talked about YouTube that, seriously, like YouTube is one, the second largest video channel out there, and it's also the second largest, or, actually, I should say it's probably the biggest, largest video channel out there, but the second largest search engine in the world, and most people usually go there to search for how to video or information about certain products and services and so forth. And what you can do is, once you've uploaded those videos onto YouTube, you can also add them onto your website at the same time, and there's no harm in doing having it both, because when people visit your website, they'll see those videos and watch them. If they're coming from YouTube, they'll also search for them on YouTube to find you as well. So you've got two places that you can put them out there. Now the benefit of putting it onto YouTube is one, you're really hitting into a large search engine market. So say people are searching for 'Sydney wedding photographers', for example, if you rank for those keywords on YouTube, and you've got your video number one, you're also potentially capturing the traffic that's also on google.com.au as well, because Google ranks those YouTube videos on there. I don't know if you've noticed, but if you have a look on Google and you type in like for example, maybe this keyword would be 'best video camera for YouTube', I should still be up there number one, and that's basically YouTube video there that's ranked on google.com.au as well. So if you were targeting at, say, 'Sydney wedding photographers' as a keywords, and you get your YouTube video up there, it can potentially be ranked as well on [email protected] and basically, you'd probably be outranking those people who have spent a lot of time and effort putting in search engine optimization into their websites to try and rank for that per spot.

Andrew Hellmich: I like that, but let me just ask you one quick thing, Tyron, before you go on. I was of the understanding that Google doesn't or can't, I guess, rank a video or a photo. So what do you have to do in YouTube to make that come up for your search term, or for your search for your term that you're trying to rank for?

Tyrone Shum: You're talking about specifically for a video to rank up?

Tyrone Shum: Yes, let's make this video, and I want to rank for 'Sydney wedding photographer'. Google can't see that it says Sydney wedding photographer, because it's a video, so I must have to play some text somewhere so that I rank.

Tyrone Shum: Yes. So what you want to probably do is to make sure that, firstly, your title inside your YouTube video is ranked with Sydney, or title with 'Sydney wedding photographer'. Then inside your description, you also want to include your website. Plus also talk about the Sydney wedding photographer, what you do and so forth. And most of the time, I'd recommend at least writing at least between 400 to 450 words for your description, sort of like an article or post in there. And that way, make sure you talk about what you do inside that little description. And then what's most important is to tag inside YouTube, we say those keywords, 'Sydney wedding photographer', those are very, very important parts there. Now, to take it one step further, if you're a little bit more advanced, I would get your video transcribed. If it's only music, then you probably don't need to get transcribed. But if there is talking in there, or questions to be answered, I'd highly recommend getting your video transcribed as well, too.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so with the transcription, then do you add that into the description, or do you add that up as a caption?

Tyrone Shum: Add that up as a caption, there is an option inside YouTube to be able to upload your transcription as a caption in there, and what it does is that when YouTube, somehow has worked it out that it matches up exactly what you're talking about inside the video and at the right times as well, to display those texts just right below the video, where it's sort of like for, I think it's for people who are deaf that can't hear, they can also read the text that's on the YouTube videos as well.

Andrew Hellmich: Right

Tyrone Shum: But what YouTube does is that also optimizes and ranks those words that you put in there and puts it into the index. I've kind of actually drifted-off towards talking about optimization now.

Andrew Hellmich: No, that's cool.

Tyrone Shum: Because you want to come back into a structure of talking about specifically how the bit, how YouTube can work for people, we can talk about that, then go into the specifics, but yeah, just rolling with the flow.

Andrew Hellmich: It's fine, yeah. No, totally. That's really important because the whole reason why, I guess, as photographers, we want to produce videos to bring potential clients back to our website, so we potentially get a booking. So I guess we can't do that unless we understand that the SEO side of things. So that's really cool.

Tyrone Shum: Cool.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, so I was just going to add too for listeners that aren't sure what you're talking about there with the transcription. So I've made a few little five minute videos on my blog site, and I've had a VA in the Philippines transcribe those, and when we just, I just upload those as a plain text, and YouTube somehow magically adds those as captions, and it works really simply. It's cool.

Tyrone Shum: Yeah, it's brilliant, because sometimes you may not even put those words inside your description, but if you've got it in your transcription, it just gets picked up in index by YouTube, and it's amazing when it does that. I was just actually having a look on Google, just for curiosity sake, and I typed in 'Sydney wedding photographer', and the photographers that we used is actually in the top three. So it's really, really interesting to see that. And it goes to show that if you know how to optimize your videos and also your website, you can actually outrank some of these people as well.

Andrew Hellmich: Cool. You got to tell us who you use now.

Tyrone Shum: I better keep it private because..

Andrew Hellmich: So, it's a top three if I search 'Sydney wedding photographer' on Google. Did you give him some video training before you booked him or her?

Tyrone Shum: No, actually we, he was telling me that he was doing some optimization for his website too. And so I said, "Oh, that's cool. That's cool. You know, you know what you're doing."

Andrew Hellmich: I'm pretty sure I know it is, and I've got a good feeling he lives on the Central Coast, not far from me now, but he still ranks very well for 'Sydney wedding photographer'.

Tyrone Shum: Yes, yes. I don't want to give him a bit of a promo, not necessarily needing to.

Andrew Hellmich: Well, there's gonna be, like a another thousand photographers gunning for his position after this.

Tyrone Shum: I didn't tell you what to do.

Andrew Hellmich: Not yet, not yet. So, can I just ask you then Tyrone, if we've got a say, we've got our transcribed video, we've got a great description, we've got all that up on YouTube. And then you said, we can also use that same video and those same words on our website. Do we get penalized by Google for doing that?

Tyrone Shum: No, not necessarily. I, this is what I do. Just from whenever I post up YouTube videos is, once I post up the YouTube video onto YouTube, I put in the description, the title and also the tags, which I just talked about a moment ago, and then I replicate those exact ones back over to our website, so that way, it also gets ranked on Google, and it's not duplicate content as per se, like if you're to put duplicate content of, say, an article that you put into, say, 10 or 20 different blogs, then Google actually doesn't like that, but because it's your content that you're putting only on your website and only on YouTube, it's actually considered what we call like a double linkage. And at least Google knows that that's yours, because when you embed that video and it matches to your brand and everything else there, it knows it is your content. So counts it as being a link between each one, and it's better to do it that way, because then people know that it is your content. And obviously, if it's you in the in the video or so forth, people can't say that it's copied from elsewhere.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay

Tyrone Shum: So, yeah, it's not a bad thing. It's actually a good thing to do that, and it works really, really well for what you want to do. So make sure you just basically copy over the title, the description and the tags into, say, your WordPress blog post, if you're going to post it there, and then just link it back to YouTube.

Andrew Hellmich: Perfect. So is there any other things that we should be including in our videos, apart from, like, the feel good and the information, should, I know you talk about on your podcast having a call to action, and also, yeah, should we be including that too, or has that become too like salesy?

Tyrone Shum: No, no, definitely. The problem with YouTube videos, and a lot of people watching them, is that it's very easy just to sit there like a couch potato and just click play and do absolutely nothing. And a lot of people on YouTube just don't do anything. So you've actually got to tell them what to do, because after they watch the video, they have a good laugh, or they go, "Oh, wow, this is emotional", but they don't know what to do afterwards. So what I would recommend is have a call to action. Say, "If you'd like to find out more about services, visit our website by clicking on the link below." Alternatively, if it's like your offering, say, maybe for them to spread the word, get them to share it on Facebook, put on Twitter or leave a comment down below. So it depends on what you want them to do, but I would highly, highly recommend put a call to action in there right at the end, after they finish watching a video, because most of the time, people don't do that, and they've potentially lost a viewer. They probably might go somewhere else, or they won't even take any action to come and visit and get in contact with you. So that's very, very powerful. And as I mentioned, actually the reason why one of the videos that we did for our client achieved over $100,000 in sales is because we had three very strong call to actions in the video, telling them to take a particular action. Otherwise, if we didn't have that, it'd be just one of those promotional videos that 'see on the website' and does nothing. So it's very important that you do that, and because not many people are doing that right now in, say, your industry, then you have a potential to be able to capture those leads very much early on the game.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so would the biggest call for action for us be "Go to our website or go to our blog or to call us?"

Tyrone Shum: I'd say probably just call you straight away, rather than going straight to the website. If you say, "If you'd like to find out more information or maybe put a booking in, please call us for this and schedule an appointment for us to come out and show you what we can do."

Andrew Hellmich: Perfect.

Tyrone Shum: Yeah. So get them straight, straight away, because that is the most crucial time, when they're watching the video, and they've finished doing like watching the video, then you go, what are they going to do next? Next thing is probably to take action to contact you.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. Now, what about the, what about the 'how to' now, I know that most of our listeners are gonna have amazing camera gear. Most of them are capable of shooting video, but what about sound?

Tyrone Shum: Okay, if most of you who are using DSL cameras either be like a Canon or Nikon, most of them would have like an external microphone that's available. And I've actually reviewed a lot of Canons and Nikons as well in the past, and most of them are very short, do have an external microphone jack. Now, if you do have that, then all you need to do is probably buy like an external microphone, like a lapel microphone, or maybe even put like or use it like a rogue podcast mic, which is a shotgun mic. I'll give you the two actually, that I'd recommend. The first one is the ATR, the Audio Technica, sorry, ATR 3350, that's a very basic mic. That's like, probably 30-35 bucks or something like that. You can pick up from Amazon or locally around here.

Andrew Hellmich: Sorry. Is that the is that the lavalier mic?

Tyrone Shum: Yep, that's the lavalier mic, which you can clip onto your shirt, and it produces reasonably good sounds. I wouldn't say it's the best mic, but it's sufficient to do what you need to do. And I used to use this mic all the time when I started my first videos on YouTube.

Andrew Hellmich: So you know what, I'm holding this exact mic in my hand right now.

Tyrone Shum: Oh, fantastic.

Andrew Hellmich: And I bought this from Amazon last week for $17.

Tyrone Shum: Oh, there you go.

Andrew Hellmich: So I will put it out. I'll definitely put links to that in the show notes as well.

Tyrone Shum: Nice.

Andrew Hellmich: And what was the other one, was the Rode Podcaster?

Tyrone Shum: Yes, the Rode Podcasts VideoMic Pro, it's quite a long one, I'll say again. So it's Rode Podcasts VideoMic Pro. I think that was it, yeah. It's one of those ones which you just mount on top of your camera and still putting the flash there, you put the mic there. And probably you could, you probably have to speak about no more than a meter to 1.5 meters away from the camera, and you'll get good quality sound like that. If you don't want to use a mic, like a lapel mic.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, cool. That's perfect. And what about I know you guys are pretty big on using iPhones as well. Do you get good enough quality from the iPhone?

Tyrone Shum: For sure. Yeah, the iPhone records like in Full HD, particularly the iPhone 5, the quality is amazing. The main thing you need to do is make sure that you have good lighting on your subject. I've noticed with poor lighting, it gets very, very pixelated when recording using video. But if you've got good lighting, which I'm sure most photographers would have good lights, that lighting is so important, then you shouldn't have a problem. The only thing is the sound. You need to get a special adapter to be able to plug that into your iPhone to use the same mic that you've got there. So if you want to use the iPhone, it's great for shooting video as well.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, now, do you know the name of that adapter, or should I go and hunt one down?

Tyrone Shum: I'll tell you, I don't, it doesn't have a name, but I'll tell you the link that I usually refer people to, that way it makes it easier.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, do you want to just shoot that over to me at the end of this recording?

Tyrone Shum: Yeah, I'll shoot that, and it should be in the show notes for you.

Andrew Hellmich: Fantastic. So what about if the, and imagine most of the listeners are photographers, and they're pretty happy to be in front of a camera. Some may not be but what if you don't want to be in front of a camera and still have these YouTube videos?

Tyrone Shum: Sure. Well, if you've got a mic, you can either use your microphone from the computer, or you can just plug in like a Rode Podcast mic that I've got one here that I'm using right now, you can just do a voiceover and just explain to people and create some slideshows, and then put it in together with your pictures, and that will be sufficient enough. And most, I know most people who don't want to go find the camera, that's probably the easiest and the most simplest way to show and demonstrate what you do to create a content video. And it shouldn't take you long to do because if you've got, if you're just saying, "This is what we're doing", talk about it and just keep it within five minutes, you should be able to create a nice, simple slideshow presentation with your photos.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so if you were coming out and advising me, would you suggest it's better to do to have myself on camera, or am I going to be more successful with those videos or less?

Tyrone Shum: It depends on different markets. I'm not going to say it's better or not. Some markets we found works really well with, say, slideshows and animations. Other markets, we found that it's better to have a person in front of the camera. It really depends. And also, too, if you do, in your instance for as a photographer, it is good to actually have your face there so that when people are watching through these videos, they know who you are, and they can sort of get a feel of who they potentially could be contacting or working with. It's good to put a face to their name, basically.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, now that makes sense. So what about actually then, let's say I'm scared to go in front of the camera, but I'm going to give it a go, because Tyrone said I should. I'm going to try that. I'm also going to do a couple of slideshows. Can I measure which ones are working? Which ones aren't?

Tyrone Shum: Sure. Yeah, I put both of them up there. If you think that one of them works with your face on the camera, and you create that video, then you put that one up, and then you create another one with the slideshow, and you don't put your face up, you can definitely test those too and see which one's performing and depending on which one ranks better as well. So in this instance, you could even be even smart to create two very similar videos, but tag them and also title them differently for different suburbs around Sydney. And potentially they could be ranked for those, you never know. You could probably be getting business from all sorts of parts of Sydney if you rank that, if you title them correctly.

Tyrone Shum: I see. I can hear the wheels spinning in all the listeners heads now, targeting different places out of area

Tyrone Shum: Yeah. So, let's say, for example, you've got your, most of your business comes from, say, like Hornsby. I'm just giving you a very general, generic kind of suburb. You could put in 'Hornsby wedding photographer', and if no one's ranking for that, you could potentially capture that market with that video. And then you could probably put another one for, say, Sutherland, which is down south of Sydney, and you upload and put a video in there as well. Now, if no one's ranking for those, you could potentially be ranking at the top page of those for those videos and get traffic just based on that. So it doesn't have to be limited just to the keyword Sydney. You could use target all different suburbs.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so what I need to create a different video for each of those, or just do a different description tags and title?

Tyrone Shum: Just a different description tag and title, you could be, you could be quite smart in doing this and change maybe one or two things in the slideshow. Or just change some of the music doesn't have to be completely different. Can be very similar in each.

Andrew Hellmich: Wow, okay.

Tyrone Shum: Yeah

Andrew Hellmich: That's an awesome, powerful tip. Now, my wheels are spinning.

Tyrone Shum: We do it all the time, so that's fine.

Andrew Hellmich: Wow. Okay, you really got me thinking now, that's awesome. Okay, so what else am I missing? What Is there any sort of, is there any steps that I've missed that we have to be doing if we're trying to increase our rankings and get maximum exposure?

Tyrone Shum: Yes, well, engagement is key now on YouTube, since they've done the upgrade of their channel and also done their algorithm upgrade, we found that engagement with your videos is very, very important, not only getting views and subscribers, you'd also need to get more likes. You also need to get people to leave comments. It's YouTube is becoming quite sophisticated, and they measure those things. So some people are hopping on to say the video and watching it for maybe 10 seconds and then hopping off. It's obviously not a good video, but if they're sitting here and watching the video for more than, say, a minute, you're already on the right track. So you need to make sure that you do have some form of engagement, whether it be interrupts, like, say, in the video goes for a minute, and you've got points where interrupts the pattern. So instead of just a video showing slideshows and pictures and all that, you want to make sure that there might be something that might sort of pop out them and say, "Oh, gotta check this out", or do something that's different, that interrupts a pattern. And by doing that, it keeps them engaged in the video. What you'll find is that a lot of our videos, we intentionally inject a bit of humor into it. So it's not always just me talking from the camera and just talking about this particular, we try to do some interesting things. Sometimes I might accidentally fall over or might break something. It's not necessarily always intentional, but bloopers do help.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, that's a good tip. So, you're talking there too about engagement. How do we measure engagement? How can I see if someone listened for 10 seconds and hopped off or stayed for the full two minutes?

Tyrone Shum: The cool thing about YouTube is that there's a particular section called YouTube Analytics. YouTube provides all these stats all for free. So if you set up your account and you've got everything all uploaded, and your videos are playing, getting views, you'll be able to click on the section that says analytics. And inside analytics, there is a section that's called engagement. When you review that report, you'll see exactly for each video, where people are staying on, where people are dropping off, and it's sort of like a little bell curve. So it's all there, it's all available for you. It's all free as well. It's just as good as like Google Analytics even tells you which countries they're looking at from, where the locations are watching the videos. Yeah, it tells you everything. It's pretty good.

Andrew Hellmich: So then say, okay, I'm just thinking along as we go now. So just say, I'm putting out a video a week. I've got all sorts of little tips and things. So should I have a different call to action? Maybe one have stayed at the end for, you know, something special, or make sure you leave a comment. Asking for the likes and comments, things like that. Are they all calls to action we could include?

Andrew Hellmich: Absolutely, yep, that's exactly right. So what we do in our videos, for example, is we encourage people to like so as soon as the video starts playing, probably after the intro, straight away, we'll say, "If you like this video or remember to like the video", there's a specific annotation that says there. And because of that annotation that we pop up on the video, people actually do click on the like, and we get tons and tons of likes, so they actually burst our ranking as well. And it's a very simple call to action. Like people think, "Oh, how hard is it to put it on." A lot of people still don't do it.

Tyrone Shum: Wow. Okay, cool. So, and what about the editing? So should we be just trying to get things done in one take? Or do we send it off to professional editor? Or is it something I can do at home?

Tyrone Shum: Depends on how professional you want to go.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay

Tyrone Shum: Well, also you got to think about branding your business if you are trying to be professional, which I'm sure every photographer out there wants to show to their clients that they are doing amazing photos. You probably do want to spend a bit of time to produce some good quality, professionally edited videos. I mean, it's quite easy to put a slideshow together and you just run it through, but a lot of people don't sit through those anymore. So you need to probably put some good quality sound on, bit of backing music, make it interesting and engaging, and really just spend a bit more extra time, and it will pay off down the track, because these videos are not just going to be here for the short term. It's going to be sitting there for probably the rest of your life with the business. So if somebody comes back 5-10, years later and looks at your video and it's just like a slideshow which doesn't have any music or anything interesting, they're probably going to switch away from it, whereas, if you come back 5-10 years later, it's still really professional, and it's one that's going to bring you a lot of business, then it really pays itself off in return. So in my opinion, I would say spend a bit of time getting a professional video editor to do it for you, and you can hire people locally around here to do it for a few bucks an hour and get it done really well. So definitely consider that.

Andrew Hellmich: A few bucks an hour!?

Tyrone Shum: When I say a few bucks an hour, I mean, I'm not gonna say tens of hundreds of dollars, but like, you know..

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, you just had every wedding videographer fall off his chair, crash the car.

Tyrone Shum: Maybe, maybe that's all my expectations for what we hire.

Andrew Hellmich: Very good. Can I jump back to the engagement thing. Will I get? Is there a good length that you would recommend we make the videos?, and if it's shorter, and the people stay to the end, the viewers stay to the end, does that mean my engagement goes up?

Tyrone Shum: Absolutely. So if your viewer is watching all the way to the end, and they go straight to the end where there's a call to action, more than likely they'll take that call to action and do something so they'll either call you and say, "Hi, I just saw your video on YouTube, and I'd like to find out more about your services." Then you know that those people have been watching your videos and fully engaged, like, ideally, you probably, I know I've talked about creating five minute videos, but if you could do it even shorter, like maximum or minimum, at least a minute. I think you'll probably get some good engagement. Maximum, I'd say, is five but minimum would be a minute.

Andrew Hellmich: So it has to be pretty cool video for someone to sit there for five minutes.

Tyrone Shum: Yeah, absolutely.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay.

Tyrone Shum: People's engagement and attention spans that are so short on YouTube, and if it doesn't load up in the first five seconds, they're gone.

Andrew Hellmich: Cool. Okay. Now I know that when I listen to podcasts like yours, and you know, other internet markers and things like that, my head spins and I've got, like, a thousand ideas. So, let's say listeners are out there now they've pulled over and they've jotted down 10 top things they've got to answer on their next videos that they make, should they, and they pump those out pretty quick, should they put 10 videos up at once onto YouTube?

Tyrone Shum: No, no, definitely not. I'll tell you the reason why is that it's Google loves fresh and up to date content, same as YouTube as well, and ideally you want to upload them at least a separation of a minimum of a day apart. You don't want to upload all these video videos instantly and then to gain that traction. So if, say, for example, you've created 10 videos, upload them maybe every two or three days apart, but at least a minimum of a day if you do go gung-ho, because what happens is that after say, you've uploaded these 10, you got to make sure you keep up to that pace of creating regular content, otherwise your YouTube channel loses traction and then it drops off the radar. So it's all about keeping up with consistency and doing at a pace that you can. For us, for example, because we also run our other business. We're quite got quite a lot of business that's come in. We can only dedicate at most once a week to it. So therefore, we upload our videos once a week, and that keeps our channel ticking over and getting views and likes and all that and engagement with our with our audience there. So I'd recommend to do that at least once a week if you want to seriously put your efforts in marketing into that channel.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay. And the day that I put it onto YouTube is the same day I can put it onto my blog or website.

Tyrone Shum: Yes, that's right.

Andrew Hellmich: All right. And one last question before we find out where we can find you and chase you and follow you up and ask questions, all that sort of stuff. You keep talking about YouTube channels. So if I upload one video, do I automatically have a channel, or do I have to create one?

Tyrone Shum: You do have to create that channel. Let's sort of take a step back then. To start off with most people who start off with YouTube, create just an account on YouTube, and that allows you to be able to just create that account and upload videos into it, but in order to have your own channel, you need to enable that. And it's free to do. It's not a problem, but you need to set it up properly, especially with the new YouTube channel layouts that they offer. Now, you need to spend a bit of time creating a good cover banner. You should also ensure that you've got a good landing video, which is where people land on the channel and have a look at. So, if you go to say our channel, which is a Five Minute Video Marketing I'll give you the short link. Actually, it's F-M-V-M.co/YouTube, you'll see that there's a cover banner at the top. You've got the landing video, which is the introduction to what our channel does, and then lists out pretty much all the other videos that we talk about in different categories and sections, and if you have that correctly set up, then you basically have yourself a YouTube channel. And it's worthwhile fixing like setting up properly and doing professionally, because that channel also gets ranked on YouTube as well, on top of ranking up in Google. So it's very, very powerful to have.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so how do we learn how to do this? Do it is a, have you got YouTube videos?

Tyrone Shum: Or, yeah, yep. So if you go onto the YouTube channel that I just talked about, we've got what we call the YouTube Marketing Challenge, and we've got plenty of videos showing how to set up your YouTube channel, how to optimize it, how to put all that in there. It's it goes through step by step.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay. And when you say, optimize, what does that mean?

Tyrone Shum: So you don't want to choose like a username. If you haven't created your own channel, you don't want to choose a username that's something like 'Captain XXX', which has got absolutely nothing related to your photography business. You want to make sure that you choose the name of your business brand for your wedding photography business, and put that in there. And if it is too long, then obviously, choose something that's going to be slightly shorter, but ensure that it's got something like photographer in there or wedding photographer.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay

Tyrone Shum: So, yeah, that's very, very important, because if you set up your channel correctly with the right keywords, your channel can be ranked.

Andrew Hellmich: Awesome. Okay. Tyrone, that is amazing. If you've just given us so much information, I really appreciate you coming on the show. What are the best places to people can find you and listening to you and get taught?

Tyrone Shum: Sure. Well, we've got two things I can recommend. If you want to watch our YouTube videos, simply go to fiveminutvideomarketing.com and you'll be able to sign up and receive our free quick start guide video as well. And that shows you what to do, how to set up and so forth. And you'll be able to watch all our videos there. Alternatively, if you'd like to listen to us on the go, we've also got our podcast, which is at fmvm.co/iTunes. And that's basically the short link there. And we're on, you can search for 'Five Minute Video Marketing' on iTunes as well. If you've come across from us, and I'm sure that Andrew will leave down a link to our, yeah channel as well.

Andrew Hellmich: I certainly will. And for any listeners, if you do jump over to Tyrone's podcast, you'll hear lots of laughter and lots of good fun.

Tyrone Shum: Yeah, we love to make it fun, we just ourselves. This is what we do every day. We just yeah, go out, you know, have a bit of fun and just make it enjoyable, and that's how it keeps us really active in life.

Andrew Hellmich: Unreal. So let me ask you one last thing, and I'm not sure, I don't know the answer to this one at all. If people, the photographers that are listening and they want to, they don't want to go right through this, but they want to get something done, can you do it for them? Or do you recommend someone to do these videos and create the channel?

Tyrone Shum: We do. We definitely do. So if you want to check out on what we do, we also have our company called VideoTube Services, and you can check it out at videotubeservices.com and if you're happy for me, I can leave you a contact number for them to call our office number.

Andrew Hellmich: Sure

Tyrone Shum: And they can call us on 02, so we're in Sydney, 0280113060, so it's like 8011, 3060.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay. And what about for listeners overseas? Can they get in contact with you through your website?

Tyrone Shum: Sure, the website's videotubeservices.com.

Andrew Hellmich: Perfect. Now, just before I do let you go, we were having a quick chat before we started recording. You told me that you're an avid photographer, and I know you are through your podcast.

Tyrone Shum: Yes, I am.

Andrew Hellmich: How was the wedding experience being a novice photographer or a keen amateur?

Tyrone Shum: Well, it was amazing. I'll tell you, actually, we invited the same photographer over to two of our weddings, because we had one in Bali and we also had one in Sydney, so we flew him all the way to Bali to take our photos there. And, yeah, the photos were absolutely stunning. And, you know, with Bali it's a beautiful location to take photos, and I was really, really happy with his service, I was really happy with the connection we had, because he just made us feel so comfortable in front of the camera. And I think that was the key thing. And then the rest, we just let him do what he, with his eye, I guess, to see what would be the best way to take the photos, and he did some amazing work for us.

Andrew Hellmich: Awesome. So you didn't direct him at all?

Tyrone Shum: No, no, definitely. "It's your, it's your day. I'm not, I'm not gonna be, so you're the one here, photo photographing for us. I trust you, and you know, did the best you can", because when we saw his photos initially, we're very, very impressed with his work anyway, so that's why we chose him over. We had about three other photographers which we hired or interviewed, I should say, before we hired this guy.

Andrew Hellmich: Great. And when did you see this photographer? Was he the last or the first? When the interviews started?

Tyrone Shum: He was second, I think, from memory.

Andrew Hellmich: Very good.

Tyrone Shum: Yeah. So he was in the middle.

Andrew Hellmich: Unreal. And what's your favorite thing to photograph? Landscapes, people?

Tyrone Shum: I'd say probably people, people and a nice background, like something that's different and out of ordinary. I like landscape, mostly like, I like both, landscapes, really cool, but I'm not the best at it. I'm still learning, and I'm learning to do more sort of still shots when like, like rivers and waterfalls and all that kind of stuff. It's, it's a skill to learn to be able to get some nice shots with a water flowing.

Andrew Hellmich: All right. And I've got to ask you, whatever, every gear junkie is wondering, what camera you're using?

Tyrone Shum: I'm using the Canon 60D. I've got the 24 to 105 mil, the, yeah, the USM is such a lens, the Canon one there. And I've also got a few other lenses, the 50 mil, the nifty 50 and a few in a wide angle lens. What else do I have? Yeah, we've also got a, I think it was 85 to 200 mil lens as well, which I think that's in Justin's bag, not mine. We've got so much gear that we have to separate and store at his place. Because, yeah, I got too much stuff to store here already as it is.

Andrew Hellmich: Fantastic. Tyrone, once again, thanks so much for giving up some of your time.

Tyrone Shum: Thank you. It was a pleasure to be on the call.

Andrew Hellmich: Thanks.