Many small business owners are hesitant to try things like YouTube because they don’t want to get in front of the camera.  I can certainly relate to that!  Though I did appear on camera live via Ustream a few weeks back, I have been otherwise trying to psych myself up to just talk to the camera. It feels so unnatural to me and it shows…which is why I have deleted nearly every single frame I have managed to record and that is why I cheat.

Well not cheat in a bad way…

It can easily be reframed as letting technology and other people’s brains do the work for me.

It saves me from having to fix my hair (which I think is a bit too red at the moment) and put on makeup, and I can do everything from my mini laptop which is especially helpful when I am feeling a little under the weather (which never looks good on screen…I may not be a wizard at all the techno details of good lighting and ambiance and all that jazz, but I do know that!)

The video above, is a great example of what cheating looks like. It was created using Animoto and took me all of 15 minutes to create with another moment or two to transfer things over to Youtube and post in a few places. This is the sort of thing that any small business owner can do in under 30 minutes (or hire out to have someone do it for a fairly reasonable rate, hint! hint!)

And while I can create video in other programs and set it to music myself – that takes me hours and this…well this is simple and easy…most small business owners I know would prefer to pay me for 30 minutes or an hour of work than hours and hours…so it makes sense to me.

Less professional, maybe – but does the end consumer really care how a video is created if they can connect with it on some level?

Are the most popular videos on YouTube not ones created at home by amateurs? Isn’t there some saying about the Titanic and the Ark?

I could be wrong. (It’s not like that hasn’t happened before!)

While I did help put together a video with a group of Grade 9 students a few years back that won a $1000 prize (the class put it towards their class trip at the end of the year…it was all volunteer on my part) I am no video wizard. I know just enough to get by.

So far that has been enough, but I am constantly open to learning new stuff so I may get better at the video stuff as I go along.

They say it takes 10,000 hours to master something new. I have a long way to go.

In the meantime, I encourage you to take a look at what I have created and download the promotional report. I really do think I can help make marketing fun and it really doesn’t have to be stressful or frustrating.