7
Say Cheese: Sharing Photos and Videos
This doesn’t mean placing photos of you on every blog post, or that you should create a series of video blog posts. (Although you can if you want; it wouldn’t hurt anything.) Rather, it means you should strategically use photo- and video-sharing sites and consider them part of your personal branding arsenal.
Why Video
Google declared 2010 to be the year of video and they’ve been promoting and growing their video efforts ever since. And because they already owned YouTube, they did everything they could to make videos easy to watch and share. They added YouTube videos to Google search results, so you could watch any videos on your search subject. Even now, video is expected to be 74 percent of all Internet traffic.3
In addition, in 2015, the Pew Research Center has found that 72 percent of American adults watch videos on video-sharing sites.4 Split among age groups, 82 percent of 18–29-year-olds watch videos. Perhaps surprisingly, our parents and grandparents do, too: 34 percent of people 65 and older watch videos online.
This means that because video is so widely accepted, it’s a great tool for building your brand. Your colleagues watch it, hiring managers watch it, and decision makers watch it. Video has become so important, for a number of different reasons, that it’s hard to ignore, especially if you want to succeed. That’s not to say you’ll fail without it, but it will certainly make your branding journey easier. Take note:
• YouTube is the #2 search engine in the world5: And Google is #1. Think about the ramifications of that. Not only does YouTube demand more market share than Yahoo! and Bing, it means Google owns first and second place in the search engine market. It also means that if you optimize your videos well, you can easily start showing up in top search results for that video topic.
• YouTube is also the #2 social network in the world: Behind Facebook. A 2014 Pew Research study found that 77 percent of Internet users were on Facebook and 63 percent use YouTube.6
• Google declared 2011 to be the year of mobile: Google made sure that the videos that they promoted so heavily in 2010 were easily viewed and shared on mobile phones in 2011, and we’re still reaping the benefits in 2017 and beyond. The long and short of it is this: If you produce an awesome video, you’re likely to get some significant views from people on mobile phones. Figure 7.1 shows the popularity of mobile viewing on Erik’s YouTube channel.
Figure 7.1 Mobile views on Erik’s YouTube channel is nearly 24% of the total views. This can be much higher for other video producers.
• Videos are easily and quickly viewed: With mobile phones, you can watch a quick video embedded in a blog post or on a website and move on, so short videos are especially interesting to people. The average view time of a video is around 4 minutes and 30 seconds, although that time may be longer if your video is longer and good.
• Videos have a positive effect on search engine optimization (SEO): If you use videos on your blog or website, it helps your site to be found more easily on the search engines. “Chapter 9, Finding Yourself on Search Engines,” discusses this more, but for now you should consider using videos whenever possible.
Where to Put Your Videos
Where you host your video is up to you. Only a handful of video sharing sites are left (there were 80 when we published the second edition of this book). Some are general video-sharing sites like YouTube and Daily Motion. Others are specific to a certain type of video, like FunnyOrDie.com for comedy and humorous videos, while still others are more specialized, like Vimeo, for people who are passionate about creating top-notch videos.
@edeckers: Have you checked out FunnyOrDie? They've got some
awesome videos up there.
@kyleplacy: Is that why you were late getting your part of this
chapter in?
@edeckers: I was researching! I had to make sure they had comedy
videos on there.
@kyleplacy: But 8 days late?!
@edeckers: I had to be really sure.
Also, many of the common photo sharing sites now support video, like Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook Live. We’ll discuss those later.
You only need to focus on the one or two sites that you prefer. Some people think you should upload your best videos to more than one site, especially those that people visit and browse over, just like any other massive content site, like online news or StumbleUpon.
People browse these video sites to see what they can find, so you can either be a big fish in a small pond, or a small fish in one of the most popular ponds in the world. There are benefits to either approach.
YouTube
Believe it or not, YouTube was originally envisioned as a video-dating site, but when it went online in 2005, users uploaded every kind of video so they could share them on MySpace. Since then, it has become the number one video-sharing site in the world, with more than 300 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every hour7 (compare that to 60 hours every hour in 2012), and more than 4.95 billion videos viewed per day.
That should tell you a few things:
• It’s easy to shoot a video. All you need is a smartphone, a cell phone with video capabilities, a digital video camera, a digital camera with video capabilities, or a laptop with a built-in video camera.
• It’s even easier to upload a video. YouTube wouldn’t have so many thousands of videos uploaded if it weren’t easy.
• YouTube is everywhere. Basically, if you have a Google account of some sort—Gmail or Google Drive—you have a YouTube account. Just sign in with your Gmail account, and click the “Upload” link in the upper-right corner.
Figure 7.2 shows you the YouTube upload window, and the different upload options, including a drag-and-drop feature. Just drag a video from your computer desktop or another folder to your YouTube window, and it handles the rest.
Figure 7.2 Uploading videos to YouTube is one of the easiest things you can do on the Internet. It has several different options to choose from to fit whatever technology you use.
After you upload a video or two, you can start sharing them on your various social networks. You can even set YouTube to automatically notify Twitter when you upload a new video. Go to the “Settings” tab in your account, and then choose the types of notifications you want to share. Figure 7.3 shows the “Sharing Settings” screen.
Vimeo
Vimeo is a video-sharing site for people who are serious about their videos. According to the website, Vimeo is “a respectful community of creative people who are passionate about sharing the videos they make.”
These aren’t just people shooting videos with a cell phone camera of a guy getting hit in the groin with a football. These are professional and enthusiastic amateur videographers who have great gear, excellent editing skills, and interesting subjects. Vimeo has channels for people interested in the arts, nonprofits, comedy, nature, and sports.
For instance, Rand Fishkin of SEOMoz uploads videos of his talks and his Whiteboard Fridays. The rock band Modest Mouse has released several videos here; indie movie producers and documentary filmmakers post their movies; and even the White House kept an official video channel on Vimeo during President Obama’s tenure.8
Figure 7.3 On YouTube, you can share videos, favorite them, add them to a playlist, and even edit them online. You can subscribe to others’ channels, leave comments on their videos, and embed their videos, and yours, in your own blog posts or website.
If you can shoot and edit some great video, you will be in some august company among Vimeo’s videographers.
Periscope
Periscope is a video app that lets you stream live video to be shared by other people with the Periscope app. It was bought by Twitter before it launched in 2015, and immediately became a big hit.
As you stream the video, people can tap a little heart at the bottom of the screen to show you how much they like what you’re doing.
Erik’s friend, Dewey McGeogh (pronounced Magoo), became something of a Periscope celebrity by creating an almost-daily show where he would just share random thoughts and stories that happened throughout the day. Other times, he would perform under his drag character, Lady Winifred, and perform a sort of tiny talk show.
Dewey and Lady Winifred would often get several hundred viewers each broadcast, with a few hundred regulars. It got to the point where Dewey was on almost every night, unburdening himself, or Lady Winifred would regale her listeners with her stories and jokes.
Periscope also has a map function that lets you explore videos broadcast from different parts of the world. Want to practice your German or French? Check out some of the broadcasts from Berlin and Burgundy. Want to see what’s happening in Melbourne or Johannesburg? You can use the map to zoom in on the videos in those locations and just listen in.
The nice part about Periscope (which some people may also think is a downside) is that only the broadcaster can be seen, not the viewers. So you can be strictly anonymous while you watch, but everyone will know who you are while you’re broadcasting.
Unfortunately, trolls often target individuals on Periscope, leaving harassing and disgusting comments. It’s possible to eliminate a lot of this by only allowing comments from people you follow first. You can also block people from viewing your videos if you’re harassed during an actual stream. (Dewey used to do this live, making jokes about the troll, much like a comedian calling out a heckler.) This isn’t much different from YouTube or other publicly accessible sites and comment functions, but it can be a bit distracting when you’re trying to record a live video and someone makes a nasty comment. Dewey used to call his trolls out live and then make a point of visibly blocking them.
Finally, while Periscope’s videos can only be played for 24 hours after the initial broadcast, it is possible to save them—to your mobile phone’s photo storage, for example—to be shared and shown later on Facebook and Twitter. With a little work, you can even save someone else’s video as well.9
Facebook Live
After seeing the success of Periscope, Facebook decided they wanted to get into the live video-streaming business (which severely cut into YouTube and Periscope’s popularity.10)
You can stream live videos via Facebook Live, which your Facebook friends can all watch from within Facebook. The announcement about your video appears right inside your Facebook stream, and it will also appear in other people’s news feeds based on your relationships with them and how often you interact at other times. (So if you want to build up a big audience for your Facebook Live videos, be sure to build up solid relationships with a lot of people during your downtime.)
People can also watch the video later, as long as it’s still showing up in their Facebook feed. And unlike Periscope, Facebook Live videos are automatically saved forever.
Erik’s wife Toni is a jazz singer, and she has streamed some of her performances on Facebook Live, as well as singing the national anthem at a couple local minor league baseball games, allowing friends and family from all over the world to watch. She’ll sometimes get a couple hundred views for each show, including post-performance viewings. While that’s not enough to build a career on, it is a way to reach new people, as her friends share the videos on their Facebook streams, where their friends could also watch it.
Facebook Live is also a great way to show what’s happening around you, whether you’re out with friends, at a theme park, at a bar or restaurant, or just sitting at home sharing some random thoughts. On the social justice side, there have been people who stream their participation in protests, and even routine traffic stops and police shootings are regularly streamed for the whole world to see.
Whatever you share, just make sure you’re doing the things that support your professional brand. We’re not saying you can’t have fun or participate in social causes you think are important. But make sure you’re not going to harm your brand that you’ve worked so hard to create.
Shooting Video With Regular Digital Cameras
You can shoot videos with just about any type of camera, whether it’s your smart phone or video-enabled cell phone. It can be a $150 digital video camera you plug in to your computer, a $3,000 professional digital camera, or the little camera that is build into your laptop. You can even record what’s happening on your computer monitor with screen recording software.
There are too many different camera options to go into them all here. But there are a few things you’ll want to look for if you decide to get your own camera to shoot video without your phone:
• High-definition capability: The current maximum resolution of a typical laptop or computer monitor is 1080p (pixels), although they’re getting better all the time. Make sure your camera is at least 720p and can shoot 30 and 60 fps (frames per second). Some phones, like the iPhone 7, can record at 1080p and even 4K at 30 frames per second. Translation: Videos look great on high-definition TVs and monitors.
• Read the customer reviews: While we were researching this chapter, we found a lot of inexpensive cameras online. You can get an HD (high-definition) video camera for as little as $90, and the quality is pretty good. Any less than that, and you’re going to have problems. As you research a camera, visit different sites that sell that camera and read the reviews. They’ll tell you more than any marketing brochure ever will.
• Look for built-in lighting: This isn’t a deal breaker, but if you can find a camera with a built-in light, or even a slot to add your own, that’s always going to be a better option than a camera that doesn’t have a flash. It adds some cost to the camera, but it’s worth it.
• Get a microphone jack: Again, this isn’t a deal breaker, but if you get a camera with a mic jack, you can plug a cheap microphone into it for better sound than the built-in microphone provides. Because the audio is nearly as important as the video, make sure the camera at least has a decent built-in mic. Read the customer reviews for this information, too.
Recording Screen Capture Videos
You can also use tools like Camtasia, OBS Studio, or Flashback Express to record screen captures—record the things you’re doing on your computer screen so that you can show people later how it looks, and you talk through what you’re doing. (Use a decent microphone for better sound quality, too.) This is great for sharing presentations and giving demonstrations.
If you need a free screen capture program, OBS Studio and Flashback Express are available for both Windows and Mac computers, and won’t put ugly watermarks on your videos or limit their length. But if you want a professional package, consider Camtasia, which costs $199. Other free and shareware video recorders are out there, too.
PERSONAL BRANDING CASE STUDY: LYNN FERGUSON & MARK TWEDDLE
Lynn Ferguson is an award-winning writer-performer and highly acclaimed comedian. She has appeared in numerous Edinburgh Fringe Festivals, worked as a staff writer for the Late Late Show, and was a script consultant for the Pixar movie Brave. She was also the voice of the hard-to-understand Scottish chicken from the movie Chicken Run.
Lynn is now a regular storyteller and host for The Moth Story Slam and can often be heard on their weekly show broadcast and podcast. She and her husband Mark Tweddle also created the YouTube video series “ThisDayToday,” a comedic look at different days in history, like the day Anne Boleyn was arrested and imprisoned by her husband, Henry VIII (May 2, 1536) or Canada Day (July 1, 1867). She and Mark write and perform short humorous lectures, or enlist some actor friends to do it, like Alfred Molina, Kurtwood Smith, and Gina Yashere, so far creating 482 episodes.
Mark has worked in a number of different business areas, including manufacturing, travel, IT support, and even the defense branch of the UK government. Surprisingly, despite being married to a professional performer, Mark struggled with public speaking for years, until he worked on a story with Lynn.
Because YouTube is not only social media, but also a search engine and a video distribution network, Lynn and Mark were able to get their content out and get feedback and make direct connections with people.
“ThisDayToday was our big experiment,” said Lynn. “We didn’t overthink it. We just got started based on a conversation that writing agents wanted a half-hour sitcom written as an example piece of work for me. So we decided that if I was going to have to write something, why not actually make it… and why not give it to them in 30 individual minutes?”
The thing Lynn and Mark especially like about their videos is that they’re a permanent record of how fast the couple can work, how decisive they can be, how well they work together, and how they constantly improve their work.
“Our YouTube videos steadily got longer, and we also started writing to the voice of the actors we used, like Alfred Molina’s Valentine’s Day video,”11 said Lynn. (It’s gloriously filthy. Trust us.)
Notice that Lynn and Mark worked on improving their work as they went on. They didn’t seek to reach a certain level of perfection before they launched. They launched and improved.
“Like most projects, the enemy of progress is perfection,” said Mark. “Just get started and keep improving; don’t wait until you have a perfect personal branding strategy and copy.”
These days, Lynn and Mark own YouTellYours, a storytelling school and coaching practice that teaches people how to tell stories, whether for public performance, to improve their public speaking, or even develop their own personal brands. They also offer private coaching for people performing in plays, giving TED talks, and testifying as trial witnesses. Lynn is the Chief Story Wrangler and teaches all the classes, while Mark is the Chief Operations Officer, making sure the business runs efficiently.
Of course, social media hasn’t been the panacea for them that many social media gurus want you to believe. That’s because many businesses only use it to promote, promote, promote their work; but all we users really want is to talk to someone—not to be shouted at.
“Often, I think it serves more as a comfort for new clients who’ve just found or met us that we are real and the business is working,” said Mark. “We experimented a little with Facebook ads for specific events, but they’ve not been overly successful. I think social media is at its best when it’s conversational.”
Having said that, Lynn and Mark admit that social media has helped them leverage the local success of their classes and coaching internationally.
“The photos of events, videos of storytellers, and so on all help give social proof to potential clients throughout the world, which we then steer to our online classes,” said Mark.
The whole process, from Lynn’s early days as a standup comic to working on award-winning shows and movies and to Mark’s realization that he actually enjoyed (or at least wouldn’t die from) public speaking, has been a process of self-discovery and growth, especially around developing their personal brand.
“The coolest part of this journey is that by trying to describe your personal branding, you are also discovering more about yourself,” they say, in near-perfect unison. “The more you understand yourself, the better you get at making decisions. particularly with regard to the projects that you undertake.”
What Should I Make Videos Of?
The great thing about personal branding and videos is that you can make videos of anything you want. Rand Fishkin, founder of search engine optimization tools company Moz.org, makes Whiteboard Friday videos, where he shares the latest SEO research his organization has done. Years ago, entrepreneur and Internet personality Gary Vaynerchuk built his personal brand by making wine-tasting videos, and he’s still constantly producing social media marketing videos today. And Lynn Ferguson created ThisDayToday to feature her talents on YouTube.
You can record videos of book reviews for your industry. Have a friend shoot a video of you giving a talk at a conference. Give a three-minute presentation on a piece of information. Turn one of your blog posts into a video presentation.
Whatever you choose, a video can be one of the most powerful ways to grow your personal brand. It lets people see and hear you; it can help you get speaking engagements; it can put you in touch with new people who have never met you; and in some cases, it can even help you find a job, or build a personal empire centered around one thing that you love to do.
The best way to figure out what to make a video of is to go back and reread “Chapter 3, Blogging: Telling Your Story” about finding your niche. Whatever you write about on your blog should also be the subject of your videos. This way, you can share some of your ideas in an entirely different format, which could even lead you to a whole new audience.
Why Post Photos?
Photos are one of the first things that come to mind when people think about sharing. And it’s so easy to do now, even with the most rudimentary flip phones—they’re still out there, trust us. Erik has a friend who carries one, which can take pictures, and then he texts them to his Twitter account.
Photos are proof that you’ve done something interesting or seen something cool. It’s a way to share remarkable stuff with friends, or show yourself in action teaching a seminar, performing on stage, or even giving a demonstration. You can provide a visual element to anything you’re working on, like a blog post, website, or even a single tweet.
Thanks to sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, people are sharing millions of photos every day with their friends, family, and even complete strangers. It’s the ultimate in sharing and community building.
Again, just remember to post photos that are appropriate to your brand, and make sure you understand your audience.
Where to Post Your Photos
The places where you post your photos dictate who’s allowed to see them and who you want to see them. Using public photo-sharing sites like Photobucket, Pixabay, and Google Photos are great for a general catch-all place to put your photos, especially if you want to let other people use them. They’re ideal for storage and sharing, as well as finding photos you can use in your own content, like embedding a photo in a blog post. (Just read the section on Copyright below first.)
Instagram and Snapchat are communities of sharing, as is Facebook. These sites are also for sharing, but they’re used more for community building, storytelling, and showing friends what you’re doing at that moment.
When we last wrote this chapter, we were recommending Google Picasa, Flickr (owned by Yahoo), and Photobucket. Instagram was barely a blip on anyone’s radar, and it was used more for creating “artistic” photos with filters.
But now, Picasa has been replaced by Google Photos, Flickr is on its way out, especially after Yahoo was sold, and Instagram, which was acquired by Facebook, is now the premier photo and short video sharing app. Photobucket is still going strong, growing from 9.6 billion photos to 15 billion in five years,12 but recently implemented a controversial pricing plan that upset many of its users.13
Regardless of which photo sharing apps are around when you read this chapter, some of the principles will be the same: People love seeing photos, so use them often; there will always be a major photo-sharing site available; and never, ever depend on a photo-sharing site as your only backup for your photos. Make sure you have an external hard drive for them, too.
Google Photos
Google Photos (or just Photos for short) is Google’s photo-sharing and storage site, which replaced their Picasa photo brand. It’s tied in to every other Google property, too—Blogger, Gmail, Google Drive, and YouTube. Post a photo to your Blogger blog, and it’s uploaded to Photos. Upload photos to Photos, and you can store them on your Google Drive.
Photos gives users 15 GB of storage, which can take a while to fill up if you don’t take extremely large photos. It has unlimited photo storage if you let Photos reduce the size of your uploads. You can also increase your storage size to 100 GB for $1.99 per month or 1 TB for $9.99 per month (at the time of this writing).
A desktop uploader called Google Photos Backup makes it easy to upload photos to your Photos account. You can make them public, share them only with people who have the URL, or keep them completely private. (Google stopped supporting Picasa, which was a much better organizer and uploader, but you can still find ways to download it if you hunt around online.)
Other cool Photos features include embedding photos in your blog posts; creating online albums and collections; a few basic photo-editing functions like Instagram-style filters and cropping; and even facial recognition.
Photobucket
Photobucket, which has more than 15 billion photos on it, works just like the other two sites, with sharing, editing, and storage capabilities, as well as letting you print some of your favorites. You can upload photos and videos, then share them to Twitter and Facebook as well as Pinterest and Tumblr.
A mobile app will let you share photos and upload them to your Photobucket account, and a mobile editor will let you add frames, stickers, and special effects (you may want to avoid the stickers and special effects if they clash with your professional image). Oh, and if you actually want to improve the photo, you can crop, rotate, and change brightness as needed.
While we were working on this edition, Photobucket implemented a new pricing structure that angered many of its users, breaking 3rd-party hosting links (that is, embedding a Photobucket user’s photo on your blog post). The plan that allows 3rd-party hosting costs $399 per year (as of this writing), and many users have threatened to leave the site.14
Instagram is a photo tool that applies special filters (at this time, it has 16 different filters) to the photos you take on your mobile phone to give them an interesting, professional, sometimes retro look. You can then share them through your Instagram account as well as Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. (You can also use a tool like IFTTT.com to create an automated process that will post your photos elsewhere. IFTTT and Zapier are tools that let you create automated processes like reposting photos or sending you text alerts when severe weather is in your area.)
Instagram, despite what some curmudgeons might say, is more than just a series of filters to make photos look old. It’s a sharing community where people get to share their experiences and likes and dislikes. People use it to raise awareness of public issues, share things that are important, and celebrate special events.
Certain companies have embraced it, and some people have even become famous by using it. There have been several independent designers and people marketing it to teenagers and Generation Y (ages 18–28, as of this writing). And plenty of people are using Instagram to become famous, especially fitness instructors, comedians, and makeup artists.
You can use #hashtags for any number of causes, topics, and events, as well as create daily stories about the things you’re seeing in your life. Whether it’s a stream of photos or videos, you can even annotate your content for some added information or humor.
One word of caution. Don’t use more than 3–5 hashtags for a single photo. We’ve seen people drop in 12–15 hashtags on a single photo, and it not only looks like the person is desperate and trying too hard, but it’s boring to read when it appears on someone’s Twitter feed or Facebook stream.
Snapchat
Started in September 2011, Snapchat was barely a blip on our radar in 2012 when we published the last edition of this book. It was something the kids were doing—they took goofy photos, shared them with their friends, and the photos were automatically deleted within 24 hours. It was a great way for kids to share photos with their friends, without worrying about them being found 10 years later when they’re looking for a job.
Now, Snapchat has become a major tool for marketing and personal branding people alike. In fact, if anything, teenagers are getting worried because, like every other social network they join, their parents joined and immediately made it not cool anymore.15
@edeckers: MWAHAHAHAHA!
@kyleplacy: MWAHAHAHAHA! (Man, being a dad is fun!)
You can still take photos and short videos, share them with people in your network (we recommend being a little choosy), and use them to tell your Daily Story. (Imagine taking a series of photos throughout the day to show what you’re doing and where you’ve been. That’s your Daily Story.) While most people use them just to show what they’re doing throughout the day, they’re especially useful for events, conferences, or even weddings.
You can also add fun filters and lens effects to your photos, including animal ears and whiskers, funny hats, the local weather and time, face distorting filters, and anything else that might make your photo stand out and look funny, or weird. (Not that we’re judging or anything. We are, but we’re not going to say it out loud.)
There’s also a “Discover” feature that lets you watch Snaps and daily stories from a number of major publishers like ESPN, BuzzFeed, CNN, Mashable, and People. Their social media folks are always taking pictures and connecting them to different news stories and features. And Snapchat also has a video communication function that works a lot like a regular video chat except that the chat is deleted when you’re finished. It also has a direct chat feature called, well, Chat.
To be honest, neither of us are big users (or fans) of Snapchat. For one thing, we like the permanence of other tools like Instagram. We also like the possibility of connecting to new people, like you can with Instagram and Twitter; Snapchat requires you to be friends with people to view their content, although you can grow your network to include strangers. Don’t get us wrong—it’s a great tool because it allows millions of people to do fun things with their photos. But for serious personal branding, where we’re trying to get speaking gigs and jobs, Snapchat is low on our list of priorities.
Facebook is the ultimate photo-sharing site because it’s all about being social and sharing memories and good times with your friends. That, and it has more than 250 billion photos on it, and more than 300 million new ones are uploaded every day. This is the place to post your fun photos of you and your colleagues, you and your friends, or just things you find interesting. While Photobucket and Google Photos are devoted to photo sharing, Facebook is more about the social aspect of photos (similar to Instagram and Snapchat).
Just remember that you’re playing on Facebook’s playground. If they, or you, ever decide to delete your account, those photos are gone forever. And because Facebook is well known for changing the way they do things, this is more likely than you might think.
Copyright: Understanding Creative Commons
So we’ve talked about sharing photos with people, which implies that people are willing to share photos with you. They are. They want you to see them, admire them, and comment on them. But can you borrow them and use them in your own blog posts and presentations? That’s a whole different thing.
The short answer is “no.”
Basically, copyright means this: If you created it, you own it. If you own it, you get to say what other people do with it. The “default setting” for copyrighted material is that you can’t use it without express written permission. That means that unless someone sends you an email or letter that says, “Sure, you can use my photo/video/audio file/written text!” you can’t use it. Ever. Not ever.
Even if the photo was taken by a friend of yours. Even if you’re giving him “exposure.” Even if you’re really famous. Even if you think someone else’s photo/video/audio file/written text is wonderful, and it gives you a warm feeling all over, and you want to share it with the world—not even then can you use it.
However, in some instances you can use someone’s content without their express written permission. You don’t even have to ask because they gave it to you in advance. This is called Creative Commons.
Creative Commons
Creative Commons basically says that some rights are reserved, but not all. If you see “all rights reserved” on an image or story, that means that every right you can think of is reserved by the content owner to do with it what they will. But “some rights reserved” means that the owner is letting you, the user, use it in certain instances. Maybe it’s to share with people, maybe it’s to remix and add your own flair, or maybe it’s to build upon and combine with something else, like reading all your slam poetry over someone else’s great music tracks.
Regardless of what it is, Creative Commons gives you, the creative individual, a chance to share your content with people and a chance to use other people’s content legally and with their blessing.
Table 7.1 shows some of the different licenses available from CreativeCommons.org. If you create and upload a work to a CC-compliant site, like Photobucket or Pixabay, you can choose which license you want to grant.
If you use someone else’s work, you need to make sure you abide by its creators’ licenses, represented by buttons including “Attribution,” “NonCommercial,” “ShareAlike,” and “NoDerivatives.” Creative Commons buttons and images are used in strict compliance with its licensing policies, which you can find at CreativeCommons.org.
Table 7.1 A few Creative Commons license buttons that you can find at CreativeCommons.org
Symbol |
License |
|
Creative Commons: This is the CC logo. If you see it, you may use the content you find. If you don’t, assume you can’t. |
|
Attribution: Give credit to the creators, including their website. |
|
NonCommercial: You can use the creator’s content in any manner except a commercial manner (that is, you can’t make money from it). |
|
ShareAlike: You can use the creator’s content in any manner, but you have to grant the same rights to anyone else with your new creation. |
|
NoDerivatives: You can copy, perform, or exhibit only original copies of the work. No modifications or editing. |
|
A sample of a Creative Commons button you might see on a website. This one gives Attribution, NonCommercial, and ShareAlike permissions. |
We had to ask permission from the Creative Commons people to use this. Ironic, no?
Creative Commons was created as a way to help copyright law keep up with the rapid growth of the Internet. Let’s face it; copyright laws are often outdated and may be modified by people who still have a tough time understanding the nuances of the fax machine. There’s no way they can keep up with the rapid changes apps like Instagram, YouTube, Vimeo, and Pinterest are throwing at us. Creative Commons enables people to use online content with permission, and without fear of getting into legal trouble.
So unless you have the creators’ written permission, or are complying with their Creative Commons wishes, don’t use their content at all. Ever.
When you do use someone else’s Creative Commons content, be sure to give credit. Either include their name in the caption, or put something at the bottom of the page or post. For example, post “Photo credit: Kyle Lacy (Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons 2.0),” then link to the person’s page where you snagged the content.
Embedding Videos and Photos in Your Blog
Embedding videos and photos is easy. The only platform that makes it difficult is WordPress.com, unless you pay the annual fee. (Believe us, we’ve tried. There’s no way to trick the system, even if you add streaming windows instead of actually embedding the video.) Still, it can be much cheaper than paying for server space for a self-hosted WordPress blog, which does let you embed videos and photos. So, decide who you want to pay for a blog (if anyone).
We’ll show you a couple of different options for adding photos to WordPress and Blogger. If you can figure either of these out, you can figure out how to add photos to any other blog platform as well. We’ll also show you the only way you need to know to add YouTube and other videos to your blog platforms.
Adding Photos
The technique is nearly always the same from platform to platform. Every blogging platform has an “Add Image” or “Add Media” button on the main formatting bar. Figures 7.4 and 7.5 show the WordPress and Blogger buttons for adding videos and photos to your blog.
Click the appropriate button and follow the instructions. You either need a photo saved to your computer—WordPress lets you even drag and drop the photo to your browser window—or have the URL of a photo on another website.
Figure 7.4 The WordPress “Add Media” button is just a single button, unlike on other blogging platforms, which have both “Add Photo” and “Add Video” buttons.
Figure 7.5 The Blogger “Add Photo/Add Video” buttons require you to choose between file formats. That’s easy.
After you open the “Add Media” dialog window, you see several fields of information to fill in. Figures 7.6 and 7.7 show the WordPress “Add Media” window. To add a photo from another site, you just have to right-click the photo, copy the link, and then paste it into the URL box in the appropriate place.
Figure 7.6 To add a photo or video to WordPress, you can just drag and drop from your computer desktop to this window in your web browser. WordPress takes care of the rest.
Figure 7.7 If you would rather keep the photo or video in its original site, just get the URL (right-click, and then select “Copy Link”), and paste it into the URL field.
• You must fill in the URL and title box—That tells the blog and the search engines what the photo is called, which is especially useful for SEO.
• Be sure to use ALT text—We discuss that further in the section on SEO, but that’s something that people who are blind use to understand what an image is. The more descriptive it is, the better they can “see” it with their screen reader.
• Write a caption—Sometimes a caption is useful to explain why the photo is relevant. Remember to include a credit to the photographer.
• Set the alignment of the photo—Erik always likes using align-right for the first photo in a blog post and align-left for the second photo. If you don’t set the alignment here, it can screw up the body of the text and make it look terrible.
Adding Videos
Adding videos from YouTube and other video-sharing sites is also easy. The platforms usually provide the code from their sites and let you copy and paste it to wherever you want.
Figure 7.8 shows the YouTube embed code box. You get to it by clicking the “Share” button underneath the video, and then clicking the “Embed” button. Select the size of video you want, then copy the code, and paste it into your blog window. (Make sure you use the HTML interface, not the Visual interface, when you paste it. Otherwise, your post will just show a string of code.)
Figure 7.8 Adding videos to your blog posts is easy. Just grab this code and paste it into the post.
One exception is a self-hosted WordPress page, which lets you paste in the URL of a video you want to use and give it a title. Click the “Insert Into Post” button, and you’re done. You can see how simple it is in Figure 7.9. This method lets you save space on your own server, although it can be risky if your video is ever taken down by the original creator. Then you’re left with nothing but a big empty box where something cool used to be.
Figure 7.9 Or if you don’t want to host videos on your blog, you can link to them while they’re hosted elsewhere, like YouTube or Vimeo.
SEO for Videos and Photos
Your photos and videos—especially your videos—are great for boosting the SEO for your blog or website. After you finish “Chapter 9, Finding Yourself on Search Engines,” come back and read this section again; if you’re new to SEO, this will make more sense after you’ve read that.
YouTube SEO
Although we’re talking primarily about YouTube, the rules are the same for Vimeo. Keep in mind, though, that as the second biggest search engine in the world, YouTube is the 800-pound gorilla. If you want to win video search, you need to do what YouTube wants first, and then worry about other video-sharing sites later. But the rules are pretty much the same throughout.
Doing SEO on a YouTube video is simple. After you upload your video, go to “Video Manager,” find your new video, and then click the “Edit” button. There, you can take some basic SEO steps for your videos. Even though they may seem obvious, few people do it; by optimizing your video, you can make it stand out from the rest Figure 7.10 shows different examples of how to use these tips.
• Use keywords in the title—Pick just a few crucial keywords that you want your video to be known for. In this video, Erik picked “Alex Rossi,” “press conference,” and “Indianapolis 500.”
• Use keywords in the description—Make sure to write a 1–3 sentence description that uses a few of the keywords from the title.
• Keywords are tags—You should actually start in the “Tag” field to start figuring out your keywords. What do you want your video to be associated with? Pick 2–5 keywords, and then use the most important ones in your title and description. Leave the ones you didn’t use in the tag field. Don’t try to force them into the description or title.
• Specify the date—Make sure you fill out the date the video was taken, not the date you upload it.
• Specify the location— Google’s search results are locally focused (see “Chapter 9, Googling Yourself: Finding Yourself on Search Engines”), so this can help your video show up in someone’s localized search results.
• Choose the best video thumbnail—It doesn’t have much to do with SEO, but it does affect the click rates on the video. Pick a thumbnail that represents the entire video, rather than just the first frame of the video. Otherwise, it could end up being the opening credits or a blank screen, which doesn’t look interesting enough to watch.
Figure 7.10 Video SEO can help a video be more easily found on YouTube or Google.
Photo SEO
SEO for photos is just as important as it is for videos. For one thing, Google occasionally drops images into their search results. For another, photo-sharing sites are also search engines. People use them to look for interesting photos and to find photos they can use in their blog posts and presentations.
SEO is important if you want your photos to be found and used by other people. While it may not help your SEO directly, it can boost your personal brand. You don’t know when one of your photos will be seen by someone else who wants to learn more about you.
• Use keywords in the title—Don’t keep the original filename from your camera, like “IMG_0017.jpg.” That tells the searcher nothing about what the image is, and so it will absolutely never be found.
• Use a keyword-rich ALT text—If you embed photos in your blog posts, you can use ALT text to describe the photo, but be clear about what the photo is. The primary use for ALT text is to let people who are blind use screen readers to access your content. The ALT text describes the image so that they know what it is, so if you’re cramming it full of keywords, you’re not being a good SEO practitioner or a good host to your visitors.
• Use keywords as tags—When you upload your photos to Instagram and Google Photos, add tags about the subjects of the photos. These are important because if you don’t have them, your photos aren’t searchable. Maybe you renamed the photo, but if you used only one keyword, no one can find it based on any of the others. Many photo and video sites use comma-separated keywords, instead of space-separated keywords. That means that every comma you put between a word or phrase makes it its own keyword.
• Use date and location on photo-sharing sites—If you remember what we said about optimizing videos on YouTube, you’ll want to do the same for your photos. Put in the location of where you took the photo and the date you took it.
However—and this is crucial—we cannot stress enough the importance of personal safety and security, especially if you have small children, or you’re worried about your own safety. Many photos contain data about where they were taken (called EXIF data), which means someone with the right software can find the place where the photo was taken. You can turn off the EXIF data in the settings section on your mobile phone. There is also software that will strip out EXIF data from your photos. Use that before you ever post your photos online.
• Remember not to stuff keywords—We’ve talked a lot about keywords in this section, but it’s important that you don’t stuff your keywords. Calling a photo “Orange on an orange tree in an orange grove in Florida” or writing “here is a photo of an orange that I took while we were at an orange grove in Florida” could mean that Google thinks you’re spamming them, and they will act accordingly, either dropping your site’s rank, or even dropping the site completely from the index.
• Make sure your images are small—Well, smallish. We’re not saying they should be a half-inch in size, but make sure you edit the photos so that they’re a reasonable file size.
When most people take a photo, they have the resolution on the highest possible setting. The end result is sometimes photos that are 44 inches wide and 300-dots-per-inch resolution (which is laser printer quality). A photo like that could be 100 MB in size easily. But if you put that on your blog, it will take several seconds or even a minute to load.
Google has said it measures how quickly a website loads and takes that into ranking consideration. A huge picture takes longer and lowers your rankings. So use a photo editor—such as Preview for Mac or Photo Viewer for Windows—and reduce the size of the photo to no more than 1,000 pixels wide and the resolution to no more than 100 dpi (the size and resolution of most laptop monitors). When you embed the photo, set the width of the photo between 300 and 600 pixels.
The Video Résumé
Video résumés are becoming more popular, especially among 20-somethings in creative roles, because it gives them a chance to stand out from everyone else they may be competing against. Impress the hiring manager with your video résumé, and you may get invited in for a real interview. Just remember though, your video résumé is like a real résumé. It’s not supposed to get you the job; it gets you the interview. The interview gets you the job.
@edeckers: Slipping them 50 bucks doesn't hurt either.
@kyleplacy: $50? Are you serious? I had to give my intern
director $100 before she'd hire me!
@YourDamnEditor: Guys, we are NOT advocating that people bribe
their potential employers in ANY way. Got it?!
@edeckers: Yes, ma'am.
@kyleplacy: RT @edeckers: Yes, ma'am.
• Look like a professional—Your video résumé needs to look as professional as you would if you were going in for a real interview. Put on a suit or work-appropriate attire and have a simple, clean background for the shoot—not in your kitchen, not in your bedroom with dim lighting. Make it look great. If you need to go to a friend’s place or borrow an office, do it. Don’t do what one candidate did and use a flowered bed sheet for a backdrop.
• Use good equipment—Use a mobile phone that’s not more than two years old or get a decent digital camera that can shoot in high definition. Use a tripod or set the camera on a stable surface. Don’t record this with your laptop camera; the quality is there, but the angle is usually such that viewers will either be looking up your nose, or you’ll look at your image on the screen, which will look like you’re looking down at your keyboard.
• Sound is important—This is essential. The sound must be clean and clear, so it sounds appealing. Although the video quality is important, you can’t use your laptop camera, so don’t use your laptop microphone either. Get a mic with a decent sound quality. Even a $10 microphone from an electronics store can do the trick.
• Lighting is also important—Make sure you’re well lit. It’s best if you can shoot this during the day when you have great ambient light. If not, use some desk lamps as spotlights. Be sure to check and adjust your settings as you need to. You don’t want to be in the dark or so brightly lit that you appear washed out.
• Speak clearly—Speak slowly and enunciate, in a conversational tone, like you would on the phone. Don’t mumble; don’t speak too quickly; don’t shout. Also, speak conversationally, rather than reading from a script. Practice several times so you can get it just right.
• Use the right format—You can upload videos to YouTube in most formats, but mp4 works the best. It works on YouTube directly and on smartphones, and it can be downloaded and opened with a regular video browser.
• Answer anticipated questions—Rather than run through a laundry list of your accomplishments and experiences—that’s what your paper résumé is for—use the video résumé to answer any questions you’re likely to be asked: Why do you want to work here? What’s the biggest challenge you’ve ever faced? What’s a success you’ve had? And if there’s time, list one or two major accomplishments.
• Keep it short—Keep your video to two to three minutes long. The closer to two minutes, the better. If you have so much stuff that you’re going over three minutes, you have too much information. Remember, the purpose of the video résumé is the same as the paper résumé: to get you an interview. So focus on that step, not landing the job.
You can host your video résumé on YouTube, then embed it in your blog’s “About Me” page or host it on a video résumé site, and point potential hiring managers to it.
Many hiring managers express a positive interest in video résumés and like to see them. If you’re in the right kind of industry or applying to a more forward-thinking company, by all means, give a video résumé a try. Just know that some companies aren’t as progressive as others and may be a little wary of video résumés.
A Cautionary Note About Video Résumés
Although we like the creativity and boldness of video résumés—correctly created, they can show passion, energy, and vibrancy—and we think they can be used to great effect, we also want to urge extreme caution about using them. Here are a couple of reasons:
• Mind the U.S. EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) laws and rules. It is against the law to not hire someone based on “race, color, religion, sex (including gender identity, sexual orientation, and pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information.”16 Companies can be sued if a candidate thinks they weren’t hired for any of those reasons. But unless an employer writes a letter that says, “don’t hire this person because they are _______,” you’ll have a hard time proving you were discriminated against.
• But EEOC laws don’t stop non-hired candidates from trying. To prevent that, many companies and government agencies will not look at personally identifying information on your résumé.
In fact, some administrative assistants have been instructed to mark out any information, such as group memberships, that can identify a candidate’s race, religion, national origin, and age. If your résumé is laden with that information, it can be tossed. For that reason alone, we’re a bit iffy on video résumés, especially aimed at larger companies.
@kyleplacy: Can I be not hired for being too attractive?
@edeckers: Uhh….
@kyleplacy: What? Why aren't you saying anything?
@edeckers: I don't know what to say without hurting your
feelings.
• Video résumés are still not widely accepted as a practice. If you’re in a creative industry where people expect and condone this kind of behavior, you’ll have some luck. But if you want to work in a traditional industry, don’t send one.
Even though the business we’re in—technology, startups, and entrepreneurial ventures—loves the wild creativity and daring of a video résumé, we don’t know a lot of bankers, government managers, or insurance executives who love wild and daring anything, let alone when it comes packaged as a potential lawsuit waiting to happen. If you’re applying for a job in a traditionally buttoned-down market, you may want to hold off on the video résumé.
Photos and Video Tips in 140 Characters
• Lesson #1: Learn about framing your subject. —@mmercenary
• A blank wall does not make a good background for your video. Pick something with visual interest. —@RockyWalls
• If you’re using your smartphone for videos and photos, use an app like Instagram that will automatically share them with your favorite social sites. —@edeckers
• Say your name and give a URL in your video for when it gets separated from your description when shared. —@SteveGarfield
• You are producing a web video to convince your audience to convert on your call to action, not to win an Oscar. —@RockyWalls
• For video…. If your subject doesn’t move, don’t make it move.
—@DaddysInCharge
• It’s okay to break some of the rules you learned in journalism school.
—@LeilanMcNally
• When interviewing w/a handheld camera or smart phone, the closer your subject, the better the audio. —@RockyWalls
• Learn the camera by shooting with the manual at hand. “Why is this shot so dark?”…look it up, experiment w/settings. —@mmercenary
• Learn the rules of design (composition, etc.) so you know when & how to break them, because you will break them, and it will be good.
—@dezrad
1. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/visual-content-marketing-strategy
2. http://go.ooyala.com/rs/447-EQK-225/images/Ooyala-Global-Video-Index-Q2-2016.pdf
3. http://www.kpcb.com/internet-trends
4. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/02/12/5-facts-about-online-video-for-youtubes-10th-birthday/
5. http://cohlab.com/blog/youtube-the-second-largest-search-engine.html
6. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/02/12/5-facts-about-online-video-for-youtubes-10th-birthday/
7. http://www.statisticbrain.com/youtube-statistics
8. https://vimeo.com/obamawhitehouse
9. https://blog.iqtecture.com/2017/04/22/how-to-save-periscope-videos/
10. http://www.adweek.com/digital/youtube-beefing-its-live-video-game-compete-facebook-and-periscope-172246/
11. https://youtu.be/aGQ9Wop2xxc
12. http://blog.photobucket.com/about/
13. http://www.zdnet.com/article/photobucket-endures-user-backlash-after-breaking-images-with-ran-som-demand/
14. http://www.zdnet.com/article/photobucket-endures-user-backlash-after-breaking-images-with-ransom-demand/
15. https://www.forbes.com/sites/curtissilver/2016/07/05/snapchat-use-rises-among-adults-to-the-chagrin-of-teens