When I released The Social Media Myth, the last thing I expected was a huge wave of questions about how the video was made – but folks have been very curious about how I made and edited it, so here’s a short explanation.
I should also mention that page is converting at 67%, that means 67% of people who visit the page then enter their name and email into the box, wait for the confirmation message from Aweber and finally confirm their subscriptions. If 100 people visit the page, I get 67 new ones added to my email list. Not a bad deal, eh? It’s out converting any other squeeze page I’ve put up, so I think, for me, the personal video thing is a technique I’ll be using again and again.
Now, how was it made?
It’s surprised a lot of people, but the video was made with a simple Flip Mino HD. The thing is sooo tiny, which is why I bought it – I knew I’d never actually use big old “professional” camera equipment. Lighting? Regular overhead lights in my home office, then I took a desk lamp and shined closer to me. Sound? From the Flip.
For editing, I pulled the video in Camtasia 6, which will now work with .mov and .mp4 files. I clipped the beginning and end and then produced the video as an MP4 Flash presentation.
That I uploaded to Amazon S3 to store and save bandwidth and server load on my box. Embedded the video into my template and it was done.
For $206 (that’s what I paid for the Flip) the quality is excellent (particularly considering the lighting was crap!), the sound is great and it’s a super clear squeeze video that, thus far, seems to impress people.
Since I’ve had about 40 emails asking how it was made, it’s certainly left an impression on folks. And I’m thrilled that it was a totally bootstrapped, non professional production. I’m so not a video geek, and this is truly a “If I can do it, so can you” production!
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{ 36 comments… read them below or add one }
Very cool. What compression settings did you use? It was very smooth and didn’t hang at all.
P.S. You have very nice teeth!
@Ron: Compression settings? There are compression settings? I just selected HD in Camtasia and let it use the default settings.
And only now that we’re in the world of HD do we get to hear comments about our teeth, LOL. Have also heard about my hair cut and hair color after this video, ha ha!
Thanks Ron!
OKay DAS it!
I must get a Flip asap. Thank-you for the kick in the rear Michelle
Andrea
Thanks Michelle! This is a great summary of the ease of getting video onto your site.
I just love my Flip Mino HD & can’t wait to try this technique.
Nice work, Michelle! I had similar conversion success once I switched. I was at 20% then I jumped up to a 52% rate after I altered my landing page to a simple video, good title, and an opt-in box. I find the less choices people have on the landing page, the better.
I have to also give you a wink on the viral email importer. Very good thinking. It seems few marketers actually use this tool, even though it was a main factor in exploding the growth of social networks. I use a viral friend generator on the 2nd page like you’ve done and I’ve doubled my traffic overnight for basically free.
Simple actions in strategic places can make a big difference on visitors and sales! Thanks for sharing
Michelle,
Can you drop any stats on how Viral Inviter is working for you, if the campaigns are going viral with people popping out emails to their buddies?
What is lacking on VI is people talking about how many invites went out and out of those invites, how many clicked, came to the site and invited more…
VI does track all that, so I thought I would ask to see if you had data on it.
Jeff Mills
http://www.outsourceworkshop.com/stream.html
Thanks for the info on how you made your video. I just filmed a client doing a seminar and nhow have to figure out how to turn his one hour seminar with PPT slides into an impressive webinar video.
One quick note. I went to Best Buy the night befor I had to film him and bought an Insignia HD movie camera. It shoots in 8mp and has an HD setting. Plus, you can indert a memory card.
It also has amazing sound quality for a built in mike. best of all, with tax, it cost $106. And it’s about the size of a cigarette pack.
Just another option to consider!
Now if I can just figure out how to use Camtasia…
Michelle, sorry to sidetrack you are gorgeous! HD or not!
For anyone who would like to see how to make a video using the Flip, Jim Kukral has a free video series that explains video production using the camera, how to buy cheap lighting, etc.
That link is here..
Online Video Toolkit
http://www.onlinevideotoolkit.com/
The Flip, as you mention Michelle, has an unbelievable picture quality for such a small device.
BTW – the above link is not an affiliate link.
Hope it helps..
Robert C – The Wholesale Products Guy
Who did the graphical design for The Social Media Myth squeeze page?
–David
@David: It was a wordpress template I changed to work as a squeeze page.
Michelle-
I thought the whole process was awesome. It is an incredible model to follow. Thank you. I have been having trouble with my Flip-not the HD version-but I won it so I can’t complain. The sound isn’t great-sounds like I have a lisp. Would editing in Camtasia help sound quality? Also, I have been trying to find a template that would set up like yours. Did you design it? I have been looking for Wordpress themes I could tweak–any suggestions?
Just have to thank you for having such a solid KLT Factor. You are simple,easy to follow, to the point and completely someone that builds on know-like-trust! Social Media Daily was great, Social Media Myth and The Elixir were incredible and curiosity is killing me about Crowd Mountain! Sure it will be worth it’s ‘wait’ in gold!
Tina
@bestreflections
@kltcoach
This is so cool Michelle. Thanks for sharing. That’s how I’ve been doing my videos so it’s good to know that they can come up as good as yours!! Great report too btw!
Thanks for sharing this, Michelle. Newbies hear ‘video’ and want to run a mile. This just goes to show that we can all give it a try with just a small outlay.
Hi Michelle, I loved your video and I am really surprised that it was made using a Flip Mino HD because the quality is really really good. I want to create my own video’s but have been worried about the expense of using a professional broadcast quality camera and equipment. It’s a great relief to me to know that I can now create them very cheaply with a Flip. I’ve got Camtasia Studio as well so I guess I’m good to go. I’m just going to download your latest report ‘The Social Media Myth’.
Take Care
John O’Hara
United Kingdom
Hi Michelle,
I would never have guessed that your video was made with a Flip Cam.
But frankly it wasn’t the Video that persuaded me to download The Social Media Myth.
Instead I was persuaded because of the valuable information contained in ‘Social Media Daily’.
Indeed I was so impressed that I even made a Tweet about it!
Go well Michelle,
Stephen
Michelle:
What were the associated costs for:
1) Amazon S3 video Streaming?
2) Camtasia 6?
These services have a cost? If so, what are they?
Bob Burns
http://www.miamireia.com
I’d like to give a personal recommendation for another great, small, inexpensive digital video camera that makes creating videos for the web easy. I got one a short time ago, and love it so far.
The Sanyo Xacti VPC-E2 costs around $160-180, and actually stores the original video in H264-compressed MP4 format. (This means that you can upload your videos right to iTunes or YouTube without any editing or file conversion at all.) I’m sure the video files can be also edited with Camtasia 6, as you mentioned, or any other popular video editing program.
Some bonuses:
1) It’s also an 8-megapixel camera and you can take still shots while recording video
2) Facial recognition – It will identify and auto-focus up to 12 people at once and “follow” the faces if they move around in the frame
3) Videos are stored on SD memory cards; no moving parts and you get about an hour of video storage per GB
4) It waterproof (well, to a couple of meters, anyway) just in case you want to film your next video in your pool.
I hope this is useful to some of your readers… thanks!
Michelle, I subcribed on the strength of the video. I thought at the time how good the definition was. I bought a FLIP k=jst prior to the HD model. Damn!! I am adding a video to our squeeze page on our Nile Cruises website where we give away a Free Nile Cruise Guide. I just wish I’d been a week or two later in ordering the FLIP as I would have ordered the HD version. Video looks great. Great tip about using Amazon to store the video.
Thanks,
Colin
Liverpool, UK
Interesting to note that the Flip Mino HD and many other small HD camcorders are 1280 x 720, which is the new ‘online’ standard for HD display (including youtube HD and Vimeo HD) while true HD, as in a big HDTV display is 1920 x 1080. Therefore if anyone is considering manufacturing a BluRay disc or selling online downloads of true HD video somewhere down the line, they may want to buy a higher level camcorder that handles 1920 x 1080, and use software such as Camtasia to produce two versions of the same video; one in 1920 by 1080 and one in 1280 x 720.
@Bob Burns: S3 costs are dependent on the file size and how many times it’s played by folks. Camtasia is around $300 I think, with a 30 day free trial if you want to check it out first.
Michelle!
Thanks again for hooking me up with this info. I guess I need to apply it so I didn’t waste your time. Geezzz the things you make me do… read stuff and implement stuff!
Thanks Again!
Brent
Hi Michelle,
I have skimmed Social Media Myth and it looks amazing. I can’t wait for the weekend so I can read it. I just started playing around with Camtasia and was looking at Amazon S3. You wouldn’t happen to know how you embed the video you used. Did you use an iframe? Just wondering because I hear iframes can look inconsistent (and sometimes horrible) on different browsers. I am at a loss for a solution right now on the embedding and iframes.
Thanks so much
Eric B
@Eric B: Camtasia provides the code to embed the videos it produces when you select “Embed in HTML” in production settings.
Thanks Michelle all the best to you! I’ll be setting up another twitter account, independant of my renewable energy one, and will follow you. And will plug you (bookmark, digg, etc) on the other social media sites when I sign up with them in the very near future.
That’s an absolutely incredible email opt-in conversion ratio. Whenever I get double digits I am excited but actually converting 2/3 of your visitors is quite the feat. Not signed up myself, maybe in the future you’ll get me
-Jim
Lol… I got to the page and immediately stopped the video, as I always do. I opted in on the strength of the copy and your reputation. I probably should view the video, now that I’ve read the report.
Your HD squeeze video information just came at the right time, because I just got the Camtasia 6. So all I can say for now is thank for your blog.
Thanks again Michelle. Excellent post and I’ve been hearing great things about Flip. I visit a lot of properties in my real estate investing activities and I love the Flip for portability to catch pics of properties on the fly. I just bring a craftsman light and a battery pack (some of the properties don’t have power
. And the vids seem to work. I’m curious though, you mention you used a wordpress template and modified. I’m scratching my head trying to figure out which theme would be modified into the nice clean squeeze page. Would you kindly elaborate?
Thanks again, your big fan,
Lisa
67% !
okay, I’m getting a HD cam and jumping in!
Michelle,
Not to embarrass you any more but I have to agree with kam above, that you are one pretty lady.
You need to change your stock side profile photo with a proper head shot to show off your beauty.
BTW, the report was excellent.
Peter
Thanks for the great video Michelle. As one of your subsciber and 30minutes backlinks recruit, i ‘ve always been looking forward to your emails dropping in my mailbox. I will not hesitate to give ‘Flip Mino HD’ a trial.
Go well Girl!!!
Kenneth Mukoro
London – UK
Thank you for all of this wonderful info on marketing and some of the more tech aspects. We can do this!
U rock Michelle.
-Lawton
Michelle,
Please tell us all which wordpress theme you used and how you modified it. It looks great.
@Rodney: It’s Fervens Remix WP theme, which I modded to be a squeeze page.
Who’d a thought hey Michelle
It certainly was a great looking video. I’ve also just recently signed up for an S3 account to stream my videos across several sites. Still getting to grips with Cloudberry to try and stream into WP, but if it streams as good as your vids, I’ll be a happy chap.
Great content – thanks.