In a recent interview between Kathy Hokunson, VP of Sales and Marketing at Site-Seeker Inc. and Shawna Coronado, author of the book Gardening Nude and active online personality, the topic of discussion was social media networking, more specifically, YouTube and all it can do to heighten your Internet brand.
Shawna Coronado began by gardening in her free time. Today Shawna has a distinct brand and message based on promoting a healthy, green, community based lifestyle through her blogs, social media outlets, and video productions.
During their discussion, Shawna outlined 5 main points to help other organizations and businesses make the most of the online resources available to them.
Shawna Coronado in Akumal, Mexico just before filming her latest YouTube culinary series. Photo by Mario Salazar Photography.
Shawna’s first pointer to keep in mind when using YouTube or other Internet marketing sites was: use your real name. By using your real name, instead of giving yourself a separate on-line persona you allow your fans, clients, and/or followers to identify with you on a basic human level. Using your real name instead of a different title or persona also allows your fans to follow you through all of your different mediums – books, Facebook, blogs and YouTube to name a few.
Ms. Coronado’s second piece of advice for your YouTube video productions was to utilize closed captioning. By using closed captioning, you are opening up your content to a much larger audience – not only will it allow deaf viewers to follow you, it will also open up the international audience. Shawna said that by using closed captioning on her YouTube channel she was able to glean a wide variety of followers in the international community.
The third point that Shawna made about YouTube was to keep it short and sweet, ideally between 1 and 4 minutes at the most. By keeping to this time limit you limit the risk of losing the attention of your audience. Like a long-winded blog article, a lengthy YouTube video can make the viewer lose interest and move on quickly.
The fourth take-away point Shawna discussed was to be shamelessly transparent and honest – be blatantly upfront. This point should be applied to all mediums when establishing your presence. By following this fourth rule of thumb, not only will your fans and followers feel that they can trust you and what you tell them, but it makes you more personable and interesting as well.
And finally, Shawna sums it all up with this advice, do a little bit everyday, one day at a time. By working on your social networking, YouTube productions, blogging and other mediums a little bit everyday, you not only stay current with your fans/audience, but you also don’t run the risk of becoming burnt out and giving up. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and likewise, neither will your Internet presence. Check out Shawna’s website and YouTube channel for more inspiration!
Listen to the entire interview:
Alee Bluff
Alee interned at Site-Seeker throughout high school and college and began working full time in January, 2011. The processes she’s most passionate about are linking and blog writing. Alee loves the creative freedom that blog writing provides. It helps her to stay up-to-date on current events and write about the issues that she cares about the most. It also helps her hone her writing skills, and have fun while she’s doing it!
In her personal life, Alee loves to be outdoors, and go on adventures in the Blue Ridge Parkway with her husband. She loves to travel, and especially enjoys long road trips to new and interesting places! When she’s not working, she can usually be found curled up somewhere with a good book, or exploring Asheville. Alee’s husband works with the Western North Carolina Alliance, an Environmental Non-Profit based out of Asheville. They provide a great deal of volunteer opportunities helping to remove exotic invasive plant species and have many great events to raise awareness of the importance of environmental issues throughout the Asheville area. Alee would like to be remembered as someone with a lot to give, and as someone who was willing to try new things!
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