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17 Stats That Prove You Should Be Making Videos

The amount of options we have for posting content on the internet is ridiculous.  Every major platform out there (that you’re probably already on) supports video in some way.

Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat are all stellar for short videos and sneak peek clips. Facebook Live and YouTube are phenomenal options for long-form videos, ads, interviews and anything else you can think of.

One of the best things about having all these options for video and live streaming as a business owner is that this stuff isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Check out our infographic for some insanely compelling stats that are going to make you want to get up and start recording immediately.

Creating videos and video marketing is far beyond an “up-and-coming” tactic at this point. It’s here and it’s getting more powerful by the minute, especially when it comes to:

  • Telling your brand story
  • Building relationships
  • Explaining your value prop
  • Growing awareness for your business/products
  • Staying connected with an ever-evolving mobile audience

Video is now an invaluable tool for helping business owners convert customers and increase engagement no matter what your business does. Find the platform that makes sense for your business — the place where your audience hangs out — and start providing them with the content they’re looking for.

Own an auto shop? Start making how-to / tutorial videos on YouTube for basic at-home car maintenance. Have a salon? Create short before-and-after videos / boomerangs on Instagram featuring your clients. Sell makeup? Ask your customers, friends, and family to send you questions or challenges in regards to the products your selling. Then go and fire up Facebook Live and prove in real-time that your products are capable of everything you say they are.

Creating content isn’t easy. It requires a lot of creativity and a lot of hard work. That’s why so many people don’t make videos. But their lack of effort is yours for the taking. All the audience your competitor is missing out on because they don’t want to take the time to figure out how to do video is yours for the taking. Be yourself. Be real. Just get out there and try.

That’s what we’re doing. If you haven’t seen already, we’ve got a YouTube channel where we publish:

  • A weekly vlog
  • 7-Minute Saturdays (marketing) Videos
  • Tags, Challenges, and Games

We started the weekly vlog, ZCM Vlogs, because we want to document our journey from the bottom up. We know it takes time to make it big so we’re going to make the most of the time by showing other small business owners we’re in the same boat, we don’t always know what we’re doing, but we’re going for it anyway.

7-Minute-Saturdays is a bi-weekly series where Nick and I sit down and film a 7-Minute video covering topics related to marketing, web design and small business ownership. We share our knowledge and are working on developing a rapport with our audience so we are having consistent conversations with people.

We want this to be all about communication. We want to know what we can film that will help you out with your own marketing and business efforts and then we want to give you the answer in video for free.

Our Tags, Challenges, and Games playlist is where we show our less serious side (not that we’re very serious to begin with) and just film the weird, fun, and crazy stuff we do to cut loose and ensure we’re promoting a healthy, creative, team vibe at Z Coast.

Check us out if any of those things appeal to you, we truly appreciate it if you do.

Have a suggestion for us? Drop it in the comments below or shoot us an email: contact@zcoastmedia.com.

Thanks for stopping by the blog this week!

Reminder:

  • New blogs go up bi-weekly on Tuesday
  • New vlogs go up weekly
  • New 7-Minute Saturday episodes go up bi-weekly on Saturday
  • Podcast coming soon!

 

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We’ve Got Some ‘Splaining To Do

A Letter from Us to You

Hey y’all.

The blog has been a little lackluster as of late, hasn’t it? We know. And we’re sorry about that. We are a web design and marketing agency after all. One of the things we preach on the regular is how important it is to figure out your blog schedule and stick to it.

Then we go and let things get quiet for a little while. However, we feel like we have an okay enough excuse that you’ll forgive us. We’ve been busy. On it’s own, that’s not really a sufficient enough excuse so let us tell you what’s happening behind the scenes and what you can expect from Z Coast Media in 2018.

Brand Refreshing

We’re Refreshing the Brand

We’ve been super occupied behind the scenes really trying to zero in on what we want Z Coast Media to stand for and how we can best portray that on our website, in our social media, and to any past, present, and future clients.

Finally, after several months of hard work and late night conversations, we’ve figured out what it is we really want. You see, the funny thing about starting your own design and marketing agency (or any small business for that matter) is the growing pains that you go through. They can make you feel like you’re just missing the mark sometimes. But you should never let that stop you.

Growing pains are a good thing and it’s okay if it takes a little time for you to figure out what it is that you really want to demand from yourself and your brand.

Now, we’re not saying there’s going to be a dramatic change in what we do at Z Coast Media, we just feel like we can do better at more clearly expressing what it is we love to do and how we can better help you do what it is you love to do.

So we hope you keep an eye on the website. We’ve got a lot of exciting things we’re gearing up to reveal in 2018 and we can’t wait for you to see them. Please, don’t be shy about letting us know what you think when we do launch our refresh. Leave a comment on this post or hit us up on social media when things start rolling out.

Sneak Peek: We might be bringing some new color into the branding palette. What do you think?

We’re Setting Up our Editorial Calendar a Little Differently

Our new brand refresh is going to have an impact on the blog and other types of content we’ll be putting out into the world and we really hope you like it. We’re almost done with our 2018 marketing and editorial calendars so we wanted to give you a heads up about what’s coming.

Longer, more in depth blog posts — We want to be a resource for you. We want to be your helping hand, your cheerleader, and maybe, just maybe, your new project partner. But we both know you’ll never trust someone with your project if you don’t 100% trust that we know what we’re talking about.

That’s why we’re planning to start publishing longer, more in-depth pieces of content on the blog. Almost like mini-guides to all things marketing and design for your small business. It’s one of our goals to be your one-stop shop for resources and tools no matter where you are in your own branding (and business) journey.

With that said, we’re planning to adopt a bi-weekly posting schedule with posts that are 1500+ words or more. That way you’ve got something valuable to reference that you can bookmark and look back on as you need it. If you’ve got any requests about something you’d like to know more about when it comes to marketing or design, we’re all ears. Just hit up the inbox.

Videos! — That’s right boys and girls and people of all ages, Z Coast Media is going to start putting out video content. It’ll be entertaining, we promise.

As of the writing of this post we just started Vlogmas over on our brand new YouTube channel so we hope you go check it out. You can visit our YouTube channel by clicking here. You can also subscribe to the channel when you get there so you don’t miss out on any of the action.

Complete transparency here: neither of us has ever done much with video before. We’re learning just like a lot of you reading this post probably are/want to. That’s why we decided to dive straight in and just go for it. Vlogmas is a fun little YouTube “challenge” that we thought we could make good use of to get our feet wet with talking to the camera, recording, and video editing.

After December, in addition to regular vlogging, so you can see what goes on at Z Coast Media, we’ll also be doing more structured videos that we hope serve as another valuable content resource for anyone who needs it.

If you’ve got any video suggestions or requests, feel free to shoot Paige a message here: paige@zcoastmedia.com

Our Project Load is Ramping Up

And we are so pumped about it!

If there’s one thing we’re super thankful for this year it’s our clients. We like staying busy and helping other people create stunning websites, exciting new eCommerce stores, and beautiful new branding elements.

You can expect some exciting new case studies in 2018 outlining and describing some of our most exciting 2017 projects. We can’t wait to introduce you to the brands we’re wrapping up the year with and if you’re reading this blog, we think you’ll be excited to see a showcase of some of our latest work too.

Keep your eyes peeled in the New Year. Things are going to be more active than they’ve ever been here on the blog, on YouTube, and on our social media.

If we’re not connected yet, let’s do that! We love making new friends so we’ll make it easy for you to find us:

Closing The Year With Christmas Cheer

Closing The Year With Christmas Cheer

So do you forgive us? Even though the blog has been quiet we haven’t stopped working. In fact, we’ve been working harder than ever before. But we do promise to do better in 2018.

Hopefully, you plan to stick around and see for yourself. With that said, this will probably be the last Z Coast Media blog post of 2017. We still have a lot of work to do and then a lot of little finishing touches after that.

The plan is to kill two birds with one stone and make the most of this holiday season while ramping up our new YouTube channel and come back in 2018 with all kinds of exciting goodies for you and anyone else who visits the site.

Everyone at Z Coast Media hopes you have a Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year!  See y’all in 2018.

— Paige & Nick

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