“Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise.” - Ted Turner
Now that you have finished uploading your lesson, it is time to start thinking about getting the word out and promoting your Mindbites so that you will see some sales. We’d like to think that simply bringing a masterpiece into this world is enough for it to be noticed by the adoring public, but sadly this is not always the case. We at MindBites pledge to do all we can to help get out the good word on your lesson, but taking initiative and doing some advertising yourself is highly beneficial.
The following are merely a few ideas of where to start when promoting your lesson, but some good ol’ fashioned ingenuity will do you well in this game. Don’t be afraid to tread the unknown waters when advertising, you may strike oil in a completely unexpected place.
The first place to start promoting your lesson is with the title. The title should be written with Google or any search engine in mind. In other words, think about how someone would type in a search for your topic. They might type in certain keywords or they might phrase it like a question. For example, if your lesson is about teaching someone how to write a stellar resume and someone is searching for how to write a resume they might type in words like “how to write a resume” or “resume writing tips” or “resume writing skills”. If you think about it from this perspective, the title tends to come easily. In this example, a good title would be “Learn skills and tips for writing an effective resume.”
A good title will go a long way in promoting your lesson because it not only will help bump your lessons up in the search results, but it will also help people who are already on the site find your lesson.
The second step is your lesson description. The description also serves a few key roles. Besides the title and free preview, the description serves as direct communication to visitors about what you are going to cover in the lesson. A thorough description makes it much easier for folks to click the “buy” button. Also, the description is another opportunity to load up on keywords.
Again, keep in mind all the keywords that might be typed into a search engine when looking for your subject matter. You should try to work these keywords into your description to increase your lesson searchability.
The next step is to share your video with everyone you know. One way to share is to email all of your friends and family. However, the easiest way to share your lesson is to use the built-in functionality on the MindBites.com website. There are three ways to share your lesson using the built in functionality.
1. The envelope icon located on the lower left corner of the media player. If you click on the envelope, it will allow you to email the video preview to a friend or multiple friends.
2. Next to the envelope you will see an icon that looks like a band aid. It actually represents a link. If you click on the link icon, it will show you the link address for the particular lesson. You can copy and paste this link into your email or use it to create a text link on your website or other websites, forums, and blogs (including blog comments).
3. This represents the embed function. If you click on the embed icon, a string of code will pop up. If you copy and paste this code into a website or blog, the entire media player will appear on the website or blog, and viewers will be able to watch the preview while staying on that particular site or blog.
It is also important to promote your lesson to people outside of your immediate circle. The easiest place to start is on YouTube. When you put up a clip of your video on YouTube, you offer a little bit more than a 60 second preview but leave the viewer wanting for more. Here is an example of a clip that MindBites put up on YouTube for The Flip video camera instructional: The Flip Clip.
Typically, the YouTube clips are best kept at or around 3 minutes in length. Be sure to mention that the viewer needs to go to http://www.MindBites.com for the full lesson.
Our goal here at MindBites is to help you in any way we can and to enable you to be successful as an author. Look for future blogs to talk about the benefits of a strong title image, the first 60 seconds of your lesson, using Craigslist, Digg, popular blog sites, forums, and more.
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