These days, recording a professional-looking Web video interview is becoming easier and cheaper. However, it is still easy to get things like lighting, studio set up and the background wrong. At Software Advice, we shoot a lot of Web video, and we wanted to share tips we’ve learned from trial and error along the way. Here are three key areas to focus on to help you create great Web videos.

1. Pick a Quality Webcam

While it may be tempting to stick with your computer’s built-in webcam, chances are that your webcam will shoot low quality video. Since most people out on the Web are starting to expect high definition video, it’s a good idea to go out and get a webcam that can shoot in HD.

If you don’t have a built-in webcam that can shoot in HD, we recommend checking out Logitech HD Pro Webcam C920 for Windows and Logitech HD Pro Webcam C910 for Mac. One advantage of these webcams is that they also record decent audio.

2. Get the Right Sound

There are several options available for getting a decent sound for your Web videos. The first is to use a good HD webcam (like the Logitech models recommended above) that can record audio. If you want to go with this approach, pic on that has dual microphones as it will capture the audio better.

Your second option is to pic a USB microphone (see below) that can connect to your computer to improve the sound. We like Blue Microphone’s Snowball ($68) as it offers great sound for price, or you can upgrade to their Yeti ($106) for even higher quality sound. If that’s not your style, you can always go the route of a headset or lapel mic. One thing to note, however, is that these will likely be visible in your video.

3. Lighting

Lighting is a big area of focus when trying to get your video to appear professional. If you don’t have the right lighting, colors will dull and there will be shadows in your face. Neither is desirable.

At Software Advice, we rely on two small desk lamps that cost $23 each and use copy paper diffusers to light our foreground. We also use a three-piece lighting kit to light our backdrop (see figure in step 5). One side note about lighting: dim your computer screen as much as possible to avoid getting lighting from your monitor into the shot. Below you can see examples of good lighting versus poor lighting.

There you have three areas that you can focus on to create great, professional-looking Web videos without breaking our bank. Do you have any tips you’d like to provide? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Guest post by Derek Singleton who is a CRM software analyst at Software Advice, an online resource that reports on technologies, topics and trends in B2B marketing.

One of the best ways I keep my readers/viewers updated is through my email list. There are many companies who offer the service, but I chose one called Aweber because they have a lot of great options available with their service and give a commission if other people also sign up for the service through you.  Unfortunately, I’ve referred three people to them (possibly more), and each time I’ve had problems getting my commission.  Every time I called about it I was told by their customer service department that it was because those people used my affiliate link without the www in front of it.  Somehow that supposedly affected the cookies so that they couldn’t track where the sign-ups were coming from.  In all three cases I was told that I just had to get the username and invoice number for the person I referred, and I’d be credited.  I did get the credit for two of the people, but not for one.  That third person signed up for a full year and I contacted Aweber a month later, when I noticed that my commission hadn’t been recorded.

Turns out, somehow in this case, I’m not able to be credited retroactively.  They say that a month is too much time, and there’s no way they can credit my account or issue me a commission.  Excuse me?  How on earth is that possibly acceptable?  The person who signed up says he did it through my link.  I gave all the info they requested.  Any reputable business can issue a refund, a credit, or a comission – but not this one.  Not to mention that in all 3 instances I had to follow up to find out why my commission didn’t go through in the first place – how many other people signed up with my affiliate link that I don’t know about?

The final person that I spoke to was the customer service manager, who told me that in fact it didn’t matter if the www was there or not.  He said that with or without the www it records the cookies the same.  I couldn’t believe it – I told him how at least three other people in customer service told me that was the reason why my commissions didn’t go through in the first place, and he told me that they were wrong, but regardless, they would not give me a credit of any kind for the payment that had been made in this case.

I’m really flabbergasted at the treatment I got from Aweber.  Considering I’m paying $29 a month to them, and the commission we’re talking about here is only $58, you’d think they might want to make their recurring customer (and active affiliate) happy.  But nope – they refuse to budge even though both I and the person who signed up through my link have told them that’s the case, and even though I’ve never had a commission given to me for an account that I didn’t have to follow up on myself because it didn’t get recorded on their end, and even though I was able to be credited for the other two.

So I highly recommend you use an alternative to Aweber because any company that is shady enough to be like this, isn’t one that you should be investing your own money in, or referring others too.  The main problem is that once you’ve set up your email list, you’re kind of stuck with them – and they know that.  I can go to another service, but I’ve heard from others who’ve tried switching that most of their list doesn’t actually bother to switch over with them (I can’t move over people to a new email list myself – they have to re-sign up themselves and click on the confirmation link).  So if you’re just starting out with building an email list, choose wisely – because once you’ve got one, you’ll have to put up with their rules and customer service whether you like it or not.

It’s really interesting to see how times are changing in the advertising world, thanks to YouTube.  The 30 second commercial on TV is starting to take a backseat to the cool possibilities that lie with creating a viral advertising campaign online.  TV commercials on TV can’t be shared around to your friends from TV to TV, and they can’t be interactive – but YouTube allows both of those things, which is huge for getting viewers engaged.

I came across a post at Gigaom.com that included YouTube’s top ten list of the most successful video ads on their website for 2010, and noted these interesting revelations in their analysis of those videos:

1. Accidental hype.

Etrade made a lot of buzz online when the internet financial company aired an ad about a “milkaholic baby” during the Super Bowl. The baby was named Lindsay, who happens to be also the name of a famous Hollywood child star, whose wild lifestyle had landed her both in the front page of entertainment tabloids and in jail. LiLo sued the company for a hundred million dollars for the “pain and suffering” Etrade had caused her, which only made the video more popular.

2. Pushing interactivity

One really remarkable concepts in advertising on YouTube videos was done by the European brand Tipp-Ex, which is a popular line of correction fluid/tape. The European counterpart to White Out launched last September a “choose your bear-venture” campaign on YouTube with a video of hunter asking people what to do next with a bear. This was done by filling in the blanks (A hunter ____ a bear) at the top corner of the screen. It got a lot of engagement and response from viewers who became in control of the ad in a way.

3. Experimenting with word-of-mouth

Advertisers also tested out YouTube’s distribution power by playing with its features. One of them was Nike’s Write the Future ad, which was first listed as a private video on YouTube before being widely distributed online. Nike wanted to see how the video might become popular through word of mouth,and being discussed on social platforms, which actually seems to have worked just fine with the 21.2 million views that it got.

4. Serializing content

And of course who can forget The Man Your Man Could Smell Like, Old Spice’s ad campaign on YouTube which was conceptualized by the Wieden + Kennedy marketing agency, became viral in just 24 hours of being uploaded on the video sharing website. The campaign included over 80 videos with former football star Isaiah Mustafa talking about how your man should smell like, as well as several personalized video responses to TV personalities and popular brands who’ve asked the Old Sprice Guy anything under the sun via social media.  They’ve recently relaunched the campaign with a new ad that again has gone viral.  People sure love these!

It must be quite exciting for big brands and advertising agencies to see this trend in advertising growing.  Thanks to YouTube and online video in general, the possibilities are pretty much endless now in terms of how companies can reach out to potential customers and really get their attention, unlike ever before.

With all the legal ownership and copyright debates that have been going on recently on YouTube, it’s timely to talk about who actually owns the videos we put up on YouTube. Is it you, me, or YouTube itself? ReelSEO’s Grant Cowell did a blog post about this covering these points:

1. YouTubers retain ownership of their videos.

YouTubers who upload their videos on the video-sharing website  has full ownership of their videos.  However, by uploading their videos on YouTube, they automatically grant YouTube the right to re-publish and monetize on their content.

2. There are circumstances where you may not own your video.

If you get other videographers to film you, you may not actually own the video – depending on the agreement (or lack thereof). If you hire a videographer as a employee, then you, as the business owner, owns your video. Otherwise, if you hire a videographer as a freelancer, then they technically own full credit to the video, unless you had them sign an agreement stating otherwise (this is at least true in US law).

To possess full ownership of the video, you have to get them to sign a kind of work for hire agreement. That’ll give you full ownership of the videos your hired videographer will make.

3. Get legal advice.

Before embarking on creating your video with the help of someone else, it’s advised you do an intellectual property audit first with a lawyer, which involves your video content (music, lyrics, logos, art) as well as the brand you’d like to protect. Once you have that ready then you’ll be able to draft the contracts you need based on your intellectual property assets and business model.  It may sound a bit extreme, but depending on how serious you are about what you’re doing on YouTube, getting legal advice may be a good way to go.

In the end it’s up to you to decide how important the whole issue of who owns what really is.  If you’re just making simple videos to get exposure, you may not need to really worry about this kind of stuff and it might be more time consuming than it’s worth. If you’re making videos for your company on the other hand, and/or putting a lot of time and effort into trying to get that illusive viral video, and/or making money off your videos, then ensuring you’re the one with the rights to them with leave you in complete control – which is where you want to be!

It appears that social media is now in a head-to-head battle with search engines in terms of video referrals, based on the latest quarterly joint research report of Brightcove and TubeMogul titled Online Video and the Media Industry.

Facebook has now gone way ahead of Yahoo in terms of video referrals and discovery, accounting for 9.6% of the referrals to media companies. This is definitely noteworthy as it marks the first time that social media has surpassed a search engine. It has yet to take out Google from the top spot, however, which analysts predict would happen in the last quarter of 2010.

So far both Twitter and Google have tied-in in terms of engagement. Twitter came out as the winner for the “engaging referral source” for magazines and online media with 1:57 minutes over 1:40 minutes, respectively (Facebook ranked second to Twitter at 1:55 minutes). Google, meanwhile, grabbed the top spot for newspapers, with 1:57 minutes as well. Brightcove and TubeMogul explain in their report that this reflects the search habits and trends of internet users, who go to their social networks for entertainment, while most go to Google for “the most relevant and breaking content.”

Twitter was also the number one engaging referral site for brands, so if you have videos for your business (and you should) make sure you’re actively sharing them on Twitter.

Whether or not social media websites will someday eclipse search engines in terms of online traffic and searches remains to be seen, but it’s very interesting to see how social media is exerting more and more influence on our internet culture everyday.

Have you noticed anything different about my blog? The changes aren’t really drastic, but are a long time coming. Over the past few months I’ve been keeping track of what I’ve seen on other blogs and of comments people have left me, and I finally bit the bullet and got everything on my list done!

I’m quite excited about a number of the new features.
Here’s a list of the main things you’ll notice around the blog:

• Tagline changed in the top left banner from “How I’m Getting Famous Online & How You Can Too” to “YouTube Marketing Tactics”
• Pages buttons/links at the top re-ordered
• 3 more of the recent blog posts added to the list on the main page (now 8 showing instead of 5)
• The “Blog” page now just shows the 10 most recent blog posts and then you can select pages of older entries at the bottom (it used to load every previous blog post in one page)
• When a category is clicked on, it used to only show one page of results with 8 or 9 blog posts, but now it includes all blog posts in that category over multiple  pages (10 per page)
• Changed the font throughout the blog from Comic Sans to something more professional looking
• Removed the smaller “Recent Posts” block on the right side of the blog (since recent posts are already listed on the page)
• Added the YouTube subscribe widget to the right side, under the newsletter signup block so anyone can easily subscribe in one click
• Added the Facebook social plugin to the right side, under the YouTube subscribe widget, that shows how many people “like” me on Facebook and recent posts on my Page.
• Removed the “Places To Connect With Me” block on the lower right
• Put Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and two YouTube buttons where the Google ad banner used to be in the top right
• Removed two of the ads from the “Blog Sponsors” section (GoDaddy & DreamHost)
• Added retweet and F Share buttons under the title and again at the bottom of all the blog posts and remove other sharing options that were at the bottom
• Started off the comments section on the blog posts with a Facebook comments section
• Added a plugin that puts the comments submitted on the YouTube video that’s embedded in that blog post, into the comments section of the blog post as well
• Add a pagerank button/banner to the advertising page to show that this is a PR4 website

As you can probably tell, there’s definitely a big focus on social media connectivity.  I decided to remove the sharing buttons for other sites like Digg and StumbleUpon because they’re almost never used… most of the people I know and network with only use Facebook and often Twitter so I wanted to keep the focus on those two.  I think that sometimes giving too many options can just overwhelm people or take away from what you really want them to do – and I really want readers to share my posts on Facebook and Twitter. 

I also felt that it was more important to have people checking out social media accounts than to receive the little bit of profit I was getting from my Google Ads banner.  I’d much rather have readers connecting with me on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or of course my two YouTube channels, than just viewing, or on a rare basis clicking on, the ads.  I think the benefits from getting more connections/followers/viewers on those sites outweighs the small amount of money I was making from that.

And a feature that I’m really excited about is the Facebook comments at the bottom of every blog post.  Although this blog has been getting a good amount of traffic lately, the comments on it really haven’t picked up much.  I think that by having a really easy way for people to comment that doesn’t require them to input their name, email, and website, that hopefully more people will opt to leave a quick comment.  If you’re already signed in to Facebook on your browser (and most of us are) it will automatically detect that, allowing you to just type in your comment and hit enter without any other sign-in required.  Pretty cool!

And to get the ball rolling, I’m giving away a FREE Classic Calendar from Staples Canada to someone who leaves a “Facebook Comment” below.  The 11″x17″ 12-month calendar can start on any month you choose and you can add up to 26 images to it.  I have a promotional code that’s valid until February 19th so you just create the whole thing on their easy-to-use website and then enter the code to get it for free!  One entry per person and only for things written in the Facebook Comments section TODAY & TOOMORROW (February 7th & 8th) so leave a comment below right now to win it and thanks in advance for reading/commenting!

Interactive web video series let you choose your own adventure by clicking annotations or “call for actions” at the end of the videos. In other words, you get to participate and decide what will happen. It’s definitely a cool concept and a fun way to get your viewers to interact with your videos.

Big brands have been pretty slow to start sponsoring web video series’, but recently AXE made a deal with Chad (Villela), Matt (Bettinelli-Olpin) and Rob (Polonsky), pretty much the godfathers of interactive web video series, on YouTube, which was really a pioneering move for AXE in the online advertising/marketing niche.

Titled the Teleporter, the video has already gained 350,000 videos, and only features the world-famous deodorants seconds before the video ends. Rob stated in a TubeFilter interview that they wanted to keep product integration at a minimum as audiences usually don’t like it very much and can be quite sensitive about it.  Axe respects their stance, and let them do what they felt was best, which is fantastic to see a big brand trust a small video producer so much – and of course, it’s also smart, since the video producer is going to know best what will or won’t work with their audience.

This shows that brands are slowly but surely developing a greater understanding of how brand promotion works on YouTube. And for YouTubers, brand promotion of course doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re selling out, as long as you don’t execute those videos in a “cheap fashion” and make sure to keep the brands from being intrusive.

I’ve done a few promoted videos, like the ones I did for Big Skinny Wallet and Vumber and they both worked quite well for me.  They gave me some additional income and allowed me to do some creative things with my videos.

Doing branded videos not only can get you additional income but also gain more exposure so when done right it can be a win win situation.  Have you experimented with any branded videos yourself?

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YouTube Comment of the Day:

JCTECH321 has made a comment on I gave out my phone number on YouTube!: i dont think u were really talking to ur mom

In December I came across a video of tweens doing a parody of my own parody video Only Gay. They were lip-synching the lyrics to the song, dancing, doing head snaps, etc. I of course wasn’t offended at all, but actually flattered by the parody (unfortunately, just found out that it wasn’t on YouTube anymore when I was trying to find the link to it) and found some truth in a comment that someone on my Facebook page wrote when he saw it: “the internet is dangerous in the wrong hands. LOL”.

What may actually be dangerous is that at the same time, Google launched a crackdown on  copyright rules-violators on YouTube by using  software that automatically detects unauthorized content. The videos are being blocked by the software as soon as they’ve been uploaded on YouTube. The reason behind this “online bust,” is so people who owned/created original content could get found easily, instead of the people who merely did parodies or remakes on their video properties.

ReelSEO columnist Grant Crowell and his lawyers aired a podcast discussion about this, with tips on how YouTubers can avoid getting in trouble with the software. Crowell advised YouTubers to get a lawyer so that they’ll be guided on whether their videos are legit or not before they start filming them, and to trademark their content. In reality, it’s pretty unlikely that most of us would take either of those precautions, but the bigger you get on YouTube (and the more money you make from it as a Partner) the more likely you’d want to actually take those steps.

Here are some of the other tips he shared:

1. Sell your rights, and buy rights.

2. Always ask permission when wanting to use somebody else’s content. And in case you hadn’t (by accident) and went on to film your video, don’t rationalize your ignorance either.

3. Be aware of contracts and know your rights. Be knowledgable about Fair Use too.

4. Beef up on copyright issues by watching the LegalVideoGuys channel (social media lawyers) on YouTube.

It is definitely a good idea to adhere to YouTube’s copyright rules when uploading content, but there’s always a fine line with things that fall under Fair Use and in the end I think you have to make an educated decision and go with it. YouTube woudn’t be as bit as it is now if there hadn’t have been so many copyrighted things uploaded to it in the beginning (and even now).

Legal issues will continue to be confusing/changing/complicated when it comes to online video, but as long as you stay informed and then decide on what level of risk you’re comfortable with, then move forward creating and uploading content as you see fit (and let me know any repercussions you encounter along the way)!

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YouTube Comment of the Day:

TeegsProject365 has made a comment on Double Dream Hands Parody: bahahahahah this is SOO AWESOME! lol died! You are a great dancer!

YouTube recently said goodbye to the old look of its annotations editor, making some changes to increase functionality, and making it more visually appealing to its users.  YouTubers get to experience a more user-friendly annotations editor now, with a side panel (right-hand side of the video) where you can directly input call to actions, and choose the style of annotation, text fonts, and background fills.

So if you haven’t been on YouTube for quite some time, then you’ll probably notice that some of the annotations (speech bubbles and call to actions that pops up in the video) are a bit more exciting now as they come in different colors and have different font styles and sizes too. Users can choose from six set of font sizes and 14 colors for the text, and 12 background colors for the annotation itself.

They also added a new type of annotation, “Title”, which allows the overlaying of headlines, titles, and credits on top of the video.  In the past you actually had to write within a bubble or some type of box, but now you can actually just add text on its own.

These recent developments on the annotation editor were based on tons of feedback from YouTubers that the site gathered in continuously developing its video-streaming platform. The annotations feature was first introduced back in 2008, and since then many video uploaders have used it to facilitate interactions with their audience as well as in sharing new content. This has helped YouTubers get more views for their videos, and I’ve definitely benefited from it myself (particularly on my other channel, Top Trending Topics where I have a set method for how I use them in every video).

Try out the new annotations and see the results yourself. Have fun!

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YouTube Comments of the Day – Remembering Dick:

Dan500ful has made a comment:
LOOOOOOOOOOL JoshRImer= Legend

angelafrica18 has made a comment:
ohgosh.. i never laughed so hard before. ) hilarious.

YouTube has recently increased the time length for uploaded videos… if you qualify.  And how do you qualify?  By having a squeaky clean account.  Unfortunately for me, that counts me out because I’ve had one copyright strike against my account.  I did a parody of So You Think You Can Dance and used the theme music from the show.  Dick Clark Productions requested it to be removed and now my account is forever tarnished with one unremovable digital spanking.  Great.

Anyway, for everyone else who has been the perfect YouTube angel, video time limits will soon be a thing of the past.  But just because you can upload longer videos certainly doesn’t mean you should.  The limit has been 15 minutes for a while, and 10 minutes since the start of the website, but most of us rarely take up half that. In general, I highly suggest keeping your videos down to 3 minutes. Longer than that and you lose a lot of people who click away to find something else as soon as they get bored (which hurts your video rankings in the search results because it shows a lack of interest by people who check out your video).

It can be, on the other hand, a relief for a lot of people who have their own short films, instructional videos, and other types of understandably longer-form content.  There are certainly exceptions to the rule and it’s nice that they’ll now have the option to upload longer content without the need to spit it up into multiple pieces.

Remember that the most important thing is to get your videos seen and long videos can scare away a lot of people in the age of ADD.  Consider showing highlights of a performance or a speech instead of the whole thing whenever possible.  Cut down rambling vlogs to the best few minutes with quick cuts to keep up the pace. Keep the videos long if there’s good, legitimate reasoning to do so, but otherwise for greater success in general, keep ‘em short!

What do you think? Will you find this new YouTube feature beneficial?  Do you like watching longer videos?

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YouTube Comments of the Day - Rihanna – Only Girl (In The World) Parody – Only Gay:

TheRaissa95 has made a comment:
hahahahahaha i love love love this!!!!! GREAT JOB!

bfflsrock1 has made a comment:
BEST VIDEO EVER!

xDotxDotxCurvex3 has made a comment:
Dang you’re skilled!