Longtime POMA member Wm. Hovey Smith has been producing outdoor related videos for 2.5 years and now has over 380 videos up on YouTube that have generated over 1.5 million views. Now with YouTube Partner status, he can upload videos that are more than 15-minutes long.
“What I do,” Smith said, “is to have the video’s content drive the length of the video. If I need 20 minutes to tell or show what I am trying to illustrate, I use it. I am careful about editing in that I cut sections where not much is happening or show only the start and end of steps, instead of having the viewer sit through the entire process. To keep the viewer engaged, I often put in the unexpected, or even video errors, so that the video appears ‘real,’ rather than a slickly produced commercial ad. I also use a bit of acting and voicing to make these videos unmistakably mine.”
Using these videos as no-costs advertising allows him to promote his books and other products to a world-wide audience who order his books and E-books from Amazon and other on-line marketers. The most technically advanced video that he has done is his second promotional video for his new business book Profit. This video includes live footage, sections of a Power Point presentation and still photography. This video may be found by Googling “Hovey Profit 2.”
“Because I am basically a idea-generating person, I am compelled to put a mix of content in my YouTube videos. This past year this included one on Sexually Transmitted Diseases made as a fun video that seriously covers STDs for teen-aged boys, others on the development of the Super Walker muzzleloading revolver, making charcoal, guitar music, home repair and cooking a variety of things including Coot breast, which taste better than many ducks. While these satisfy my mental needs to expose these ideas, it is far better to have an individual YouTube channel stick to one type of content. With this focus, the number of views will rise faster and the channel owner will be more likely to attract paying ads, because of the higher probability of the product being related to the video’s content, however loose that connection might be. Although the videos produce a small amount of income from Google-placed ads, their real value is in personal brand promotion and free advertisng.