Should Printers Blog? Should They Do Videos?

Are you sick of people telling you to blog, do content marketing, start your own video series, and participate in social media? Well, I’m not ready to let up on you yet.

I believe that print professionals can benefit by many of these efforts. Sharing what you know about what you do is an excellent way to expand your audience and improve your visibility.

All you need are the following:

• A belief that content marketing (CM) is beneficial for your business
• Faith in yourself that you can do it
• Commitment to doing some form of content marketing regularly
• A simple plan that outlines what you’re going to do
• A natural aptitude for one of these media, or
• An outsourced creative partner to handle what you can’t do on your own.

One of your dilemmas might be this: whether to blog or do videos. I single out videos because the power of video marketing has been exploding.

According to a survey done by the Content Marketing Institute, more than 73 percent of B2B marketers reported using video as a CM tactic. And 70 percent surveyed said their budgets for online videos (social videos, those made to be shared across social media) would increase this year. There’s an excellent post by Hootsuite on social video marketing here.

I have one piece of advice if you’re facing this "blog versus videos" dilemma:

Do what comes naturally.

In fact, whatever type of content marketing you choose to kick off the New Year, start with whatever you’ve a natural aptitude for. It’ll make it easier, and you’ll be more likely to produce content on a regular basis.

Not everyone is comfortable being on camera (or, let’s be honest, can do it really well). Excellent videos used to market your business are a combination of interesting content (that’s #1), good editing, great lighting and audio, and the right length for your particular purpose.