BY TJ Walker
Any way you can get more people to see you is usually a good thing. For example, one time I was on the CBS Early Show discussing ways people can get over their public speaking fears and showcasing a book I wrote on that subject. The good news was that this was major national broadcast TV on a network everyone is familiar with and on a respected show with a large audience. The bad news? I was on at 7:30 AM on a Saturday morning, a time when all of my friends, family, colleagues, clients, and contacts are either still asleep or are doing other things.
What to do?
Fortunately, I was able to find the video segment on the CBS site and then link to it from 1. My blog, 2. My newsletter, 3. Facebook, 4. My media page, 5. Twitter, 6. LinkedIn, and 7, 20 other social media sties via Ping.fm.
So even though none of my contacts saw the story about me run on CBS, everyone became aware that I was on CBS because I recycled the video in so many places. In this case, there were no copyright or legal rights issues, because I wasn’t copying the CBS video; I was simply linking to their site. There may be times when you are on a major local or national news program and the story isn’t posted online, though you may have recorded it on you DVR. Please consult your favorite intellectual property rights attorney before assuming you can post a video you recorded for a reputable TV network. I can tell you that I have never heard of an individual not associated with a major institution being sued by a TV outlet for reposting a video where he or she was the focus of the story, but post media video at your own risk!
Another tactic is to bring along a colleague to capture a TV interview or even a print reporter’s interview with you. For example, I have had a colleague stand in the corner with a Flip camera recording me while I was at CNN and Fox capturing the whole interview I was doing. This is my video so I have full rights to post it on YouTube and everywhere else.
Another thing you can do is to do a rehearsal video for a major media interview or even a speech and post that video to your YouTube Channel and elsewhere.
You don’t want to post garbage on YouTube and other places where your friends, clients and colleagues would see it. But you do want lots of regular video content on a consistent basis as long gas it is focused on the issues and expertise your followers associate with you.
I even think it is Ok to re-post certain videos if they are dated. For example, I post and distribute a video every New Year’s eve on how to give a good champagne toast. It’s the same video, but I’ve used it 5 years in a row. No one seems to mind, because the advice is not dated. I will also recycle certain training videos once a year or so in my client newsletter. But I never recycle videos I have created that are an analysis of topical news issues. That is as boring and useless as watching last week’s 6 o’clock news, and no one wants that.
Another way of recycling is to chop up video from one of your speeches into bite sized segments. Take a 45 minute speech of yours and then edit each sand alone ideas, some might be 2 minutes long; others might be 20 seconds long. Don’t worry about how long the segment is; instead, just focus on isolating one interesting idea at a time. Some people would never want to watch a 45 minute speech or yours in one sitting on the internet, but wouldn’t mind watching one 30 second segment every week for a year. Great! Try to make all of your video as easily accessible in as many different formats and lengths as possible and you will build your audience, influence and clout.