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94 August 2015 | beautystorebusiness.com THE BASICS "If you've never visited the YouTube web- site, you've missed out on the hottest thing on the Internet today," says Michael Miller, author of YouTube for Business. The beauty of YouTube video is that the content doesn't need to specifically promote a beauty store. Often, videos that are simply associated with a beauty store overall result in more traffic to its website—and more sales at the register. For example: Your beauty store might try running a video featuring one of your staff demonstrating how to best apply hair color for optimum results. Techni- cally speaking, it's a how-to video. But anyone viewing the video will most likely remember that your store gave her the free, expert advice, and you'll have generated good will with those viewers. It's an idea that Rudy Falco, COO officer of AVE YOU Beauty Boutique (aveyou.com), based in Belmar, New Jersey, plans to try soon. "At this time we do not promote with video, but we do have a plan to start a video beauty blog, which would feature employee and specially selected customer beauty reviews, tips and product recommenda- tions. We hope to be doing this within the next 12 months," Falco says. Adds Kim Snyder, CEO of Overall Beauty (overallbeauty.com), based in Elk Grove, California, "YouTube is one of the best video-sharing sites there is and a lot of major brands have video channels. I would love to use videos. It's in the works." When Snyder does make the plunge, she also plans to feature some very short video clips. "Videos are great because most people won't take but a few seconds to watch something," she says. "To do it, you do what is called interruption marketing. You interrupt your customer with eye-catching products, music [and so on], which is why having videos as a part of your ads on YouTube is so good for business." YouTube Benefits Probably the best aspect of promoting on YouTube is that it's absolutely free. Essentially, YouTube allows businesses and organizations to post promotional pro- ductions free of charge as a way to boost traffic to its site. Plus, it offers users free analytics to track the performance of the videos they post and continually refines their pitches, for the same reason. "Video is compelling," says Mark Merenda, presi- dent of Smart Marketing (smartmarketing now.com) in Naples, Florida. "The Pew International Report on Internet Behavior cited viewing videos as the No. 1 Internet activity—exceeding even emailing." YouTube also makes it easy for even the most novice of beauty stores to get a promotional video on its service. For starters, there's a YouTube "Creator's Hub" (youtube.com/yt/creators/), where you can learn the basics on how to create and set up an account and get inspiration on how to shoot your first video. You'll also find links to editing tools to help you polish your raw footage—and tips on how to optimize your video. Plus, there's also a free users forum, where you can get advice from seasoned YouTube post- ing veterans. Once your video is on YouTube, the free service also offers you an embed- dable video player that you can add to your website. The technology embeds a small screen on your website, which visi- tors can click on to view the promotional videos you've posted about your beauty store on YouTube. (Quick instructions for embedding a YouTube viewer can be found at support.google.com/youtube/ answer/171780?hl=en.) Embedding the player involves little more than dropping a snippet of code onto a Web page. YouTube does the rest. The free player can be placed in other locations on the Web, such as adjacent to your com- pany's blog, on your website's social network or in virtually any other Web- based environment. When dropping in the player, you'll have the option to post it to your site "as is," with its familiar chrome border and YouTube logo. You can choose to customize the player with its own "skin." That cus- tomized look can feature your company's logo and the look and feel that's distinctive to your company or its website. (With either option, a faint, YouTube watermark appears in the right-hand corner of your video.) For an informative video on how to customize your skin, check out youtube. com/watch?v=uTwWEtVtu580. The player-creation tool also enables you to optimize your video for the search engines by allowing you to include titles, descriptions, ratings and viewer comments that are associated with your video. But the real beauty of the player is that the technology enables you to offer a window to your store's videos on your own site, while shifting the hosting and transmission costs associated with the viewing of that video to YouTube. The reason? While the player is embedded on your website, the actual video visi- tors are viewing resides on YouTube's computer servers. That means every time someone views your video it's YouTube's servers that are transmitting the video and not your beauty store's Web servers. YouTube's servers pick up the bandwidth- transmission costs, not you. It's a scenario especially ideal for beauty stores that are interested in reaching out to Web video viewers with a number of offerings, but have little or no budget to do so. Plus, it's also an excellent insurance policy for any beauty store that happens to produce a video that goes viral—i.e., a video that becomes an overnight sensation on the Web that is viewed by hundreds of thousands or even millions of viewers. For most small- and medium-size beauty stores, the onslaught of that kind of massive downloading generally results in crashed servers and countless missed sales/public-relations opportunities. For YouTube, it's nearly an everyday event the goliath has learned to accommodate. YouTube is yet another free Web service owned and offered by Google, whose CEO is Larry Page. Michael Miller is the author of YouTube for Business, a guidebook chock-full of ideas for beauty stores. "Google favors sites with relevant, timely content," says Cyndie Shaffstall, founder, Spider Trainers, an online marketing fi rm. Optimizing your videos for Google can pay you major promotional dividends, according to Jonathan Searle, SEO/SEM consultant, The Pedowitz Group. Looking for an affordable way to add video to your website? YouTube will help you do it for free. Images courtesy of (from top left) Larry Page, Michael Miller, Cyndie Shaffstall and (bottom image) Jonathan Searle