YouTube.com did something amazing. The social networking video hosting giant hit a major milestone: 100 million videos served a day. That’s pretty impressive if you’re a YouTubian. It is even more fantastic when you consider the total live-time of the site: YouTube.com has only been streaming video for a year and a half, roughly.
What does this mean to your restaurant operation? It means that people not only demand video, they are willing to share it. It means that online video better be a part of your marketing program. It means that you have an opportunity to make your own video, too.
YouTube.com's modus operandi is to give individuals a place to broadcast. The people posting videos range from network engineers and directors to teenagers interested in sharing their stories. When it comes to the restaurant industry, there are over 2,532 videos posted with something to do with the restaurants. Considering that everyone has something to say about the food they eat, it should be no surprise as to the amount of videos posted. Below are a few videos for you to consider looking into:
- Amateur Gourmet shares three restaurant reviews. The videos are detailed and specific enough to warrant a return visit to his website.
- The St. John Restaurant in
- ITV provides a nice video pilot about a Tacoma, WA restaurant. This one is a bit long, but you’ll see what professionals can do. Also, you’ll see what advertisers want to do.
The point of the videos, if you watched them, isn’t necessarily to advertise the restaurant, but to offer an opinion on the food, atmosphere and the experience. We are seeing grassroots promotion on a video level that you just can’t get anywhere else. Furthermore, the videos are inherently viral. This means a friend can invite another friend to watch the video and post a comment, thereby spreading the video into the depths of the internet.
As a restaurant owner, what are you doing to truly capture your restaurant’s food, ambience and personality? Are you posting video on YouTube.com? Or, are you posting video to your website?
Chances are you haven’t even tried to capture footage of your restaurant storefront. There probably aren’t special event advertising videos, either. An outdated picture of your restaurant interior is about all you have to show on your website. It doesn’t sound like you’ve spent the ten minutes it takes to make a good quality film illustrating your concept. You should ask yourself this motivating question if you want to attract new customers: would a short video make a difference to the people visiting my website? If you want more customers then the answer is YES – video is more appealing!
A long time ago, online video production was very complicated. However, creating an online video, today, isn’t as hard as you might think.
You need three things:
- A video camera
- Editing software
- Video streaming service
Thankfully, YouTube.com, or Eyespot.com gives you two out of the three. The camera, which could be your cell phone or digital still camera, is the final component you’ll need to procure.
As an experiment, I signed up for Eyespot to see how easily I could create my own video. To start, the service was free; great, one less thing to buy. Secondly, signing up for the service took about 22 seconds. Lastly, I was able to edit, upload and link to my video in only a couple of minutes (depends on how large the video is). Because I’m an avid mountain biker, I decided to post some mountain biking footage - you can link to it here.
The lesson I learned from Eyespot is video can be easy! I also realized how quick the developers at Eyespot have learned the value of making the user experience intuitive. In other words, I didn’t have to spend time trying to figure out the process. It was obvious from the start.
This post begs the question: when are you going to post your video?
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