Three of the Top Photography Business Video Courses

As a small business owner. continued education is crucial for my growing photography business. There are times when attending a big conference or convention just isn't an option for me. But there are other ways to obtain a similar educational experience from home. While books and lectures can be helpful, I have found that online courses or videos are an extremely beneficial form of eduction. I'm sure there are many options for online courses, but here are a few of my favorite resources.
CreativeLIVE
CreativeLIVE is a great resource for online courses for business owners. One of the wonderful things about CreativeLIVE is that you can actually watch their video courses for free if you tune in while they are live. They're online course programs are very reasonable priced though if you're like me and like to refer to them often. They have everything from photography specific courses on lighting and creativity to more general courses on running your business or balancing work and life.
PhotoVision
One of the great things about PhotoVision is that it's a subscription based video education program. You pay an annual or monthly fee and have access to hundreds of hours of education. You can stream the videos online or you can receive videos in the mail or you can get both online and video access. This video education program is specific to photographers and covers everything from newborn photography sessions to weddings. It has live shoots, how to run your business, how to do in person sales, figuring out your pricing structure and much much more. They cover a huge range of incredibly beneficial information for anyone running a photography studio.
Zach & Jody Gray
This is another photographer specific video option. Zach & Jody Gray are a well known and well respected husband and wife wedding photographer team. They have several videos available to photographers teaching how to get great images in camera, how to shoot with natural light and off camera lighting, and how to speed up your post production time. I have learned something from every single one of their videos and would recommend them to any photographer who's seeking a more technical grasp of their craft.
These are just a few video courses that I myself use regularly for my education and I'm sure there are a myriad more! No matter what your preference is, further increasing your business knowledge is extremely vital to continuing to grow and evolve as a thriving business owner!

Stephanie lives in Central IL, is married to her best friend, Ryan, and enjoys the company of her crazy pups, Kit & Lucy. She is the owner of Green Tree Media Photography and is passionate about photography.
Stephanie received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in photography and design from Millikin University. She worked for Jones & Thomas, an advertising agency in Decatur, IL for 3 years doing both design and photography before starting up her own business as a natural light and lifestyle photographer.

HDMI To DVI Cable - Bridging The Gap

Television has come a long way over the last several decades, and the types of cables used to connect it to the video source have changed as well. From coaxial cable to the AVI cable, things continued to change until this latest generation of high definition televisions. While there's a chance that a new type of cable will come out in the next decade to replace them, at the moment there are two main types of video cables - DVI and HDMI. And in some cases, you may find that you need a combination of the two in a HDMI to DVI cable.
Before we discuss what a HDMI to DVI cable is, it's worth looking at the two types independently. In the case of the DVI cable, you've been using these for a long time. It's the same type of cable that connects your computer monitor to the computer tower, and is capable of handling up to 1920x1200 HD video. This 24 pin cable is very common and very affordable.
The other side of this equation is the HDMI cable. This is the type of connector used by Blu-Ray players, HD television boxes, and modern gaming consoles. It's used to connect these high-definition devices to an HD television set and provide you with the kind of high quality image you deserve. While these were initially very expensive, they've dropped in price significantly over the last few years and are now very affordable. They can stream audio and video at the same time and are simpler to use than DVI.
However, in some cases you may need to utilize an HDMI to DVI cable to solve connectivity issues. There are two prime examples of this. The first is when you have a high-definition computer monitor that you want to use to watch HD video on from a video source that uses HDMI. The computer monitor likely uses DVI, so using a HDMI to DVI cable is the easiest solution to the problem. The other situation is the exact opposite. When you want to stream video from your computer or another device with a DVI jack to a modern HD television, these cables are again the best solution to the problem.
An HDMI to DVI cable will come in various lengths but will always feature the HDMI jack on one end and the DVI jack on the other. They're easy to use and will help you make this unique type of video connection a breeze to complete.

Elements of a Successful Video Marketing Plan

A Forbes survey on Corporate executives and video usage revealed that 75% of all executives claimed watching work-related videos on business websites at least once a week, and more than 50% claimed that YouTube was the most popular video search engine used to watch those videos. As the dependence on video content increases for corporate executives, it has become imperative for B2B marketers to apportion a sizeable budget to video marketing initiatives. We understand that jumping into the video marketing bandwagon can be a daunting task, and we are here to ease in the transition by providing some actionable tips on elements that make up a successful video marketing plan. If you have in fact already started your video marketing campaigns, this check-list will help you determine if any aspects are missing from your plan.
Here are the most important aspects of a video marketing plan:
Start with a goal
Before embarking on any kind of a planning exercise, it is important to chart out the goal for the exercise. The goal could vary from increasing the number of blog/email subscribers to receiving sales leads through product demo registrations.
Narrow it down to specific tactics
After a clear goal has been established, you need to decide whether you want it to be achieved through earned (embedding the links on your website) or paid media (YouTube advertising); how many channels you want to create, how often you will be updating it with diverse content and the type of content to be used for catering to different types of marketing needs.
Create diverse content to cater to different stages of the buyer's purchase journey
Brands need to create diverse content to cater to different audience tastes and also to facilitate their journey at different touch-points of the purchase journey. A study by Pixability revealed that consumers who were closer to the top of the marketing funnel could be pushed further along using short form content (short product demos, video clips), while those who are those farther along in the buying journey could be converted using longer form content (how-to tutorials, video guides etc).
Optimize
You need to optimize your videos so that they are search-engine friendly and can be easily found online. For this purpose, it is important to carefully research keywords related to your industry, niche or value offerings and use them in the title of the video, video description and keyword tags. Include a transcript for all your videos on YouTube as well as on your website.
Promote, promote and promote some more
Promote your videos everywhere from your website, blog to social bookmarking and networking sites, Make sure that your videos can be easily shared on social networking sites. The same study by Pixability as mentioned earlier also demonstrated how the top 25% of the 100 brands studies had higher Facebook (330 times greater) and Twitter (89 times greater) video sharing than the bottom 25%.
Include a call-to-action
It is important to leave your viewers with a desire to learn more and to undertake some action subsequent to the completion of the video. Leave a call to action at the end of a video urging the users to subscribe to your emailing list/newsletter, your channel, share on social networking sites, like the video, register for a trial or to simply get in touch with you.
Be consistent
Consistently update your channels with frequent videos. It is more important to add content to your channels as opposed to adding more channels. The top 100 brands performing exceptionally well on YouTube regularly updated their content.