Live cameras are being used more and more to promote beach resorts, casinos, ski resorts, trade shows, and other live events. Here are some fairly simple yet effective ways to bring more traffic to your live camera feed.
I recently received an email from a new client, asking for live camera marketing ideas. I happily replied with some suggestions – in an email that admittedly may have been too long. Yet it still didn’t feel like I had scratched the surface on the subject. There are MANY things you can (and should) do to promote your live camera feed.
It is tempting to set up a camera, sit back, and wait for traffic to come. Unfortunately that doesn’t always work. Live camera feeds don’t draw web traffic automatically. You know this, or you wouldn’t be here. I’d like to just share 7 fairly simple steps that will increase your live camera traffic.
Before I even begin, though, keep the following in mind: the best marketing is a great product. Consider your live camera content, image quality, camera reliability, and interface features. You want to encourage visitors to come back and bring friends. TrueLook works hard to provide quality cameras that are easy to share. However, if you’re running a DIY setup, consider a quality camera and solid hosting.
1. Don’t hide it
This is the most important step. Your own website should promote your live camera feed. Have an obvious link from your homepage to your live camera feed webpage. It should be incredibly easy to find the live feed, not buried inside 5 layers of navigation. If appropriate, you could even place the live camera feed on your homepage.
For some reason, I see many companies who hide their camera feed where no one will ever find it. If I can’t find it when I am looking for it, no one else is going to find it when they are not looking for it.
2. Use what you already have
Do you have an email newsletter? A Facebook page? A Twitter account? It doesn’t matter how you communicate with your audience – just be sure to let them all know about your new camera feed. Mention your camera in your next newsletter, with a link straight to the live feed. Perhaps as your customers arrive, let them know about the live camera so they can show off to their friends back home. As they leave, remind them of the camera feed so they can check in and reminisce from home.
3. The press release
A well written press release can spread links to your live camera feed across the internet. Remember that your release will get picked up a lot quicker if you can write more than simply “Company XYZ has a live camera feed now.” Give the media a reason to care – what is special about your location or how you are using your camera? Here is a great piece about writing press releases.
4. Submit your camera to live camera feed directories
With caution, you may want to submit your live camera feed to some online directories. Be aware, some of these directories seem safe on the front end but make their money by linking out to adult websites. Some sites that I believe are safe include Camvista, Webcams.travel, WebcamGalore, WebcamsMania, and CamCentral.
These sites can get you more eyeballs, but at two costs. First, the live camera traffic goes to the directory site and not your own website. Second, they strip out any interfaces which means your social sharing and camera controls are lost.
5. Use social media
More than just announcing your new live camera feed, consider how you can further interact with your Facebook/Twitter/Google+ audiences. Your live camera images are ever changing and built for sharing, so use this to your advantage. It can be as simple as posting some of your visitor’s best camera snapshots to Facebook. You can get as creative as you like. Run a contest where contestants catch themselves on the live camera feed, for example.
6. Reach out
Let bloggers and other writers know about your camera feeds. This is really just a more personal and specific version of the general press release. Whatever your industry, you likely already have some connections you can leverage. If you are a resort, let travel bloggers know about your live feeds. If you attending a trade show, find out what publications are covering the event. Someone out there would love to share your live camera, but they can’t until you share first.
7. SEO all your efforts
You can’t do much online these days without considering SEO, or search engine optimization. It is what dictates whether visitors will find you through search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. This is a huge subject, but there are basically two things that affect how well you will rank on Google.
- How you set up your webpage
- Inbound links (links to your site, from other webpages)
In regards to the first, make sure your website with your camera feed has clear titles and descriptive text. Don’t simply leave the page empty with a live feed interface – search engines can’t read the feed and won’t know what the page is about.
In regards to inbound links, your goal is to have more links from trusted websites. Your press releases, social media sharing, etc. will help. But more than just links, you want links with the right anchor text. All this means in practice is that you want your inbound links to be labelled “XYZ Resort Live Feed” instead of “click here”. Keep that in mind when writing press releases or getting links from other online sources.
Don’t be overwhelmed
You don’t have to master all of these tactics, just tackle what you can. Even if you only implement a couple of these ideas, you are doing more than most of your competition.
Please let me know if I forgot any ideas, or what you’ve seen work for you!
