If you can’t see the video playlist, you can click here to make the magic happen.

I spent about half an hour this weekend updating my privacy settings in Facebook this past weekend.

I’m not a complete freak about keeping my data private – mostly because, due to snafu or acquisition by a less than sympathetic company, I assume that all of what I say online will be public one day no matter what one company or another may say, or sincerely intend.

However, there are some things I do on Facebook that I feel contribute too much noise to the stream or that I am happier keeping to myself. Examples: a game on Facebook that I play as a guilty pleasure – not Farmville. In fact, I’m so ashamed of this secret, you can only find out by watching the videos closely.

Another example: I love Spotify. And putting Spotify in my Facebook is the best idea since putting peanut butter in my chocolate. The only problem is that it broadcasts every single song I play on my playlist. Facebook touted this in their F8 announcement as a feature, rather than the bug I believe it to be.

When I was 19, sure, I wanted to share every waking moment and incident with my friends. Khadijah Ali-Coleman, who I am still friends with since we went to college together, can attest to the 20 page letters we would write back and forth despite the fact that we both lived on campus within walking distance.

But now that I’m about to skid around the corner to 40, I enjoy a bit more mystery. And whether it was Facebook’s intent or not, it’s clear from the update that they assume we all think like we’re in our late teens or early 20s, or they want us to adopt that thinking.

Thank you, no.

What might be fine when I’m listening to classical music is not so much when I’m in the mood for hardcore hip-hop, or some “make a baby” ballads.

Happily, during my time tweaking privacy options, I discovered that there are some settings you can tweak without removing the app. What I found out is on the playlist too.

However, there’s sadly no setting for deciding whether to publish on a case by case basis, or if I just want to broadcast the name of a playlist, manually.

Here’s a descriptive list of the videos in the playlist, so you can skip to the one that suits you:

1. How to Control Who Sees Your Public Updates in Facebook
2. How to Set Up Your Default Post Settings in the New Facebook
3. How to Set Your Profile Visibility and Privacy Settings on Facebook
4. How to Control Apps Posting Behavior And Protect Your Privacy from Apps on Facebook
5. How to Control Who Can Connect to You on Facebook and How
6. How to Stop People from Tagging You in Photos You’re not in
7. How to Keep Your Facebook Timeline from Being Completely Public
8. How to Block People or All Application Requests of a Specifc App on Facebook
9. How to Hide All of A Certain Type of Update (Like Tweets) From Your Facebook Stream, (or keep from broadcasting certain updates, like who you’ve friended)

I have to remember not to have challenges that have holidays smack in the middle. That holiday messed me up good. However…

The Video Traffic Challenge is Back In Effect – Now with Weekly Prizes

ALL of the people who submitted their videos in the last round get a StumbleUpon review and promotion by me until you get 100 SU visitors. I’ll buy them if I must.

If you don’t see your name below, you’re still considered a participant, you just don’t get this week’s prize. To submit your video in the coming weeks remember:

1. Submit Your Video to the Right Thread by the Due Date
2. Submit ONLY ONE Video (it can be embedded in a blog post. I’d dare say it should.)
3. If you don’t know where to post your video, post a question in any of the comment threads for the current challenge. There’s usually a list at the end, or you can search the site for “Video Traffic Challenge”.Tip: If you follow me on Twitter, the comment system can also send me a tweet.
4. If you get bumped, you have to earn your spot back by submitting the next week and promoting your fellow participants.

We’re going to decide by vote in the comments if the next round of videos should be due Monday or a week from today. Please respond with your vote.

Current List of Participants & Submissions

These people all get the prize. Next week the prize may be mad respect. It could be just for the person voted best video, or everyone could get it. I’m clearly insane and random, so the best thing to do is to participate every week.

Yes, even when I’m slacking, because then the prizes are better.

Current List of People Whose Videos We Want to See But Tragically, Cannot

The following people have temporarily lost their spots in the challenge. I will not point at you and yell shame. Please go to a mirror and do that yourself.

Unless of course, you submitted your video by posting somewhere else in the site please let me know, and then we can shame me instead.

1. Chad
2. Matt Fraser
3. Michelle B . Williams
4. Raj Malik
5. Dr. Letitia Wright
6. Dr Tim

You’ll be happy to know that you can rejoin the contest by promoting any one of the current participants on Twitter, in Facebook, at YouTube (via a bulletin post to your subscribers), or with a link from your blog before the next round of submissions.

More Web Video Posts:

• Avoiding the YouTube Viral Trap – Tips for the Video Traffic Challenge
• Video Traffic Challenge Participants
• The Original Video Traffic Challenge Post
• Google, YouTube, Web Video Traffic Stats and Your Site
• 3 Things to Do with an Unlisted YouTube Video
• Traffic Thursdays | Concept | Video Again video
• More Web Video Traffic and Broadband Research Sources
• Web Video Traffic | What About the TiVo Effect? Part One
• Web Video Traffic | What About the TiVo Effect? Part Two
• Can Web Video Help Your Traffic?
• Web Video | The Numbers Make Sense Part One
• Web Video | The Numbers Make Sense Part Two * edited
• Web Video | Broadband Users will want Broadband Content

I have to remember not to have challenges that have holidays smack in the middle. That holiday messed me up good. However…

The Video Traffic Challenge is Back In Effect – Now with Weekly Prizes

ALL of the people who submitted their videos in the last round get a StumbleUpon review and promotion by me until you get 100 SU visitors. I’ll buy them if I must.

If you don’t see your name below, you’re still considered a participant, you just don’t get this week’s prize. To submit your video in the coming weeks remember:

1. Submit Your Video to the Right Thread by the Due Date
2. Submit ONLY ONE Video (it can be embedded in a blog post. I’d dare say it should.)
3. If you don’t know where to post your video, post a question in any of the comment threads for the current challenge. There’s usually a list at the end, or you can search the site for “Video Traffic Challenge”.Tip: If you follow me on Twitter, the comment system can also send me a tweet.
4. If you get bumped, you have to earn your spot back by submitting the next week and promoting your fellow participants.

We’re going to decide by vote in the comments if the next round of videos should be due Monday or a week from today. Please respond with your vote.

Current List of Participants & Submissions

These people all get the prize. Next week the prize may be mad respect. It could be just for the person voted best video, or everyone could get it. I’m clearly insane and random, so the best thing to do is to participate every week.

Yes, even when I’m slacking, because then the prizes are better.

Current List of People Whose Videos We Want to See But Tragically, Cannot

The following people have temporarily lost their spots in the challenge. I will not point at you and yell shame. Please go to a mirror and do that yourself.

Unless of course, you submitted your video by posting somewhere else in the site please let me know, and then we can shame me instead.

1. Chad
2. Matt Fraser
3. Michelle B . Williams
4. Raj Malik
5. Dr. Letitia Wright
6. Dr Tim

You’ll be happy to know that you can rejoin the contest by promoting any one of the current participants on Twitter, in Facebook, at YouTube (via a bulletin post to your subscribers), or with a link from your blog before the next round of submissions.

More Web Video Posts:

• Avoiding the YouTube Viral Trap – Tips for the Video Traffic Challenge
• Video Traffic Challenge Participants
• The Original Video Traffic Challenge Post
• Google, YouTube, Web Video Traffic Stats and Your Site
• 3 Things to Do with an Unlisted YouTube Video
• Traffic Thursdays | Concept | Video Again video
• More Web Video Traffic and Broadband Research Sources
• Web Video Traffic | What About the TiVo Effect? Part One
• Web Video Traffic | What About the TiVo Effect? Part Two
• Can Web Video Help Your Traffic?
• Web Video | The Numbers Make Sense Part One
• Web Video | The Numbers Make Sense Part Two * edited
• Web Video | Broadband Users will want Broadband Content

Video Link: Sweet Dee Promotes The Bar with Crazy Paddy – It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

One of my favorite shows on cable is It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. It’s about the on-going antics of four degenerate, self-centered losers who co-own and/or work at a bar in Philadelphia. Kind of a “Friends”-gone-horribly-wrong sitcom. I love watching it for two reasons.

The first is just that it’s one of those shows that is so, so funny for reasons that are so, so wrong in every way that I should almost be ashamed of myself for watching it.

The second is that one of the underlying themes is them attempting any shortcut they can to make more money from their bar. I like to think how I would have advised them in real life. Of course, they aren’t the kind of people who would listen to me.

The Problems with the “Viral Video Fallacy”

The problem in the video above is that both characters are trying to do all the wrong things in getting their video campaign started.

Right now I want to talk about how, in an earlier scene not pictured above, Sweet Dee has decided she’s going to “make a viral video”.

There are so many things wrong with both the phrase “make a viral video” and the fact that she intends to do so in order to promote a local business that I hardly even know where to start.

1- By definition, there’s no such thing as creating a viral video. We’ll get into the particular of that another time.

2- Making a viral video to promote a local business isn’t the best idea. It may work, but why not go after a method that’s 90% likely to fix the problem instead of the one that’s only 5% likely, all other things being equal?

3- She ends up attempting to make the cringe-worthy spectacle you see at the beginning of the video, one of those horrible, local cable commercials that make you want to turn your set off during sponsorship breaks.

How NOT to Approach Creating Video for Small Business

Which brings us to Charlie’s idea of how to fix the problem. His idea? If you want to make a video that’s successful in the way YouTube videos are successful, someone has to get hurt.

And yeah, in the video, this is so funny that every time I watch this episode again, I rewind this scene and watch the ball hit her in the face in slow motion. It cracks me up, and ironically is a clip that would make me want to watch “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” if I’d never seen it before.

Not because someone is getting hurt, but because I would just have to know what was going on there.

In real life, I don’t think people getting injured on film is funny. I understand WHY people think it’s funny, but I’m much more empathic than normal people are supposed to be and on some occasions will actually be in pain myself watching something like that take place. Unless of course I know it’s fake.

Regardless of that – laughing at pain doesn’t sell… anything. Not in and of itself.

Unless you’re a national brand with the kind of budget that can afford to put a commercial up that looks to sell by demographic, hoping to reach enough people that the odds will bear this wasteful model out, a video based purely on entertainment value isn’t going to do more than raise awareness and brand you.

And possibly to an audience that doesn’t want to, or simply can’t, buy your product or service.

Even if you are? Please don’t hurt anyone.

Seriously though, if you’re coming up on this week’s deadline in the video traffic challenge and want to submit in time to make sure your video gets listed, but can’t come up with a topic, here are some ideas.

5 Video Topic Ideas for Business Owners

1. Create a video version of your about page. This isn’t my idea. I saw it yesterday on Twitter and can’t find the post now.
2. Repurpose existing content: Take a blog post, article, or presentation and turn it into a video. You can do this with screencast video software or just talk to the camera.
3. Lisa Barone says “Show Your Product in Action” in an article on Small Biz Trends. There are 5 more tips in that article.
4. Shoestring Marketing says “Ask Customers or Clients to send in video” – two more tips there.
5. Do a short parody of a misled solution to a common customer problem. Xerox just did a great job with this in their recent commercial featuring Michelin. I thought it was funny even though I didn’t get it at first.

Have you got ideas for what kind of video to create that hasn’t been mentioned already? Do tell!

Resources:

List of Our Video Traffic Participants

The Original Video Traffic Challenge Thread

Network Solution’s Case Study on What It Takes to Make a Video Campaign both Viral and Successful

Fast Video Traffic Free Sample Chapter

Video Challenge Participants: Tomorrow is the deadline for the first video in the challenge. If you have your video up as a reply to the post announcing our Video Challenge Participants by tomorrow, I’ll help promote your video and the blog post where it’s published for an entire week starting tomorrow. If I pinged you on Twitter to alert you to this post, it’s most likely as a nudge to remind you.

If you left it for me elsewhere, please let me know where.

Video Link: Sweet Dee Promotes The Bar with Crazy Paddy – It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

One of my favorite shows on cable is It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. It’s about the on-going antics of four degenerate, self-centered losers who co-own and/or work at a bar in Philadelphia. Kind of a “Friends”-gone-horribly-wrong sitcom. I love watching it for two reasons.

The first is just that it’s one of those shows that is so, so funny for reasons that are so, so wrong in every way that I should almost be ashamed of myself for watching it.

The second is that one of the underlying themes is them attempting any shortcut they can to make more money from their bar. I like to think how I would have advised them in real life. Of course, they aren’t the kind of people who would listen to me.

The Problems with the “Viral Video Fallacy”

The problem in the video above is that both characters are trying to do all the wrong things in getting their video campaign started.

Right now I want to talk about how, in an earlier scene not pictured above, Sweet Dee has decided she’s going to “make a viral video”.

There are so many things wrong with both the phrase “make a viral video” and the fact that she intends to do so in order to promote a local business that I hardly even know where to start.

1- By definition, there’s no such thing as creating a viral video. We’ll get into the particular of that another time.

2- Making a viral video to promote a local business isn’t the best idea. It may work, but why not go after a method that’s 90% likely to fix the problem instead of the one that’s only 5% likely, all other things being equal?

3- She ends up attempting to make the cringe-worthy spectacle you see at the beginning of the video, one of those horrible, local cable commercials that make you want to turn your set off during sponsorship breaks.

How NOT to Approach Creating Video for Small Business

Which brings us to Charlie’s idea of how to fix the problem. His idea? If you want to make a video that’s successful in the way YouTube videos are successful, someone has to get hurt.

And yeah, in the video, this is so funny that every time I watch this episode again, I rewind this scene and watch the ball hit her in the face in slow motion. It cracks me up, and ironically is a clip that would make me want to watch “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” if I’d never seen it before.

Not because someone is getting hurt, but because I would just have to know what was going on there.

In real life, I don’t think people getting injured on film is funny. I understand WHY people think it’s funny, but I’m much more empathic than normal people are supposed to be and on some occasions will actually be in pain myself watching something like that take place. Unless of course I know it’s fake.

Regardless of that – laughing at pain doesn’t sell… anything. Not in and of itself.

Unless you’re a national brand with the kind of budget that can afford to put a commercial up that looks to sell by demographic, hoping to reach enough people that the odds will bear this wasteful model out, a video based purely on entertainment value isn’t going to do more than raise awareness and brand you.

And possibly to an audience that doesn’t want to, or simply can’t, buy your product or service.

Even if you are? Please don’t hurt anyone.

Seriously though, if you’re coming up on this week’s deadline in the video traffic challenge and want to submit in time to make sure your video gets listed, but can’t come up with a topic, here are some ideas.

5 Video Topic Ideas for Business Owners

1. Create a video version of your about page. This isn’t my idea. I saw it yesterday on Twitter and can’t find the post now.
2. Repurpose existing content: Take a blog post, article, or presentation and turn it into a video. You can do this with screencast video software or just talk to the camera.
3. Lisa Barone says “Show Your Product in Action” in an article on Small Biz Trends. There are 5 more tips in that article.
4. Shoestring Marketing says “Ask Customers or Clients to send in video” – two more tips there.
5. Do a short parody of a misled solution to a common customer problem. Xerox just did a great job with this in their recent commercial featuring Michelin. I thought it was funny even though I didn’t get it at first.

Have you got ideas for what kind of video to create that hasn’t been mentioned already? Do tell!

Resources:

List of Our Video Traffic Participants

The Original Video Traffic Challenge Thread

Network Solution’s Case Study on What It Takes to Make a Video Campaign both Viral and Successful

Fast Video Traffic Free Sample Chapter

Video Challenge Participants: Tomorrow is the deadline for the first video in the challenge. If you have your video up as a reply to the post announcing our Video Challenge Participants by tomorrow, I’ll help promote your video and the blog post where it’s published for an entire week starting tomorrow. If I pinged you on Twitter to alert you to this post, it’s most likely as a nudge to remind you.

If you left it for me elsewhere, please let me know where.

Yes! We’re having a traffic challenge! A traffic challenge is when a group of at least three of us team up to test certain commonly held beliefs about getting visitors to a website. This time, we’re doing web video.

To find out how to participate, watch this short video, featuring me filming myself, despite my deep and abiding fear of being on camera.

(If you’re reading this post in syndication, you may have to click through to the live post to view the video.)

There’s been a lot of buzz lately about just how effective video is in generating web traffic. However, it’s not as simple as just throwing video up on a site. There’s a lot more to it than that.

On the other hand, it’s also not complicated, and a great way for people on smaller budgets to reach a wider part of their target market in a short period of time. You can be on camera, or it can be your employees or customers. Or, in the case of screencast videos, animated video or the movie-trailer-like promotional videos that are becoming increasingly popular, no one has to be on screen at all.

Over the next few days, we’ll review all of those options. For now, the idea is for all of us to form a kind of half-support, half-learning group of people who’ll commit to using video to promote our businesses over the next 30 days, using a minimum of four videos (one a week). During that time, I’ll be posting tips from lots of different sources, including some of my own results from case studies.

By pledging to participate together, we can keep each other honest, and also go by each other’s sites and support our fellow challengers. Because of the nature of video, I’m expecting just a small group, so I plan to link to all the participants at the end of each post, as well as promote my favorite ones on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere as time permits.

Next time: tools you can use to promote yourself using video, even if you don’t have a web camera, and challenge guidelines.

And here are some earlier posts on web video:

• Google, YouTube, Web Video Traffic Stats and Your Site
• 3 Things to Do with an Unlisted YouTube Video
• Traffic Thursdays | Concept | Video Again video
• More Web Video Traffic and Broadband Research Sources
• Web Video Traffic | What About the TiVo Effect? Part One
• Web Video Traffic | What About the TiVo Effect? Part Two
• Can Web Video Help Your Traffic?
• Web Video | The Numbers Make Sense Part One
• Web Video | The Numbers Make Sense Part Two * edited
• Web Video | Broadband Users will want Broadband Content

The Video Traffic Challenge has started. If you’re following along, start with our online video marketing precursors and a list of the Traffic Challenge Participants.

The video above, also found on YouTube, is based on the article, “Facebook for Business: A Simple Spam-Free Way to Get People on Facebook to Visit Your Site“, which is free for republishing.

If you’re an affiliate of Fast Facebook Pages Traffic , then you can replace the link in this article with your affiliate link when you publish it to your site or newsletter. This video is one of those that will soon be available in the affiliate section, if you want to embed the link in the video, and publish it to your site, as well.

The video above, also found on YouTube, is based on the article, “Facebook for Business: A Simple Spam-Free Way to Get People on Facebook to Visit Your Site“, which is free for republishing.

If you’re an affiliate of Fast Facebook Pages Traffic , then you can replace the link in this article with your affiliate link when you publish it to your site or newsletter. This video is one of those that will soon be available in the affiliate section, if you want to embed the link in the video, and publish it to your site, as well.

This is video footage of the Grow Smart Business Conference panel I was on, “Search, Content and the Search Engine Sword Over Your Head“, provided by YayaStream.

We mostly answered the most frequently asked questions floating around lately in search at first (Ben came up with those, I think he did a fine job.) Then we turned it over to audience questions.

From left to right, my fellow search panelists are:

• Li Evans,(@storyspinner)
• Deborah Ager (@clickwisdom)
• Alan Glazier (@EyeInfo)
• Ben Cook (@Skitzzo) (the Moderator, if you were there and don’t remember seeing him seated. ;-D)

And that’s me seated between Alan and Ben.

As if you could miss me.

I’m thinking of having this transcribed, but that all depends on demand. Retweet or comment below if you want a transcribed version.