YouTube your next hardscape project

During the HNA education sessions on Friday, Tom Gardocki, co-owner of the Interstate Landscape Company, presented on how to begin using YouTube with your hardscaping projects.

Gardocki has been in the industry for 19 years, and started producing, filming and editing videos of job sites seven years ago.

His YouTube channel, Dirt Ninja, now has more than 30,000 followers over various social media platforms, including Facebook and Instagram.

During his session, he said he thinks YouTube is the forgotten social media.

“I think it’s one of the most powerful social media sites out there,” he said. “It’s highly integrated with the other social medias you hear about all the time."

By investing a little time and money, he said you can use YouTube to help make sales and get potential customers.

What this will take is a Go Pro, an external hard drive for more storage, and any additional accessories you feel are necessary for your specific project and video goal.

The total investment will amount to $600-$1,000, which isn’t a lot when the end result could be additional jobs.

How to

Gardocki said the best type of video for making a sale is a time lapse video of a project. For his company, he tries to have a time lapse that highlights every type of job they do. It not only shows the potential customer what your team is capable of, it also shows them what all goes into each project. This way, they full comprehend what is involved so they understand why the bid price is what it is. You’re also able to bring an iPad to the initial meeting and show them the videos in person.

One type of video to not do, is a photo slideshow.

“You will get no views,” Gardocki said. “Believe me, I’ve done it. YouTube is not to show pictures. That’s what your portfolio is for on your website or Facebook page.”

He also said you shouldn’t start out your video with before and after pictures, even if those are the only photo slides in it, because people will assume it’s just a slideshow and won’t watch the whole thing. Put the before and after photos at the end.

Money outside of the job

When your video is edited and uploaded, Gardocki always recommends saving the file forever. He said you never know when someone could contact you after seeing the video on YouTube, and ask to buy the unedited files.

He said he was contacted by the Discovery Channel and recently sold six videos to them for $100 each. An attendee in the audience added that he was contacted by ESPN regarding a video he’d posted on YouTube, and because he didn’t have the original file, he lost out on a lot of money.

Gardocki added that if you get up enough subscribers (at least 1,000) and enough views (more than 1 million), you can become a YouTube partner. He became one in 2012 and currently makes around $600 a month from his videos.

If you’re wary about starting to post videos, and not sure if it’s worth it, Gardocki said to try anyway.

“The worst that will happen is nobody’s going to watch,” he said.

He said to take the time to go out there, and make a video that represents you and your company.

“It’s just like creating a hardscape; make it your own,” he said. “If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much is a video like that worth?”