In today’s hyper-connected economy, it sometimes seems like all advice and resources are aimed at helping you reach a global market—but for a lot of businesses this isn’t necessarily the best strategy.

Plenty of businesses still thrive in the style of brick-and-mortar, believe it or not! And you might not realize it, but online video is great for helping you to attract local customers as well as global ones. In this post, we’re looking at some of the ways you can hone in on your local market using video.

1. Local targeting through social media

Almost every time you share one of your videos on social media, you have an opportunity to use paid advertising to make sure it reaches a local audience. For example, when you share a video on Facebook, you can “boost” the post for a few bucks and set up a target audience of people in your city or town; on most major platforms you can also create specific ads using your videos that are targeted toward local people.

2. Metadata

When you’re setting up the metadata for the page on which your video is located, you can include your local area as a keyword (eg. “Atlanta” or “Bronx”) to optimize your videos for local search. Using a long-tail keyword would help target searches only people in your city or town are likely to make. For instance, “Best Coffeeshop in Atlanta” is likely a good choice compared to “Coffeeshop” or “Atlanta” as separate keywords on their own.

3. Interview local people

A great way to create videos that will be interesting to people in your locale is to interview them! You can do man-on-the-street-style quick interviews with people on a bustling sidewalk, or more in-depth interviews with well-known local personalities or celebrities. When you promote the videos, make this a key selling point.

4. Interview local complementary businesses

You can sow the seeds of goodwill amongst your neighbors in commerce by interviewing leaders of complementary businesses about what they do, how they feel about a particular issue you’re presenting on, or how your products can work together. This is a nice opportunity for you to build rapport, to reach their audiences, and of course they have the benefit of being promoted. Everyone wins!

5. Share your video with local websites

Every city and pretty much every town is bound to have a major events site, possibly a news site, and depending on the size of the place, a whole lot of other city-specific review sites and blogs. Examples include Eventbrite, TimeOut, and local newspapers or blogs.

You can also share your video with local influencers, and ask them if they’ll put it up on their site or even just share it on social media. You can sweeten the request by offering a sample of your product—if they like it, you might get a public review as well!

6. Build relationships with local journalists

Getting a review or a feature story by a local paper can be a great boon for business. But, you can’t just ask for one—usually you will need to spend some time building relationships with journalists, and pitching them an idea for a compelling story every once in awhile is a good way to do that.

If your video can be pitched as newsworthy to local audiences, you might be able to get it covered and shared in the online version of the paper or hey, maybe even the local news! Just craft your pitch carefully, know the background and interests of the journalists you approach, and approach them BEFORE the video is available online—to let them know they’ll have exclusive first access.

7. Bring in the local milieu

People generally feel love and pride for their hometown, so if you can capture the sights and sounds of the area in ways that will strike a chord, that will help your video do well with the locals. Focus on beloved and iconic scenery, for example, or speak to colorful local people. If you’re feeling truly ambitious, you can even bring some niche local history into the mix.

8. Tag local influencers

When you share your video on social media, make sure you tag local influencers who might be up for sharing the video to their followers. You can also try posting videos to the Facebook pages of local events organizations, or the local Chamber of Commerce, etc, which is another way to get them seen.

9. Run or spotlight a local event

If you’re running a local event, a video is a great way to promote it. Alternately, you can use your video to showcase or recap an event that’s big in your area (with the permission of the organizers of course), and this can be a nice opportunity for some co-promotion.

10. Offer a local promotion

Use your video to highlight a promotion you’re running in the local area, and invite people to share it with their followers and friends on social media to win the prize or to get a discount on your offering. You can amp this up by starting a local-themed hashtag around the video (eg. #SummerinMilwaukee).

Have an idea for local marketing with online video that we didn’t think of? Feel free to comment below, or leave one for us on Facebook or Twitter!