Justin Flom wanted to find a larger audience for his magic, so he became one of the magicians using YouTube. Now, unlike many beginners that get a new magic trick, and after a few practice runs, grab their camera and film a performance in their bedrooms, Justin put just as much time and effort into how he presented the short videos, as the magic itself. His videos are always fun, performed to live people and care and attention to detail always plays a huge part in how he edits them together. There are no camera tricks, just great close up magic.

Here’s one of his videos, where he levitates a peanut and feeds a camel (crazy hey?!):

Justin is doing a great job leveraging the power of YouTube to gain a reach to a wide audience. As a result of a video he posted directly to Ellen Degeneres (the host of The Ellen Show in the US) and a few other entertaining videos he was asked to appear on the show itself to flaunt his magical skills! Not bad for some self promotion!

What can we learn from this?

If you are serious about getting noticed and widening your audiences then you can do this very effectively using social media sites. If you want to make some videos for self promotion make sure you plan and produce your videos with thought and attention to detail. Don’t simply perform a magic trick to camera in a bedroom with your dirty laundry in the background!

Write a few things down before embarking on your adventure filming your magic tricks. Here are a few examples of what you should plan:

1) The magic tricks you will perform.
2) Your venues at which you will film.
3) Which quick magic tricks could be filmed close up on your hands for quick snippets.

Justin filmed this video to send to Ellen in January 2012:

Photo courtesy of Karl Jonsson