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Video is powerful because it shows there are people behind your business, which is important for building a strong brand that people can relate to. But how can you integrate it into your content marketing strategy effectively? Know Your Audience Before you can put together a video that will be relevant to your audience, you need to know precisely who that audience is. It’s important not to try to appeal to everyone – instead, figure out your archetypal customer. Two tools to help you do this are Sally Hogshead's 7 triggers of fascination and a simple guide to creating a customer persona. This’ll smooth out the rest of the process, because it’s much easier to figure out what to say to one person than to 1000....
In my previous post, “Using Video Content to Drive Brand Awareness, Leads, and Sales,” I took you through the first four steps of the definitive B2B video marketing strategy. In this second post, we focus on executing your video content strategy, maximizing impact, measuring results, and ensuring that you create sustainable campaigns that add long-term value to your organization....
Video apps: Discover 5 video apps to boost your online engagement and market your business.... Do you want to use videos to market your business? Are you wondering if there are simple mobile apps to make this possible? In this article I’ll review five mobile video apps and share how they can boost your online engagement. Why Mobile Video? Vine, Twitter’s mobile video app, has business and marketing professionals considering the numerous ways video apps can be used to increase engagement. Ekaterina Walter, social innovator at Intel and author of Think Like Zuck, recently predicted that “2013 will be the year of visual marketing”. Walter based this prediction, in part, on the fact that “…visuals and video done right are highly effective in cutting through the noise.”
As an example of this opportunity, Paul Roger’s recent post on using products to increase conversion rate showed the power of video to persuade consumers about a product. For example, Matt Lawson, Head of Conversion at Appliances Online explains: “Video gives us the opportunity to wow our customers and this in turn delivers results. We have tested and proven that when someone watches our video reviews they’re 120.5% more likely to buy, spend 157.2% longer on the site and spend 9.1% more per order. So my focus this quarter is increase customers watching video. Simple.”...
How the new pope is elected after Benedict XVI's resignation. Check out this cool video to see the process.
This graph tells us that shorter videos are better for getting people to watch the whole thing. After all, most business video is created to serve up a pre-packaged message, so the longer the video, the less people will watch. It's also noticeable that after a certain point the engagement average flattens out -- so there's not a major difference in engagement for a 4-minute versus a 10-minute video.... [When it comes to video, shorter is better. ~ Jeff]
Video is something I’ve wanted to integrate into my social media marketing strategy for a while now. Sound familiar? When I saw a blog post on using 15-second videos (thank you, Social Media Examiner!), I got pretty excited. One, because the blog post focuses on Viddy, a company I first covered at Tech Cocktail a year and a half ago. And second, because it was a good reminder to me that Viddy only allows you to make 15-second-long videos, and that is both short and doable. The best part is that a Viddy video can be quickly and easily shared on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, which means there’s no excuse not to use it! Here are my favorite (read: easy-to-do) marketing ideas for using a Viddy video...
"So, how do you tell a story in the digital age that stands out, captures people’s attention and gets them to act, engage with your institution? My favourite story for quite some time now and one I’ve been showing in workshops around the world is the story of the Troy public library."
Ok -- the author here isn't writing anything revolutionary. So you can skim the text. But watch the 2.5 minute video! It's the reason I selected this piece. The video is brilliant -- and a perfect example of how story triggers can make a difference in social causes and social cause marketing. The video is about a library. It is controversial. Now I am a big fan of libraries so I was rooting for it (my personal bias). And the video itself is a really good example of a digital story. I say 'story triggers' because the library used story elements and metaphors that sparked stories within the viewer's/reader's brains. The library did not actually tell a full-blown story yet the public reaction was immediate and powerful. Go watch the video! Then share what you think. This review was written by Karen Dietz for her curated content on business storytelling at www.scoop.it/t/just-story-it ;
[Great example of a smart grassroots advocacy campaign supported by social media ~ Jeff]
Via Karen Dietz
YouTube is seen by many aspiring musicians, potential movie stars and wannabes as the online portal to fame and riches. ...YouTube is a vehicle to a global audience that local television cannot and it provides an easy to use social media technology that anyone can use. It is a platform and portal that is unprecedented in media history with its size size and scale. - Over 800 million unique users visit YouTube each month
- Over 4 billion hours of video
- in 2011 it passed more than 1 trillion views for the year (or 140 views for every person on the planet)
- Over 72 hours of video uploaded every minute.
It is indeed a place to publish if you want access to an audience. The challenge though is creating the video content that will go viral. Some researchers believe they have discovered the secret sauce for video velocity at scale....
[3 tips to take your video viral - JD]
...comScore released data showing that more than 184 million U.S. Internet users watched 36.9 billion online content videos in July, while video advertising views totaled 9.6 billion. Google Sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property in July with 157 million unique viewers, followed by Facebook.com with 53 million, Yahoo! Sites with 48.7 million, VEVO with 44.8 million and Microsoft Sites with 42.7 million. Nearly 36.9 billion video content views occurred during the month, with Google Sites generating the highest number at 19.6 billion, followed by AOL, Inc. with 665 million. Google Sites had the highest average engagement among the top ten properties. Americans viewed 9.6 billion video advertisements in July, with each of the top 4 video ad properties delivering more than 1-billion video ads. Google Sites ranked first with 1.5 billion ads, followed by Hulu with 1.2 billion, Adap.tv with 1.1 billion, SpotXchange Video Ad Marketplace with 1 billion and TubeMogul Video Ad Platform with 830 million.... [Unstoppable trend and powerful stats to back it up. Must-read for for marketing, PR pros, content producers. - JD]
If you have a Web video interview coming up, be sure to wear a shirt with tight stripes or something with lots of patterns. It’s also always a good idea to wear green--it looks great against the green screen. Not buying it? Hopefully not. People often do make these mistakes, however, and unfortunately, dressing this way does not only look unprofessional, it also takes away from your message. What looks good in person does not always look good on camera, especially on the Web. In high definition, a striped shirt or patterned tie may look good, but as Mike Bako, account and marketing manager, D S Simon Productions explains, if you take that interview “and post it on YouTube to help promote yourself then you have to be mindful that on a smaller video player that is not HD, you will see more pixilating and distracting movement.” If you have a Web video interview coming up, the following tips, courtesy of Bako, should help you decipher whether your outfit should go on the “what not to wear” or “say yes to the dress” list.... [Great tips for your next internet interview, webinar or video - JD]
Viddy: How to use 15 second video clips to connect with your audience on mobile devices. Are you using video to connect with your audience? Do you think 15 seconds is too short to convey your message? Think again. The rise of mobile users has brought new tools to help marketers connect with on-the-go consumers. Viddy is one such tool. It’s a relatively new social network centered on creating and sharing 15-second video clips. Taking advantage of the rise in mobile use, Viddy is used mostly on smartphones and other mobile devices by its user base of 22 million people who create and interact with video content daily. Since the network limits your video uploads to 15-second clips, it’s a similar experience to Twitter’s 140-character limit, ensuring your quality content is concise.... [Smart content marketing strategy - JD]
New York's Con Edison includes videos featuring employees in its press releases, customer emails and employee communications. The power of the medium is immediate. Con Edison, the utility that provides electric power to most of New York City and New York's Westchester County, is a company with a lot to say about energy conservation, efficiency, and its employees.
Over the past few years, the company has discovered that video makes saying those things a lot easier.
"We've really embraced video in our communications," Ann Cameron, director of creative services for Con Edison, told an audience at Ragan Communications' PR and Media Relations Best Practices Summit at her company's headquarters. "We use video to have conversations with our customers, we use video as a PR tool for our media relations work, and we use video to tell our corporate story." Instead of messages coming from a faceless company's press release, they now come from personable, friendly Con Ed employees speaking directly to the viewer. The public, its own employees, and the media have all taken notice....
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For marketers who have not used video in direct sales or direct communications, the process may be daunting. The Content Marketing Institute identified eight key steps for creating and deploying B2B video content to assist. These steps make the process manageable, straightforward and cover the following: 1. Execution – producing video content 2. Distribution – selecting what channels to use for distributing videos 3. Encouragement – using SEO and other tools to tell an audience to watch your video 4. Viral – creating content that people not only want to share, but make it easy for viewers to pass the video along 5. Optimization – incorporating simple calls to action to convert viewers into customers 6. Maximization – making video content a key component of the marketing mix 7. Analyzing – using data to determine a video’s ROI, especially in relation to sales lead generation 8. Do it again – web video marketing should not be a “one and done” exercise...
The Movenote app lets you record video alongside documents or pictures to create an integrated video presentation with slides. Creating presentations is easy and fast. Simply record video with your device and swipe to synchronize the slides to the video. Presentations are shared by sending a link to the recipient and can be viewed without the app.
Via Baiba Svenca, Mayra Aixa Villar
Videos have the ability to connect with prospects in a way you can’t through text, e-mail, or even a phone call. This is especially significant because in sales, you’re selling yourself: the product comes after you’ve established a connection. Imagine being able to talk to a prospect who already has a connection with your company; that changes the dynamics of the conversation. Anyone in sales knows that people buy from people they know and trust. Videos have the ability to connect with prospects in a way you can’t do through text, e-mail, or even a phone call. This is especially significant because in sales, you’re selling yourself - the product comes after you’ve established a connection. Different Types of Video Marketing Let’s take a deeper dive into the different types of video marketing: - Promotional: Showcases your products and services - Testimonial: Highlights your talents by showing clients raving about work you’ve done - Thought Leadership: Presents new or useful information relevant to your industry - How-To: Informs prospects on how they can use your product or service - Product Information: Explains new features, benefits, solutions, troubleshooting - Entertainment: Shows your brand’s human side; leverage viral videos, contests There are many more examples of how to use videos in your marketing campaigns. Larger corporations may elect to use videos as internal information pieces to help sales or customer service representatives....
Looking back upon my middle school years of Xanga and Myspace, it’s mind blowing to examine how greatly social media has evolved in the past ten years. The rapid evolution of the social web has brought new brand leaders and businesses to the forefront, while leaving some well-established Fortune 500 companies in the dust. Many successful companies wonder why they should adapt to new practices and use social media for business. Social media research conducted by the Harvard Business Review found that 79 percent of companies surveyed are using or plan to use social media in the future. So what happens to that other 21 percent? Are they affected by the changing dynamic of reputation management and online business practices? The answer is yes. My advice? Get social or get lost....
How to Tell Your Story Tell stories through the voices of the people you serve, and/or your staff/members/volunteers. Check out these 7 Guidelines for Telling Your Organization’s Story and learn more about the Art and Strategy of Storytelling. Plan - So you're ready to make a video for your organization. If you're planning to upload it to YouTube, remember to make it no more than ten minutes long. You may want to use storyboarding to plan your video. Check out these production planning tips from See3, and this post from Idealware: Creating a video? A few things to consider before you shoot.
Via José Carlos
Creating videos is a popular alternative to writing long-form articles when it comes to featuring your products and services online. Short videos are especially effective for conveying a brief message and have been shown to increase the amount of time customers will spend on your website. Plus, creating a branded YouTube channel with videos optimized for search engines can be a great boost for your organic ranking and provides you with engaging content to share with visitors to your business website. But if creating and uploading quality videos seems overwhelming to you, try these easy and effective ways to get the most out of video as part of your online marketing.... [Great online video marketing tips ~ Jeff]
This infographic shows results of an analysis of the top 1,000 YouTube channels: “... over one million YouTubers run ads on their content. To put it another way, YouTube writes checks to more than one million people monthly. That's more than the U.S. television industry employs. “The highest-performing 1,000 make a cool six figures a year. According to OpenSlate, the average revenue for the top 1,000 channels is $23,000 a month for an average annual payout of $276,000.” [Who knew social video was this powerful? Marketers, PR and content producers take note ~ Jeff]
Via Mindy McAdams
Robin Good: A great short video from PBS brings together the views and opinions of three great web designers: Jason Santa Maria, Jeffrey Zeldman, Whitney Hess.
From BoingBoing.net: "The explosion of the internet over the past 20 years has led to the development of one of the newest creative mediums: the website. Web designers have adapted through the technological developments of html, CSS, Flash, and JavaScript, and have mastered the balance between creativity and usability. Now with the advance of mobile, the greatest websites have taken user experience and responsive design to the next level, and continue our evolution from print to a digital world." Good stuff. Interesting. 8/10 Original video: http://youtu.be/3iVVM_DgWY4 ; [Really enjoyable video if you like web design - JD]
Via Robin Good
First came infographics, and now more brands are moving into video, a way to take advantage of the power of visual story-telling... Sports commentators are the ultimate content marketers. And never is that more prevalent than during the Olympic Games. Think about it. Sports commentators take mounds and mounds of stats on every athlete and compile them into short, simple sound bytes that deliver high-quality commentary for viewers. It’s no different than brands citing data points to validate their market positions or credibly tell their corporate or product stories through various-content marketing campaigns. But not all brands get it right. Telling a data-driven story in a simple way is tough. With so much data, where do you start? And how do you bring a creative flare to the mix, to ensure it is simple and compelling enough for your customers to not only read it, but want to share it?... [Mia Pearson explores what's new in content marketing - video - JD]
Robin Good: QuicklyChat is a new real-time collaboration downloadable software for PCs and Macs (Linux coming) which allows you to easily video chat with your teammates. Key characterizing trait for Quicklychat is its ability to auto-signal to your contacts whether you are effectively busy or not (depending on what you are actually doing on your computer - this is configurable) and to connect to any of your contacts in one-second time. From the official site: "The biggest difference between QuicklyChat and conventional video communication is that QuicklyChat auto-answers incoming calls when the recipient is available. Incoming connections are displayed in an unobtrusive notification window, so you can keep working if you're in the middle of an important thought, without having to think about how to respond to an incoming call." Free to use. Review on Techcrunch FAQ: http://www.quicklychat.com/beta/faq.html Download: http://www.quicklychat.com/beta/index.html Find out more: http://www.quicklychat.com/learnmore.html ; Try it out now: http://www.quicklychat.com/ [QuicklyChat has the potential to be a valuable communications tool if you have the self-discipline not to answer every call or be available 24 x 7 LOL -- JD]
Via Robin Good
Just like the varying types of media that communications companies work with today, there are also several ways in which this information can be sliced, diced and analyzed. Thus, multimedia engage... engagement can be discussed with infinite approaches. In one of the latest efforts to get a handle on the topic, The Pew Research Center has just released a study on the most popular news footage uploaded and viewed on YouTube. The goal was to examine some concrete features of the videos within the YouTube News and Politics Channel that went most “viral” each week over the course of a 15 month period (January 2011 through March 2012). Some of the key takeaways include: - Regular people (not news outlets or journalists) posted close to 40% of the content - While much of this 40% was originally produced by a news outlet, a large portion of it was not sourced correctly, if at all
- The most popular (“viral”) news videos focused on controversies, striking disasters or humorous occurrences
- The lengths of the popular news videos range from less than one minute to over 15 minutes!
- A large amount of the most popular news content was raw, unedited video....
The rule of thumb used to be that web content shouldn't be longer than five minutes an episode -- a rule that's pretty much dead here in 2012, with the spread of longer runtimes into least-suspected places, such as YouTube. Long-form content, of course, has been a fixture in the online video world for some time now — Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show, just as one example, launched back in 2009. But what we’re seeing now is the spread of longer runtimes into least-suspected places — such as YouTube....
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