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The truth about doing business online today is that for many companies, increasing market share requires winning customers from competitors. Using online video to build business is one tactic that has been rapidly gaining popularity in the past few years. It delivers benefits that include personalization, competitive advantage and cost-effectiveness...
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This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.
You’ve seen videos of people doing ridiculous things on the Internet. But you probably haven’t seen too many videos of small businesses sharing their good work. Web video is more or less the domain of the ridiculous — whether that means something cute or something painful. Even top ads and commercials have a touch of the absurd (Old Spice, Dos Equis, I’m looking at you).
So how does a small business compete with disturbingly low attention spans and a whole Internet of viral videos? Read on for five ways that small businesses can take advantage of web video without blowing their budgets and let us know your own success stories in the comments below.
1. Request User Submissions
“Going viral” is a frustrating term both for its elusiveness and effectiveness. Viral videos can quickly get your product and brand out to a wide audience, but there is also practically no guaranteed way to “make” a video viral. Save yourself the trouble and get your audience to do the work for you.
Ask your fans or customers to send in videos of themselves using your product. For some, this can be a guaranteed hit. Such is the case with Michael Di Pippo, inventor of Pen Fishing Rods, a telescoping fishing rod that collapses to the size of a large pen. If that didn’t spark your interest, check the above video of someone actually catching a fish with it. Di Pippo bet that the shock value of it actually working would inspire customers to take videos using his product. The result was a motivated user-base and free publicity.
You might not be selling something as unique, but you can still encourage your clients to send in videos of them using whatever you’re selling. It’s a good way of extending the relationship past the point of sale and building a community.
Alternatively you can try to create a viral sensation like Blendtec’s Will It Blend? series. Rather than testing their blenders on tomatoes and walnuts, they started blending strange products like glowsticks, an iPad, and a crowbar. As a result, the videos (and Blendtec’s product) received millions of views and all it took was a little creativity. And a crowbar.
2. Replace Content
Try making a video instead of writing out your business updates. It’s easier for people to click play on a ~5 minute video than read a 500-word news brief. It helps to have some experience with basic editing and a decent camera, but people will ultimately tune in because your content is interesting or useful. Try offering deals or discount codes through your videos, while also talking about your product or service.
Using video to share business news or deals will help your business feel more personable as customers get accustomed to seeing you speak. This choice isn’t for everyone and every business, but it can help make your updates easier to digest and give your homepage a boost of personality.
3. Teach Them and They Will Come
Product demos are fun, but may not work for every type of business. For example, it could be tough to do a “demo” if you sell quilts or home garden supplies. Instead think of ways to teach and give back to your customers while also using your product. Selling quilts? Try a “How To” video on how you sew your quilts. Garden supplies? Make a video on how to plant a variety of bulbs and seeds using the products you sell.
If you’re business isn’t based around a physical product, think about doing a webcast or video on how to use your advanced features or set up the service.
4. Make Some Face Time
If you’re a small business, you can make your size work for you with video services, like Skype or even video calling on Gmail. Huge corporations like PepsiCo and Virgin are constantly trying to make their outreach more personal by attaching real people and real names to their customer service and social sites.
To get even more personal, create a business Skype or Gmail address (or any other service that allows you to video chat). Let customers know they can call you for some digital face time if they have any questions about your product or need help troubleshooting it. Doing so will help you build a stronger relationship with your customers and make your business feel more approachable at the same time.
10:53 am Jim Marks: 3 Methods for a Faster Website:
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How many times have you clicked a link or search result, only to click the ‘back’ button after waiting for a whole ten seconds to load? After the first three seconds of loading, visitors start leaving at an exponential rate.
Wait a minute, are we being impatient – I mean three or even ten seconds is nothing. Think of the time it would take you to find a similar book in the library, or to lookup a subject matter expert and arrange a call. After putting it in perspective, 10 seconds to find what you’re looking for doesn’t seem like a problem at all.
But it is! In fact, a 2006 study conducted by Akamai established that 40% of online shoppers feel load time is the most influential factor for them when revisiting a site. In the past five years, the online audience has only grown more demanding and there are significant benefits for webmasters who are ready to speed up their own site.
For businesses on all scales, a faster website can result in:
Decreased IT and server admin expenses,
Heightened user experience and lower bounce rates,
Increased performance, from traffic to conversion rates; and,
Higher search ranking positions (Google recognizes page speed as a ranking factor).
There are a number of ways to speed up your website for all levels technical skills. First, it’s a good idea to run some tests and see just how fast (or slow) your pages are . Below I’ll go over three key methods to improving your own site speed – ideas you can put to work immediately for your business or personal websites.
Optimize Website Content
Start with the largest content that takes the longest to download. Typically, there is always room for improvement when it comes to images but you’ll find ways to optimize your content from included scripts to small css changes. This article has a great list of ways to optimize your webpage content for speed .
Choose the Right Hosting Service
Your hosting service can play a significant role in your site speed – and it’s common for unknowing webmasters to trade speed for a low cost service. There are plenty of hosting companies that deliver an exceptional service, but there are also those who cut costs at every corner. Make sure your web host isn’t slowing you down and that you have sufficient transfer bandwidth with your account.
You can find some great recommendations from other webmasters in forums or blogs, but be careful of the occasional affiliate trying to sell you on a lower-quality one. Do your homework when it comes to hosting because it’s one-time step and can have a significant impact on your site speed and user experience.
Add a Proxy Layer
Finally, a more advanced technique used on higher volume sites is to integrate a reverse proxy server. The objective of a reverse proxy server is to have greater control on how content is delivered, based on who is visiting.
This enables a site to reduce the amount of loading necessary and depending on the setup, the options are vast. For large companies they might purchase and setup their own server, but even a smaller business can use this technology through services like Cloudflare or Akamai . For those interested in deploying their own server, take a look at Squid .
The Bottom Line
Page speed is important. It can have a profound effect on your revenue, conversion rates and a faster site is always better positioned to increase traffic. The bottom line is that a fast-loading site creates a much better experience for you, your customers and for the new prospects that will be discovering your content throughout the years.
Some well-known SEO folks are seeing some drastic changes to local-result queries on Google, including Frank Reed over at Marketing Pilgrim. The results are clearly part of a testing phase, as not all users are seeing the same thing. But the changes are huge and could have rippling impact for all kinds of businesses.
Apparently this new local results page format was first spotted in the wild by Mike Blumenthal, which is where it caught Frank’s attention. But Andy was able to recreate the result on his own—something I have not been able to do yet myself.
The major change being tested is the “local map” being pushed to the right sidebar… above the sponsored listings. In Frank’s test, the lettered results that typically sit next to the map box are still rolled into the standard results—but they’re significantly expanded.
For comparison, here is the page I get when I search “dentist Raleigh” (no quotes):
You’ll see the standard “Google local box” (as it’s referred to commonly) just below the horizontal sponsored listings and above the first organic result. That’s where it typically is for all of us. And next to the map, you’ll see a series of lettered listings—each one a different dentist in Raleigh, North Carolina.
But on the new results page being tested, the map is gone, and each of the lettered listings contains far more detail, as you can see in Andy’s screenshot here:
They’re fuller than standard organic listings now. You get the title and description, and the green URL—all things a standard organic listing gets—but you also get a physical address, the business phone number, and a testimonial! Each lettered listing also has a star-rating, signifying its average rating by users of Google Places.
I’m inclined to agree with Mr. Reed, that this is a very strong signal from Google that Places (formerly called Google Local) is about to become far more important in terms of search placement. All the added information being used to expand those lettered listings (phone, address, testimonial) is being pulled from the companies’ Places data. And I’d imagine it seduces the user to click more than a traditional search result, simply because you’re getting so much more information at a glance.
So… why am I writing about this? Because many of you care about SEO, particularly SEO for your video offerings. And any time Google lets changes this massive slip out into the wild during testing phase, it’s a good idea to talk about their potential impact. If these expanded lettered results are going to become more common, then it means all other organic listings could be affected, including video. Just in my own limited testing, I’ve seen the lettered listing next to the Google Places map have a much greater impact on my clients’ overall traffic than you might think—people click on these at alarming rates.
How will this impact universal results like Video? That remains to be seen, at least for organic results. But this much seems obvious: Google is placing more importance on Places data moving forward. And what is one huge step that most businesses skip when setting up their Google Places account? That’s right… video.
Did you even know you can upload or embed a video in your Google Places account? I bet many of you didn’t. Most companies just input the business name, the address, and some keywords, and then call it a day.
Look… this screenshot could just be a test… or even an anomaly of some kind. There’s no guarantee this kind of local search result will ever see the light of day. But let’s take this screenshot from Marketing Pilgrim as a warning, shall we? The future of search results is likely to be impacted by Google’s ever-expanding Places service, even if it doesn’t look exactly like this screenshot. Content from Places has already been receiving special placement at the top of organic results for nearly two years… and it will probably only increase in importance moving forward. Oh, and that very Places service allows you to add video.
I wasn’t a math whiz in school, but even I can add all that up. It’s time to take advantage of the five slots Google gives you inside Places to add or embed videos related to your business. Then… if this crazy new SERP ever goes from secret beta to live roll-out… you’ll be in the driver’s seat moving forward.
About the Author - Jeremy Scott Jeremy Scott is the Editor-in-Chief at ReelSEO.com. He is also founder and Creative Director of The Viral Orchard (http://www.viralorchard.com), an Internet Marketing Consulting firm based in Nashville, TN. They provide content writing and development services, viral marketing consulting, and search engine optimization services, and are always on the lookout for new and exciting projects. Jeremy writes constantly, loves online video, and enjoys helping small businesses succeed in any way he can. Feel free to contact Jeremy here.
Yaniv Axen has served as the CTO of SundaySkysince cofounding the company. He manages technological concerns for strategic customers, directs the patent application process for SundaySky’s solutions and facilitates key partnerships.
The truth about doing business online today is that for many companies, increasing market share requires winning customers from competitors. Using online video to build business is one tactic that has been rapidly gaining popularity in the past few years. It delivers benefits that include personalization, competitive advantage and cost-effectiveness.
Below are seven ways video outperforms static web content in the ruthless competition for market share.
1. Video Attracts New, Relevant Search Traffic
No conversation about ebusiness is complete without discussing search engine optimization (SEO). An ebusiness cannot gain on a competitor until consumers know it exists and can easily find it through organic search. Today, ebusinesses that utilize video assets are at an advantage, since Google is structuring its search engine results to reward sites that include video. According to Forrester, any given video in an index of searchable keywords has a 50 times better chance of appearing on the first page of results than any given text page.
To better promote their video investments and derive the greatest SEO rewards, ebusinesses are making videos more accessible to visitors, scaling videos to reach long-tail keywords, and automating video production in order to have video available as soon as new products are introduced.
2. Video Assets Can be Easily Syndicated
Online video is usually channel agnostic. By syndicating video properties to multiple sites — including YouTube, the second largest search engine today — ebusinesses extend their reach to innumerable eyeballs. In addition to traditional channels, online video plays equally well via mobile networks, TV, and in-store screens. It is a cost-effective way to maintain brand consistency and strengthen consumer awareness.
3. Videos Encourage Sharing
Videos are far more likely to be passed and shared than text-based pages. Additionally, a video thumbnail on a social media platform — Facebook, for example — grabs more attention than static text and often results in more comments, more “Likes,” and more traffic to the brand’s website. When you like or share a video link, a thumbnail appears on your wall and is also seen by your friends.
According to a study from YouBrand, pictures and video within Facebook get engaged with and clicked more often than just text and questions.
4. Video Engages Site Visitors
Video provides a familiar user interface for site visitors. When videos are properly produced, they captivate the user. Instead of the need to navigate, scroll and click to access information, the video is a one-stop shop for information. It takes less energy than the hassle of reading and the user is engaged until he or she is ready to follow an embedded call-to-action. Today’s automated video production platforms easily enable this flow, in many cases directing visual and auditory calls-to-action that guide the viewer to a shopping cart.
5. Video’s “Halo Effect” Drives Conversions
Video can give customers an in-depth view of a product or a demonstration that quells any hesitancy they might have about purchasing online. The peace of mind the customer gains from the video seeps into the way he or she feels about the brand and website overall, building trust and credibility. This is essential to gaining market share, especially for businesses that sell products with a lot of competition.
6. Video Increases Customer Loyalty
Video newsletters are more likely to attract consumer attention. By some estimates, the open rate for a video newsletter is two to three times higher than for a text-based newsletter. While many brands compete for consumer attention with the latter, those who employ the former stand out from the crowd. These video communications can be personalized for each recipient with individualized greetings, references to previously purchased items, or offers based on shopping history, geography and segmentation.
7. Video Creates Online Personalization
By improving and tailoring the customer experience, online retailers in every sector have increased customer loyalty, conversion rates and average order price. The quality of online personalization continues to rise and in many cases can rival or outperform the “live” shopping experience. This is a key factor in gaining market share, since consumers increasingly shop online but still express a desire for the personal touch and the social aspects of in-person browsing.
When prospects go to a store, they get recommendations and help from in-store staff who point them to relevant products. Video delivers this experience online, with far less variability and chance. With new technologies that offer personalized video created on-the-fly, ebusinesses can bridge the gap between live and virtual experiences.
8. Video Production Costs Are Falling, ROI Is Rising
Online video clearly has an impact on competitive advantage. But is it feasible for most ebusinesses? Thanks to today’s automated video production technology, the answer is “yes.”
Two decades ago, the market struggled to replace the labor-intensive process of website management. Today we hardly think about the steps required to update or add web content: Images and text are now template-based, database-driven and easy to manipulate.
Video production is experiencing a similar change. While many website owners once fought the limitations of manually produced videos — including slow production times and prohibitive costs — today’s solutions tend to be automated, cost effective and high quality. With relatively little human intervention, online video production can increase a business’s competitive advantage while creating a better shopping experience for the user.
Some well-known SEO folks are seeing some drastic changes to local-result queries on Google, including 
Jeremy Scott is the Editor-in-Chief at ReelSEO.com. He is also founder and Creative Director of The Viral Orchard (
