Showing posts with label video marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label video marketing. Show all posts
Monday, July 25, 2011
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
4 Innovative Ways to Use Web Video for Small Business
| 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 ContentTry 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. |
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Monday, June 6, 2011
Friday, June 3, 2011
8 Reasons Every Ecommerce Site Should Get Serious About Video.
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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Article by Mashable
1. Video Attracts New, Relevant Search Traffic
2. Video Assets Can be Easily Syndicated
3. Videos Encourage Sharing
4. Video Engages Site Visitors
5. Video’s “Halo Effect” Drives Conversions
6. Video Increases Customer Loyalty
7. Video Creates Online Personalization
8. Video Production Costs Are Falling, ROI Is Rising
Monday, May 16, 2011
Monday, May 9, 2011
Monday, May 2, 2011
HOW TO: Get Your Employees On Board With Your Social Media Policy
As more businesses become social and move past the initial excitement of adoption, they need to tackle the nitty gritty of executing a social media strategy. It will involve cultural alignment, training, and building a solid process so that the necessary parts of the organization can participate. A truly social organization is active both internally and externally. This is where things get complicated. When we think of major corporate PR blunders, we think of those committed by careless employees and interns tweeting from branded accounts. The solution is obvious: Don’t put anyone on the branded account whom you don’t trust with the brand voice. But what about employees’ communication from their own accounts? The solution here is a bit more nuanced, because there are two contradictory impulses at play: It’s not an easy job to help people reconcile their public and private lives, and it all comes down to training, ongoing mentorship, and establishing guidelines and best practices. It can be daunting, at best, to ensure compliance without overbearing rules that stifle self-expression and dialogue. The best way to ensure buy-in to your social media policy is not through threat of disciplinary action. Rather, it’s by providing education and resources, and building the right processes. When writing a policy, make sure you are clear about what constitutes a major infraction and what the consequences are. Here are some tips for setting your social media policies on the right track. Post your policy in a place that’s easily found, in a format that easily digestible. While you should also have a text version of it available, create a set of slides, an ebook or a video that employees can refer to. For example, Australia’s Department of Justice created the great video above. When appropriate, share your policy with the world, so that your customer community can see what’s important to your brand. Remember: educate and empower — then you won’t have to resort to disciplinary action. What are some ways in which you have approached governance and social media policy? Let us know in the comments below. article by Mashable
Tips and Advice
Creating a Policy
Monday, April 25, 2011
Where is Twitter headed? Is it still a social network or is it becoming a broadcasting platform?
Its supercharged adoption rates two years ago took it from 9 million unique visitors in March 2009 to 17 million the very next month. But that kind of growth has ended. For the past year, Twitter’s unique visitor number has held steady at about 27 million. While 27 million is definitely a lot of people, unlike Facebook, which surpassed Google in 2010 as the most visited site on the Internet, Twitter appears to have hit a plateau. What will become of the site now that it’s 5 years old and flat-lining? At the height of its growth two years ago, 10 percent of Twitter’s active users were producing 90 percent of its tweets according to a study by the Harvard Business School. Today, it appears that even more content is being generated on Twitter by even fewer accounts. According to a report published by Yahoo, 50 percent of tweets consumed on Twitter are now generated by only 0.05 percent of its users. That amounts to 20,000 so-called Twitter elite. The elite include traditional media sources like the Today Show with 756,000 followers or CNN with close to 2 million. They include celebrities like Ashton Kutcher with 6.5 million followers or Oprah with 5.5 million. And they include organizations like the White House with 2 million followers. Some bloggers have also amassed major followings. The technology blog Mashable is followed by 2.6 million people on Twitter, for instance. After five years, is it possible that Twitter is morphing from a social network into a broadcasting platform? For brands, businesses or people who are already famous or well-known, Twitter has clearly proven itself as an excellent platform to speak directly to customers and fans. But as a social network, customers and fans are also supposed to have the opportunity to respond. When Shaquille O’Neal, one of the early celebrity adopters, first began using Twitter, he directly engaged his fans even sharing his location and asking them to come say hello. He continues to respond and interact, but many celebrities use Twitter primarily for one-way communication with fans. The Yahoo study found that when elite celebrity users interacted with others on Twitter it tended to be with other elite celebrity users versus fans. Elite media and blogger accounts also were found to prefer to travel within their shared circles of influence. One point of difference was that elite bloggers tended to share one another’s content more frequently than other elites. Twitter as a broadcast platform actually works well for elite users, but it’s not a model that works for ordinary people and businesses where the rules of social networking still apply. For average Joes, Janes and Jones Incorporateds, Twitter is a better place to meet some new, like-minded people or cultivate a few new customer relationships and positive word-of-mouth. But growing a sizable following that could support a broadcast model is highly unlikely without a full-time dedicated social media manager. Unless Twitter continues to grow and succeed as a social networking platform and appeal to ordinary users, it will not hold its value to elite users as a broadcasting platform. With stagnating growth and the consolidation of its content into the hands of the few, Twitter is at the crossroads and, if nothing changes, could start losing its appeal to both elites and the masses. Story by www.signonsandiego.com
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
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