Indiana Media Firms

King Fish Media, Hubspot and Junta 42 recently conducted a study looking at how marketers employ online video in their business activities. The first part of the report I'd like to focus on is Social Media Usage.

• 75% of the companies included in the survey have a social media strategy.  I would be interested to see how many are well developed and how many simply say "post on Facebook and Tweet", but I digress.
• 75% of respondents say their companies will increase investment in social media marketing over the coming year.
• 20% of them are redirecting funds from other, more traditional marketing strategies, to keep up with customers who are switching to social media.
• 85% handle their own social media marketing with in-house staffers, as opposed to hiring consultants.
• Only 30% have run an ad campaign on a social media site.
• A shockingly high number of respondents (43%) have never done any kind of ROI measurement.
• Respondents are using social media with a variety of intentions, with customer relations being the number one reason.

Stay tuned for more nuggets from this research. Want to dig deeper into the numbers and the behaviors behind them? Pose a question in the comments and we'll address it in a future blog post.

Online video marketing is fun and exciting, for sure. It's also important to ask if your video is working for you as best it can. To assess the impact of incorporating your video stories and content into your social media marketing strategy, here are five metrics to keep an eye on:

1. People. Think quality over quantity. Are people viewing your videos? Are the right people in the right places viewing your videos? Are they sharing your video stories and helping you extend your reach?
2. Stories. Have you told a variety of stories that paints a well-rounded picture of who you are and what you do? Are they tied to goals that are, in turn, measurable? Are your stories being talked about by clients, prospects and viewers you didn't even know were listening?
3. Perception. How has the sentiment toward your brand changed since using your video stories? Have your videos helped to handle objections normally encountered during the sales process or at other points in your relationship.
4. Actions. Have your viewers responded to your on-screen and in-video calls to action? Are these stories aiding their buying decisions?
5. Profitability. What product sales can be traced to your product stories? What are the costs related to the production of your video stories compared to the benefits you have experienced?

Your stories provide the basis for brand affiliation and make people want to use and interact with your product or service. Getting your video with the right message in front of the right people in the right places will help you to meet your marketing and overall business goals. 

To see how Cantaloupe's Backlight provides you with insights into the metrics of your online video, request a demo here.  

We've talked about how to make your online marketing videos talk-worthy or prepare them to go viral (on a moderate scale). It's important to integrate stories into all of your content marketing - on your site and across social media channels where dialogue, interaction and sharing occur.

Here are five ways to create and use video stories online:

1. Determine trending topics. Relevancy is key. Leverage interest around hot topics with new, creative insights. Remember that your story has to be consistent with your brand and messages and allow this to enhance your other online and offline efforts.
2. Source stories from customers. Let others tell stories related to your product and brand. Create brand advocates and highlight the real-world impact of your product or service.
3. Incorporate a human-interest element into your videos. People are attracted to people like themselves. Be authentic and help your audience put themselves into the shoes of your customers.
4. Allow for interactions and additions. Using social media outlets as distribution channels allows your audience to interact with you and your brand. It provides the opportunity to post comments, share with friends and become personally invested. 
5. Enable easy sharing quickly and broadly. One of the major attractions of social media and online video marketing is the ability for users to share your content when and how they desire. Using a video player, such as the one included in the Backlight video management platform, that includes share features encourages and assists with the sharing of videos.

Want more tips on making video content compelling?  Contact me and we can discuss the process we use for developing a video strategy for clients, and how we do our story development process to ensure we produce engaging, compelling videos.

I just read a paper from Omniture talking about Steven Slater, the flight attendant who stormed off the JetBlue flight in dramatic fashion recently. In the post, it was noted that he has amassed 200,000 Facebook fans since the tantrum incident (more than many corporations can boast). Really? Why?

Simple. We find Steven's story fascinating. It's being described as "urban myth quality". His story is one we can relate to. It's compelling content. It has all of the attributes of good content marketing. 

To make your content talk-worthy on social media platforms, develop strong stories that are in line with your brand, including its voice, language and visuals. When you create your online marketing videos, make sure you incorporate these elements to create powerful stories that your audience wants to hear, engage with and share. 

1. Add emotion. Just telling your audience the facts about your product or service won't get them to care. Find the connection and make your product or company's story resonate with your audience.
2. Identify with the protagonist. Stories must motivate your target to connect with the man character in some way, perhaps by stepping into his shoes.
3. Memorable. Stories have a beginning, middle and end, making it easier for viewers to remember your video's message. Familiarity increases memorability, add your own twist.
4. Easily adapted. Stories can be changed and embellished by the teller to suit his or her purpose. This makes stories more dramatic and increases the audience's ability to empathize, personalize and share your message online and off.
5. Sharable. This can occur in the old fashion way where one person tells another or it can happen through social media and electronic channels. Using the proper video player to support your message will aid your video in going viral.

Want more tips on making video content compelling?  Contact me and we can discuss the process we use for developing a video strategy for clients, and how we do our story development process to ensure we produce engaging, compelling videos.

I came across the following blog post on The Ike. Cantaloupe has hung it's hat on disposable, timely and relevant content. We've preached the importance of this approach as part of a successful online video campaign - something Ike has come to see the real value in. Enjoy...

Years ago I would have cringed at the thought of spending, time, and money on any communications tool, tactic, or strategy that would literally be old news within a day.

But here I sit, engaged, enlightened, and excited about the development and acceptance of disposable content, specifically video. Right now video has gone from high production, high dollars to hi res, low budget and yet more impact. Video has simply become more accessible.

When we work with clients to develop their online video success strategy, we not only plan for the stories they will tell, but how they will distribute them. It sounds easy, right? Post the video on your website and they (the magical, mysterious they) will come and buy your wears.

It isn't so simple. Not everyone who looks alike on paper behaves alike online. There's more to a potential customer than meets the eye. Each brings an individual personality and set of preferences in how and where they can effectively be communicated with.

Our friends at ExactTarget have put together a study to help us understand our audiences and how we can best get our messages in front of them. Check out their Subscribers, Fans and Followers report, "The Social Profile", designed to help you:

1. Get to know your audience based on their personal motivations, not just their age, income or gender;
2. Learn why consumers' use of social media is dictated by their individual motivations, not by the channels themselves; and
3. Realize the importance of understanding your audience, so you can predict what they want from your brand, meet their expectations and increase your ROI. 

The more we understand about your target audience and what drives them, the more effective your online video distribution strategy can become.

What have you learned - from this report or your own experiences - about your target audience?

 
If this were a list, I wouldn't read it.  Just goes to show the power of video marketing!  

Marketpath's Content Management System and Video Management Software from Cantaloupe.tv provide users a more engaging experience.


Content management solution provider Marketpath, Inc. has just announced the addition of VideoHere to its SaaS web content management solution. This integration offers Marketpath users the ability to seamlessly utilize video in their web pages therefore providing highly relevant and engaging content. VideoHere allows users to point-and-click to upload, customize, embed, and track videos in their web pages. It is licensed from Cantaloupe.TV, LLC, an online video solutions company that provides an end-to-end solution for marketing with online video.

Directly from their Marketpath account, customers can easily manage a video library, add video to web pages, and track video metrics. Users can upload MP4, MOV, FLV, MPEG, WMV, and AVI videos to an online video library. Further, impressions, clicks, views, drop-offs, view times, and viral sharing can be measured so that marketers know how their videos perform.

“Adding video to web pages provides website visitors a more engaging experience and allows marketers to better meet their goals,” says Matt Zentz, CEO of Marketpath. “Studies show that 65% of viewers watch online video to completion, while less than 10% read a text-only site in its entirety. Keeping visitors glued to their content helps companies better deliver a message to their intended target.  VideoHere is a powerful tool to help ensure that our client’s audiences engage more deeply and longer on their websites.  And with Marketpath’s VideoHere integration, it is now just as easy to add video to your website as it has always been to add images and image galleries to landing pages.” 

Other added advantages of VideoHere are that an online marketer is able to enhance SEO efforts and also increase their social media footprint. VideoHere includes an out of the box tool that tags videos for search engines, and the video player includes features which allow the viewer to easily share videos with their network and post to social media outlets.

“Videos are delivered to viewers via well known and respected Content Delivery Networks, ensuring the best viewing experience possible,” says Stacy Billanti, Cantaloupe’s President. “Marketpath customers will now have an advantage over their competition by being able to effectively and easily use video in their websites. Further, they will have access to a video hosting library that is reliable and scalable to support large spikes in web traffic.” 

Many of our mainstream business clients often debate whether a social media strategy is necessary - or even applicable - in their industry. I've noticed that far too many companies are taking to social media haphazardly, without planning, thought or expectations, because they think it is what they are supposed to be doing. 

At the same time, many are disappointed  and even disillusioned that they aren't seeing a spike in 'followers', 'friends', or sales that they had secretly expected. 

Take a few minutes to watch this online video from Chris Borgan and SAS, as they discuss how to measure social media effectiveness and how to set meaningful objectives for using social media in marketing. Your online video marketing strategy is only one piece of this social media engagement, but the same principles apply. 

It is estimated that Facebook.com has over 350 million users and over half of those are over 25.  Facebook is the 4th most trafficked website according to comScore, so the next question for your company is “why haven’t you posted your company’s videos to this free resource?”    If Facebook is part of your online marketing strategy, then you should post your online videos there.

When using Facebook for your organization, there are two different ways you can manage your web video.  You have to first either setup a Facebook Page or Group.  Pages seem to be a better solution for companies since they can handle longer conversations with end users.  You can learn more about Pages vs. Groups here.

You can either load the web video directly to your page or share a link with your fans.  This decision is usually made by considering  whether you want the people on Facebook leaving Facebook and going to your web page to view your video, or allowing them to watch it right there.   You also need to track and monetize the video with a link.

In the example below you can see how media consumption is displayed within Facebook. By looking at the green line you are able to see web video views per day on your Page. With this, you can easily correlate the day that a specific video was posted and then relate those video views to that video.

Keep in mind that by posting your videos on the Facebook page, it allows fans an easy way to share video with their friends by posting it on their wall feed, hence encouraging viral sharing.

You can also share your videos with those on Facebook by posting a link to your video rather than uploading the video to Facebook. The best way for sharing video links on Facebook is to use link tracking software such as bit.ly. Bit.ly takes your existing link, shrinks it into a smaller URL, and then provides analytics on clicks and source of clicks. One weakness of this approach is that if the viewer copies the URL to share with others, you will not be able to track all the source of views.   It also requires the viewer to leave Facebook so they may be more reticent to view the video.   Want to see more online marketing video posting examples?  Become a Fan of Cantaloupe on Facebook.

 

 

 I have had many conversations with people who suggest online endeavors are great for the younger demographics, but the senior citizen community shouldn't be a big consideration.

Not so fast.

A recent Nielson report proves otherwise.  According to Nielson, the number of active internet users ages 65 and older has increased 55% in the past five years.  The amount of active seniors online is growing rapidly.  The more surprising thing, however, is what seniors are doing online.  The top four websites visited by seniors, listed in order are:

1)  Google
2)  Windows Media Player
3)  Facebook
4)  Youtube

Google isn't much of a surprise, but the other three are.  Facebook and other social networking sites are an increasingly popular destination for seniors.  8.2% of all social network and blog visitors are over 65; surprisingly, this is only 0.1% less than the number of teenagers who frequent these sites.

The number two and number four most popular sites for seniors is the most intriguing.  This is proof that senior citizens don't behave any differently than the rest of the internet demographics when it comes to web video.  When we suggest that video is the currency by which people are communicating online, this does not exclude senior citizens; so do not discount their importance when planning your video marketing strategy.

Click here to see a few examples of Cantaloupe TV videos.

We've talked about using social media to get your online marketing videos in front of more prospects, clients and employees. Why not empower your viewers to help you spread the word?

When selecting a video player to embed on your site, make sure that it includes a sharing (or viral) option. Let - and encourage through calls to action - your viewers embed the video on their personal or company blogs, email a link to the video to a friend or colleague, or post a link on their social media outlets, such as their Twitter feed.

This may sound complicated, but it's as easy as clicking a button. Give it a try with one of my favorite CantaSeries videos - email it to a friend and post a link to it on your Facebook or Twitter.

Leading Indiana news provider and video services and software provider combine to offer viewers dynamic video content

Cantaloupe.TV, LLC, has just announced a partnership with the leader in Indiana business news and video content, Inside INdiana Business, to provide an enhanced video experience for its online viewers. Cantaloupe.TV is an online video services and software company headquartered in Indianapolis, IN. The partnership allows Inside INdiana Business to provide leading edge video viewing capabilities through its website via Cantaloupe’s online video platform, Backlight.

“Cantaloupe offers an outstanding video management, hosting, and analytics platform for our viewers,” explains Gerry Dick, President of Grow Indiana Media Ventures, the parent company of Inside INdiana Business. “It is easy to integrate into our website and allows our viewers greater access to high quality videos. Our partnership with Cantaloupe will enhance our position as the Indiana leader in video content.” With Backlight, Cantaloupe offers a software platform that takes the guesswork out of online video, making it easier for media companies and businesses to manage their video library, incorporate video content in their online properties, and track its success.

Cantaloupe worked closely with another one of Inside INdiana Business’ partners, Bitwise Solutions, for the rollout of Backlight. “We recommended Cantaloupe’s Backlight product as a good fit to incorporate into the customized media website solution built by BitWise Solutions. Integrating the Backlight product into the website not only extends the video capabilities desired to benefit site visitors, but also allows Inside INdiana Business to continue making the updates themselves,” says Curt Franke, Vice President of Business Development for BitWise Solutions.

“Inside INdiana Business is a natural fit for our online video platform,” says Stacy Billanti, Cantaloupe’s president. “The user will be able to view and engage with videos easily, and Inside INdiana Business will be able to point-and-click to embed videos into the website, upload pre-roll advertising video, track video activity, as well as manage all of its online video content in a single library.”

The vast majority of your web videos will find a home on your website for obvious reasons - they may complement a product page, help build the reputation of your leadership team or underscore your customers' opinions of you through testimonials and case studies. But is that all you need to do to distribute your videos to your target audience? No.

Depending on your product, brand or video's purpose, select the social media tools and outlets that are a fit for you. Businesses are finding that Twitter and blogs provides a platform for interactive marketing folks to become authorities in their rhelm. Using these two to drive viewers to the videos on your site is a no-brainer. 

Facebook, LinkedIn and other such social networking spaces should also be considered as they make sense. These help you to be proactive in getting your video and message in front of your potential customers, employees and supporters.

Use social media outlets where they make sense in your marketing campaign and with your specific audience.  And to learn practical tips and best practices on how to make your social media footprint better using video, download our free whitepaper by clicking here.  

This is a great web video about social media's affect on the world as a whole.  As a marketer, there are some stats that you should really be aware of in this web video.

25% of search results for the world's Top 20 Brands are links to user-generated content.

78% of consumers trust peer recommendations

Only 14% trust advertisements

Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate positive ROI

90% of people skip ads Via Tivo

A strong social media presence gives your company a Human voice in a Human medium. Web video is a great way to jump in that mix by providing your fans with something positive to talk about by creating videos about the things your customers care about.  They aren't listening to you, they are listening to each other.

Justin Gutwein

 

We all tweet, tweet now.    One way to gain more Twitter followers is to use engaging videos in your tweets.  But one big challenge you face is that you only have 140 characters and it has to be text.  How can you possibly share your web videos with your Twitter followers and monetize it?

Here's how:
First, place your video on your website and then grab the URL of the video and shorten it with bit.ly.  Once you have the shortened link, you can tweet your message with the link included.  Be sure to use interesting taglines and text to entice your followers to follow the video link. 

Below is an example of how you can measure the clicks on that video link: 

This graph shows clicks on a video link that was sent out via Twitter by Cantaloupe.  Also, bit.ly archives your information, so you are able to use the same link over time and measure results over time.  Now, to find out if they watched the video, you will need an online video platform like Backlight to measure impressions, video completions, viral video sharing, etc...

Your web videos aren't just for your website....use them in your social media footprint, in emails, and in your blogs.    And make sure you measure how they are working for you.   Hopefully, this tip helps you monetize your web video use on Twitter.    Good luck!  

Continuing on the series of common web video mistakes in marketing, let's focus on video file formats.  I'm sure you'd agree that technology changes quickly these days and feels like a full-time job to keep up with - not to mention keeping the alphabet soup of web video formats straight. wmv, mov, swf, flv, mp4, MediaThis and RealThat... it's enough to make your head spin. 

Tell me this: How many times have you visited a website, encountered an online video you're excited to watch and been forced to download it onto your computer before attempting to play it? Or worse - you had to figure out what software to download in order to watch the brief video. I would bet my lunch that rather than figuring out how to watch the video, you left the site in search of a competitor who made the experience easy. 

As you produce web videos in house or select an online video firm to help you, rely on the expertise available to ensure that you provide your website visitors with a hassle-free viewing experience. Think usability - this isn't a place to cross your fingers, hope you guessed right.

ReelSEO.com, an online video blog that I follow, recently posted what they believe are the most common mistakes marketers make with their web video projects. None of the mistakes in this series should be a surprise to you. It is, however, good to be reminded what can be done in order to get the best possible benefits from the videos that are part of your online marketing campaigns. 

Today, we'll start with one of my favorites: Video is an afterthought.

As we've been preaching a lot lately, look at your overall company and marketing goals and all of the media you intend to employ - tradeshows, industry publications, your website, billboards, etc. and include online video as well as offline. Determine your overarching message, then evaluate what is appropriate to be communicated through each of these outlets. Be careful not to overlook any of the tools at your disposal to get your message out.

Stay tuned for a few more common, yet avoidable, online marketing mistakes.

For all developers dabbling with the thought of adding  the new HTML 5 video tag to their pages, here are a few interesting links on the subject. For online video marketers this new technology could be a "game-changer". And even if you are not specifically looking into online video marketing, knowing a thing or two about HTML 5 video could certainly benefit your organization.

here's a list of links:

• http://diveintohtml5.org/video.html
• http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/07/decoding-the-html-5-video-codec-debate.ars
• http://webkit.org/blog/140/html5-media-support/
• http://shapeshed.com/journal/HTML5-video-element/

Using Video to Improve Your Email Marketing Campaigns

We all want our email marketing campaigns to perform better don't we?

Well Cantaloupe is here to help. Our new whitepaper:

"Using Video to Improve your Email Marketing Campaigns" will share the reasons why you should be using videos in your emails, how to do it, and industry best practices.

 

Learn all about:

• Raising click-through rates by 2-3x
• Video email best practices
• How to move more subscribers to your landing pages
• Maintaining ongoing conversations with customers

Click here to sign up for this helpful online marketing whitepaper. 

 

To learn more web video best practices, sign up for our other whitepapers:

Click here for "What Everyone Needs to Know about Video SEO".

Click here for "How to leverage online video in your social media channels".