Video Hosting Software

This has very little, if anything, to do with online video production or software that helps you distribute your video content online. It was, however, sparked by what I've seen around the Cantaloupe office and in the offices of our clients.*

I'm curious - what inspires and motivates you to do what you do everyday? What makes your role (in the workplace or another aspect of your life) special or your job rewarding (beyond the paycheck, or perhaps simply because of what it enables you to do)? Where do you get the energy to do all that you do?

* On a daily basis, I watch my co-workers get excited about the stories they are able to help our clients tell. I watch them go above and beyond to make sure all aspects of the video will wow their clients. I watch as our clients talk about what they are doing and how their companies make a difference. It's amazing to watch what gets people out of bed each morning and I invite you to share your passion and excitement with us in the comments below. 

This short series touches on tips for optimizing your online videos for SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Some of these are second nature, but it's always worth the reminder.

Always Provide an HTML Link
Some video management platforms, including Cantaloupe's Backlight software, allow you to place calls to action within your online video as you wish. This is a great opportunity to drive your viewer to take a specific action, such as 'register for the webinar' or 'get more information on our new product enhancements'.

Using such features in the video management system also allows you to change your calls to action on the fly, rather than re-engaging with your editor.

By adding an HTML link behind these calls to action, you will drive more traffic to and within your site. This is especially important to do if you are distributing your videos outside of your website. Search engines view these inbound links as a popularity contest. The more (quality) inbound links you have to your site, the more popular and credible the search engines believe your site to be.

Plus, you want to make sure your viewers find their way to you, right?

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.” 

The biggest mistake most people make in video marketing is trying to do all of the 'heavy lifting' themselves.  There are millions of people out there online, create something that even people outside of your target audience can enjoy.


 
Above is a video from a contest Interactive Intelligence held. They took the simple idea that "Brilliant Technology can't solve every problem" and had a series of entertaining and funny web videos created.  I will say that most of them are a little long, but it's still better than 2.5 minutes of someone talking about their software.

This is a perfect video for video marketing because it speaks to a wide audience. Anybody that watches this can relate to it and will more than likely find it funny. That increases the chance that they will share it with their friends.

That means that even if they aren't Interactive Intelligence's target audience, one of the 5 friends they share it with may be. People like to be entertained, give them what they want! 


Justin Gutwein

"It's not about the tools, it's about the people."

If you're anything like me and my fellow Cantaloupers, I bet you get excited about new toys. New cameras, editing software, a newly launched or adopted distribution tool, or just a new bell this or whistle that. It's exciting!

It's good to be reminded from time to time that it isn't about the tool when doing online video marketing. It is the professional, creative mind behind the top-of-the-line camera and at the editing board that makes a story come to life. It's the well-chosen character more than the setting. It's the delivery of the message more than the script. 

Whether you're choosing your next video strategy team or developing the stories for your online video marketing campaign, remember that it isn't about the oooh-shiney new toys. It's about the people behind the tools who will make you look like a star.

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.

 

 

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.”

 YouTube is a popular and effective distribution channel for your interactive marketing videos - especially those you hope to go viral. But it is just that - a distribution channel. It is not your far-reaching online video platform solution for video hosting, publishing, distribution and measurement. I digress... YouTube is an effective distribution channel and a great way to drive traffic back to your site.

We've already talked about SEO as it relates to getting your website and your online video messages found - getting found is critical, yes? Yes. Think about the other factors in getting a high placement on a search results page - number of visits, relevant content throughout a site, Google Page Rank (specifically for Google searches).

Think about this - YouTube gets millions of page views a day and has a high Google Page Rank (9). When someone searches the web to find a video tagged with your keywords, do you think they'll end up on your company's website, surrounded by your messaging and calls to action or do you think they'll end up on YouTube, surrounded by other distractions or worse - your competitors' videos and offerings?

YouTube is a good distribution channel, but is no substitute for good web marketing practices, well produced and well tagged videos provided to your customers on your website, and through your controlled distribution methods.

One common mistake that marketers make with their web videos is believing that a server is a server is a server. If you want your site visitors or employees to be able to access something - a video, a document, pages of content - all you have to do is post it /somewhere/ on the Internet and viola! Right? Well, not so much.

Most web servers are not optimized for video playback. Additionally, the bandwidth required to play a video - especially a popular or viral one - can put a strain on your website. As we've touched on before, your offline and online marketing materials represent your company.

Make sure that your web videos are hosted with a reliable source who is ready to handle the unique demands video brings to the technical environment. The cost of doing this right is small, but the stakes are high when it comes to delivering a quality experience to your video viewers.

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.

 When dealing with online video, it is foolish to simply jump into the deep end without first knowing how to swim.  In other words, before a camera is turned on and the story development team works their magic, you have to create a strategic plan for your video marketing initiatives.

So many people think a good game plan goes as far as saying, "I have an idea for a video and it should prompt people to do business with me."  That's the equivalent to saying, "I'd like to build a Victorian style home and that will satisfy a life long dream of mine."  Not much of a plan, is it?  

When creating a proper strategy for online marketing (specifically video), you need to do a few things:

1)  Determine your overall marketing goals
2)  Properly define your target audiences
3)  Recall what you did with video in the past
4)  Determine where video fits in your marketing plan
5)  Determine the number of videos needed to execute your plan
6)  Determine the style and length of your stories.
If you're not confident you can adequately do these steps, you're not alone.  Here at Cantaloupe TV, we pride ourselves on being a marketing consulting firm who happens to use web video as their weapon of choice.  We aren't just a bunch of guys with cameras and editing software.  We guide you through the process of developing a strategic plan from the very beginning.

If you'd like to learn more about Cantaloupe's strategic planning process, email me at bevans@cantaloupe.tv.

Delivra, one of the original email software and services providers, today announced that it has integrated Cantaloupe.tv's new VideoHere(TM) online video platform with its own email marketing platform, giving marketers an easy way to add and manage videos within their email marketing campaigns. This platform also closely tracks which members viewed the videos and for how long.

VideoHere joins other video solutions in Delivra's suite of email marketing solutions but at a price point that makes it affordable for every marketer, according to Neil Berman, president of Delivra. "VideoHere is the kind of plug and play video integration tool that our clients have been asking for. The affordable system -- starting at just $50 a month -- is easy to use, feature rich, and provides insight into the success of each video.

The integration with VideoHere enables Delivra's clients to insert videos into their email campaigns with one-click, without the need for programming. Marketers can link video play buttons to a pre-built landing page developed by VideoHere or a marketer's custom-built landing page. Marketers measure video performance with detailed tracking of video impressions, views, times completed, times shared, days viewed and drop off rate. The video player allows advanced sharing of videos via email, Twitter, Facebook and by embedded links on websites or blogs.

To learn more and to get started watch our short video.

About Delivra
Delivra offers permission-based email marketing software and personalized services at an attractive price. Delivra has clients nationwide of all sizes and in all major industries. Clients include Del Monte, American Legion, National Geographic, Butler University, US Rowing, Harris Connect and Samsung. Founded in 1999, Delivra is a privately held company headquartered in Indianapolis. For more information, visit www.delivra.com.
 

I originally wanted to interview Michael Davey, Cantaloupe's Project Manager, (and overall great guy) but he was using the restroom so I opted for the closest person in proximity to me, Stacy Billanti, our CEO.  I guess it's fitting that my first vlog would be an interview with our CEO.  We talked about the usuals.  Authentic Storytelling, our frustrations in getting people to tell good stories, what is a good story, etc. etc. 

Honestly, I just watched it and even though I caught her off guard and it wasn't rehearsed I still felt like she came off a bit "markety."  No offense to Stacy.  She's not your typical CEO and definitely not over "messagey" or "markety."  But, it's hard not to be when you're on camera and you know this video will, in some way be used for marketing.  That's the trick.  How can you plan and produce video for the web without it being the same old regurgitation of marketing messages?  It's hard enough when it really is candid. That is where Cantaloupe comes in.  

I'm not going to explain it all here but this vlog will hopefully give you a little insight into how Cantaloupe thinks about using video online to your best advantage.  Hopefully through some candid interviews around the office, unannounced and unedited we can cut through some of the marketing crap and get some real comments from the heart. 

You can expect some more difficult questions from myself as these vlogs keep going. This one was hopefully just a warm up.

Also, I mention in this vlog that software companies are generally boring and have the same marketing messages.  Please don't take offense:)  All software companies do cool stuff.  BUT, it's hard to talk about it without it being boring.  But have no fear, it's our job to make sure you don't get stuck in a rut when you market with video online. 

Social media is all around us and has fundamentally changed the way many of us communicate--both personally and professionally. Video can make your social media better, and ultimately get more leads to your website. But how best to post, measure, and use to drive traffic to your website?

Well Cantaloupe is here to help. Our new whitepaper: "How to leverage online video in your social media channels" will give you all the tips you need to get started and beyond

Learn all about:

• The role of video in your social media channels
• Practical tips on using video in FaceBook and Twitter
• How to use link tracking software like bit.ly
• How to best post and measure your videos

Download our newest whitpaper today!

To see how Cantaloupe utilizes video in social media follow them on Twitter and Facebook:

http://www.twitter.com/cantaloupe_tv

http://www.facebook.com/cantaloupe.tv

Cantaloupe.TV today launched its new breakthrough video platform, VideoHere(TM) to web application providers at the Marketing Sherpa Email Marketing Summit. VideoHere is a turnkey online video management system that providers can embed in any web application, uses no APIs, and requires no IT investment.

"VideoHere gives the end user their own online video management platform all within the web application they already use," says Stacy Billanti, President of Cantaloupe.TV, "and this is all done using scalable and reliable cloud-based technology." This product is particularly relevant for marketing applications including email marketing software providers, blogging software providers, and website content management systems, as their customers are demanding the ability to use video in their marketing communications to create more compelling online content. Further, web marketing application companies need to focus on their own platform development, and they don't have the expertise, time, nor development resources to effectively build and maintain online video capabilities.

VideoHere allows end users to point and click to upload, customize, embed video and play buttons, and track video viewership. Email service provider Net Atlantic, Inc. has just announced the addition of VideoHere to their suite of email marketing solutions. This integration offers Net Atlantic email marketing users the ability to seamlessly utilize video in their email campaigns. "Adding video to email campaigns will improve lead quality and increase conversions for our customers," says Bill Reich, President of Net Atlantic. "Studies show that video email campaigns increase click-through rates by 2 to 3 times, shortening the sales cycle and increasing revenues." "As video becomes pervasive across online channels, web application providers will need to offer video management capabilities seamlessly to customers," shares Stacy Billanti. "VideoHere offers a powerful extension to their existing suite of services, provides them with a competitive advantage, as well as allows them to generate incremental value from this new offering."

The Cantaloupe video team specializes in producing authentic web video stories for one-to-one marketing. Cantaloupe also provides online video management platforms, Backlight(TM) and VideoHere(TM), which are easy-to-use and powerful tools allowing marketers to integrate video into email marketing, websites, blogs, and social media.

Learn more about VideoHere

With VideoHere, Net Atlanitc, Inc. offers users the ability to seamlessly utilize video in their email campaigns, creating a highly relevant and engaging marketing message.

“Adding video to email campaigns will improve lead quality and increase conversions for our customers,” says Bill Reich, President of Net Atlantic. “Studies show that video email campaigns increase click-through rates by 2 to 3 times, shortening the sales cycle and increasing revenues.”

An added advantage of VideoHere is that an online marketer is able to enhance their SEO efforts and increase their social media footprint with video content. The feature includes an out of the box tool that tags the video for search engines, and the video player has features to allow the viewer to easily share the videos with their network.

Read the full press release of Net Atlantic's integration with VideoHere.

Wondering how you can video enable your marketing software offering? Get started with VideoHere today!

If you are a web developer of any sort I'm sure that you already know where this is headed. If not, then hopefully I can help open up to you just exactly how bad IE6 is holding you back. As an online video marketing company we are always trying to make the user experience as hassle free as possible and IE6 does not do that for us. Interactive marketing is here to stay and it's about time Microsoft steps up and embraces it.

Internet Explorer was released in 2001. Yes, that was 8 years ago! Computers don't even last that long anymore, so how in the world can a web browser last that long? Oh, and it's only been updated twice in those 8 years. Now I do realize that I'm an Apple user, but this isn't me directly hating on Microsoft. It's me yearning for better browser standards that will make our jobs easier and the end user experience more gratifying. Over the past 4 years I have watched our developers here at Cantaloupe spend an absurd number of hours hacking up perfectly written code just so that it will render correctly in IE6. So, you might be thinking why not just say you don't support IE6, right? You see, the problem is that somewhere around 15% of internet users are still using IE6 as their default web browser.

Light at the end of the tunnel?
There is quickly becoming a movement among web developers and users to rid the world of IE6. CNN.com recently posted an article about this titled "Web citizens trying to kill Internet Explorer 6" and we have even had a current client video blog about the topic. (see video below). There is even a website dedicated to this movement.

Check out this article by the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) on crisis communication.

There big takeaway, and I quote exactly: "Video dominates as online communications tool"

The article goes on to say:
Organizations need to already have an established video channel that informs — or entertains — your key publics so that you have built an audience and goodwill before a crisis hits. Having an online Web presence will increase the speed of distribution and reach of your crisis response.

This is exactly what our online video magazines at Cantaloupe.tv do. We specialize in producing authentic, online video content which is the exactly what you need when communicating a crisis situation. And our web video platform, Backlight.tv, makes it easy to get that video up immediately.

The last thing you want to be worried about in a crisis is about how to get your video online. Backlight handles everything you need to get that video up immediately. Things you don't need to worry about with Backlight:

• The file type. We handle mov conversion, mp4 conversion, mpeg conversion, flv conversion, and more
• The online video player. Backlight provides you with that as well as an easy to use embed code
• Online video hosting service. That's also included out of the box.
• Distribution. Backlight helps you get your video on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs, email campaigns, Twitter, partner websites, or wherever else you distribute online
• Video analytics. Backlight provides you with all the online video tracking you'll need to determine the effectiveness of your story.

So don't wait for a crisis to hit before you start thinking about online video marketing and the video platform you need to distribute it. Take a look at our offering now.

A recent study by TubeMogul shows that a large protion of online video views are being driven by blogs. TubeMogul is a service that allows you to upload your online videos and then distribute them to over two dozen video sharing sites such as YouTube, Yahoo, and Google with a single click. As much as email marketing and social media may seem to be the best distribution channels to share your videos for viral marketing, this study is begging to differ.

The key to this study is that you still need a video content management system that can allow you to output your videos into the necessary formats, allowing you to upload your videos to a solution such as TubeMogul.

With Cantaloupe's Backlight Saas video system you are able to download your online videos directly to your local machine in the necessary formats to not only upload them to a solution like TubeMogul, but other social media sites as well.

Many of the video content management systems available right now will provide upload conversion, but do not allow for download conversion. Because you are sometimes faced with the fact that your videos were produced by a second party this becomes and extreme monetary value for your company.

Once you are able to output your videos in the necessary video format you can then not only embed your videos into your blog, but you give others the opportunity to embed your videos into their blogs from not only Backlight but multiple video sharing sites.

The more accessible your videos are the more people are going to embed them causing a higher rate of engagement. For more information about Cantaloupe's Backlight video content management system click here.

Looking for a complete blogging software solution for your business? Check out Compendium Blogware for all your business blogging needs.