Integrate Video Stories into Social Media Marketing

Friday, August 27, 2010 by Trena Roush
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.

Manage Ads & Calls-To-Action on Your Videos

Friday, July 30, 2010 by Trena Roush
Cantaloupe's Backlight video management platform was designed to help marketers publish, distribute and measure the success of their videos across the web. It's continuing to evolve and will soon become an even more powerful solution for our clients. Enough with the fluffy salesy talk, though.

As your Video Success Manager, it's my responsibility to ensure you are getting the most out of your videos and the tools at your disposal. I wanted to touch on one often underutilized feature of Backlight: the ads.

Video ads are more than just a place for your advertisement to display. They are truly calls-to-action that you can place in your video player as you wish. Use ads to underscore a point, drive viewers to take a specific action ("Register for our webinar!") or lead them to additional information ("Learn more about our solution!").

This empowers you - the marketer and online video content manager - to create, update and place these calls-to-action when and where you want without having to make edits to the video itself - the message, placement, duration and destination webpage are completely within your control.

Below is a sample video. At the 5-second mark, you'll notice an ad pop up and hang out for 10 seconds, then fade away. Clicking on the ad pauses the video and directs the viewer to Cantaloupe.tv's 'Request a Demo' form. (Feel free to request a Backlight demo while you're there.)

As an added bonus, Backlight's analytics tracking allows you to report on how many viewers engaged with each ad. 

You have powerful tools and information at your fingertips - are you taking advantage? If you need help using any of the Backlight features or would simply like a demo to see what all the chatter is about, drop me a note or give me a call at 317.594.9999!

Optimize Your Web Videos :: Linking

Wednesday, July 14, 2010 by Trena Roush

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 adds video management capabilities with Cantaloupe's VideoHere

Wednesday, June 30, 2010 by Diana Caldwell
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.” 

How Do You Know?

Tuesday, June 15, 2010 by Trena Roush
Strategy. Production. Publishing. Distribution. Measurement.

These five elements make up the Cantaloupe online video marketing life cycle. There's nothing magical in these five words. The magic lies in the execution of each within your overarching plan. From time to time, we'll focus on each of these and talk about how they impact one another as well as how they impact your goals and initiatives.

Today, I have a question for you: How do you know?

How do you know that your online videos are working? How do you know they are being watched (and watched to completion)? How do you know if your video - the one you poured your heart and soul into - is being shared with others? How do you know who is using your videos? How do you know if your calls-to-action are working for you? Perhaps I should ask if you feel it's important to have this information (if not, give me a call and I'll climb on my soap box).

Answer: Analytics. 

As you and your visitors navigate websites, data is being collected about your behavior. This is powerful information to a marketer who is now able to gauge whether and how effectively his message is being heard by the masses.

Just like with website navigation, analytics data can be captured that report online video viewing behaviors. Combine this information with open and click rates from your email marketing campaigns, you site analytics and your offline marketing data, and you have a wealth of information at your disposal. With this, you can make quality decisions to maximize your potential with clients and prospects. 

We'll talk later about making sense of the numbers and data your have at your fingertips and making the information from multiple sources work together. The first step, though, is collecting the information.

As you evaluate online video management solutions such as Cantaloupe's Backlight, ask yourself how you will know if the video or online marketing campaign is a success. Make sure the tools you are using to manage your online videos help arm you with information at the end of the day. 

Online Videos Sell... Even If They Aren't Watched

Thursday, May 27, 2010 by Trena Roush
Videos on your website will increase sales and conversions. We all agree. But, did you know that they can do so even if your site visitors don't watch the videos? 

While adding web video to your online store isn’t exactly new, it is still a medium in its infancy.  Only within the last year or so have retailers begun to wake up to the power of video as a marketing tool that builds customer confidence and increases conversion rates. The amazing thing about video is that it works to this effect whether it’s watched or not.  In other words, just by adding product videos to your site, whether they’re watched or not, will help move products.

Why add video to product pages? Because simply put, product videos sell products.  While shoppers who actually view a product video are buying at a higher rate than those who choose not to watch the video, what has proven even more interesting is the fact that people who do NOT watch the video are converting at a significantly higher rate than shoppers viewing the same product page without the option for video viewing.
 
So, it turns out that just offering the option to watch a product video is already a selling point. How could that be?

I believe that it has to do with consumer behavior and the trust factor.  People feel more secure if they know you are able to show video on your site. 1) Because it means you trust your product enough to show it in full multi-dimensional format, and 2) Because it means you are an etailer that invests in your site, bringing your customers the best user experience possible. It makes your site seem more reliable which in turn increases consumer confidence.

If I look at it from another perspective altogether, I’d perhaps equate it to the fact that while I may not be an opera fan, I like the idea of living in a city that has an opera.  It’s about options. In other words, while I may not use a particular service, I like to know that it’s there. I can recognize its benefit without the need to use it, and it says something positive about the place, or site, I’m visiting. 

Is just having video on your site enough? In an upcoming post, we'll explore the best way to display your videos to optimize conversions and maximize user experience through online video management platforms.

A special thank you to Mark Robertson, online video marketing and search engine optimization (seo) specialist, for showcasing the power of video placement.

Inside INdiana Business partners with Cantaloupe.TV, LLC to provide leading edge online video content

Friday, May 21, 2010 by Diana Caldwell

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.”

Common Web Video Mistakes :: Not Leveraging Calls to Action

Wednesday, May 19, 2010 by Trena Roush
Calls to action are an effective way to leverage your web video when your purpose extends beyond simply entertaining or branding alone. As you develop your web video strategy with your producer, remember to focus on the goals of the specific video and of your interactive marketing campaign as a whole.

Calls to action are just that - they prompt your viewer to take a specific action that - ideally - will lead them to buy your product, engage in your service or evangelize for your brand. Three simple ways to include calls to action are:
  1. The web page content surrounding your video. Put the video in context and tell your visitors what you want them to do next. (Remember, though: people don't read. At best, they skim) 
  2. Spoken within your video. Your "characters" should remind the viewer what to do - call our customer service reps; attend Tuesday's webinar; whatever. This is harder to change, so proper planning is important.
  3. Embed visual calls to action within your video. Much like Cantaloupe does at the 17-second mark in this CantaSeries video, small, non-obtrusive calls to action can be overlaid on the video to engage your potential customers in a unique way. Plus, these can be changed with a click of the mouse, when using the right video management tools.
Don't make your visitors think about what to do next. Lead them where you want them to go with calls to action in and around your online videos.

Common Web Video Mistakes :: Failure to Optimize for Search

Friday, May 14, 2010 by Trena Roush
Do we really need to talk about this one? Sadly, some of us do. (Not you, of course; some of your competitors need this reminder, though, so bear with me.)

Placing a video on your website is a fantastic way to improve your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) results. We all get that. Just having a video on your site will help some, but there is more you can do in order to get the most bang for your buck. 

To get found by Google and other search engines and to get elevated to the top of the search results page, you must properly tag your videos. You can do this manually in the code of your web page or you can use tools, such as those provided in the Backlight online video management system, to optimize the video and embed code.

It doesn't matter how great your video or product or messaging is if you aren't found by your target market.  To learn more about enhancing your SEO results with video, click here to download our white paper "What everyone needs to know about about video SEO."

How do you measure the success of video on your home page?

Monday, April 26, 2010 by Brett Evans
When establishing web video into your online marketing strategy,  it is vital to purpose video content on your home page.  But how do you properly compare the video analytics of the video content on your homepage to the web analytics of the homepage in and of itself?

A few of our clients were confused by this very topic.  One company was concerned that the videos were not being watched.  Their web analytics showed around 500 unique visits to their homepage everyday.  But their Backlight video analytics showed that only 20 of those visitors were actually clicking on the video to watch it.

To the naked eye, it certainly seemed like prospects were not interested in the video they had purposed on their site.  But, when we dug a little deeper and looked a little closer, the truth was revealed.

Come to find out, an estimated 300 of those 500 unique visitors were existing clientele who were coming back to their site to purchase more products and services from them.  Why would they watch your "about us" video if they already know who you are?

Then we discovered that about 150 of the remaining 200 unique visitors were agencies coming to the homepage to log in to their reseller account page.  Once again, if they are selling your products and services, why would they watch your "about us" video?

So, that leaves us with 50 unique visitors that are probably first time prospects.  And 20 out of 50 isn't too shabby.  Furthermore, according to their Backlight video analytics, the video completion rate was a whopping 93%.  So, not only were most watching the video, most were watching the entire video to the end.

So, carefully compare your web analytics to your video analytics.  You may be pleasantly surprised.

To learn more about Cantaloupe's video content management system, Backlight, email me at bevans@cantaloupe.tv

Delivra Integrates Email Marketing with Cantaloupe's VideoHere(TM) Online Video Management System

Thursday, March 4, 2010 by Dusty Koekenberg


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.
 

What did marketers at Marketing Sherpa’s 2010 Email Marketing Summit want to know about online video marketing?

Friday, February 19, 2010 by Jon DiGregory
Last month I spoke at the Marketing Sherpa’s Email Summit.  It was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed talking with folks in our booth and at my talk which was titled: “Demystifying the Use of Video in B2B Email Marketing.”  See this link for copies of the slides.   I thought I would share some of the most common questions I encountered when talking about online video at the conference so you all could see what is on marketers’ minds these days.

Top four questions that we received at the summit.

Question 1:
“Can I play video right within my email campaigns?”   Often asked this way too:   “Can I embed video directly in my emails?”
 
Answer:
What is the value here? The only answer I received when I asked folks "why?" they wanted to embed in the email was that it skipped a step (of having to go to a website and then click again to play). I challenged them to tell me why they wanted subscribers to stay in their email rather than going to their website which is usually where they want them to go. Also, with the auto-play feature, the video automatically starts playing when you click through to the website, so, we are really not skipping a step.

Also, you want to do all you can to ensure your email arrives in your subscriber’s inbox don’t you?   Embedding video directly into your message greatly decreases the chances that your email will be delivered to your subscribers, as most email servers will block large embedded files or flag the message as SPAM.  Even if your email does get through to the subscriber, it is very likely that your video will not render properly in their email.  For more details, see Dusty Koekenberg’s blog post below dated January 13, 2010.
 
-----------------

Question 2:
“What length of video is best?”
 
Answer:
Two to three minutes. However, it is about relevancy. My "BMW minded" brother wouldn't watch 5 seconds of a 25 second video on quilting. But.. would watch a full 15 minute video on the new 7-series.
 
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Question 3:
“Do you just put a link in the email or some type of graphic?”
 
Answer:
Pictures are worth a thousand words.   Our video management product Backlight allows you to output a graphical representation of the video with a awesome looking play button... So, the end user feels like they are clicking the video itself.
 
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Question 4 :
“How often should you send out a video to your database?”
 
Answer:
Generally, once a month.  However it is an evolutionary process to find out what works for each company. If you juggle paying for the production and doing some video yourself (less professionally done vlogging for instance) then perhaps you can get away with a more frequent delivery. Also, the audience plays into this decision.  Younger folks are probably are OK with more frequency while CEO's are not.

-----------------

Send me an email at getjon@cantaloupe.tv with other video email questions you want answered, or, visit our website at www.cantaloupe.tv.  Also, stay tuned because we will release a White Paper on this topic soon!

Cantaloupe.TV Introduces Turnkey Online Video Management for Web Application Providers

Wednesday, January 20, 2010 by Dusty Koekenberg


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




Is HTML5 the answer to embedded video in email?

Wednesday, January 13, 2010 by Dusty Koekenberg
With video becoming a highly sought after internet currency, the questions around video and email are becoming more prevelant. How do I do it? What are best practices? Can I embed the video into my email directly?

Can you do it? Yes. Would I suggest it? No.

How would you even embed video in email?

HTML5 has added a <video> tag that allows advanced browsers to automatically recognize and play a video file without the use of a custom Flash, Quicktime, or WMV player resource. While there are some browsers that already support HTML5, email clients are another story!

Because email clients often use the HTML engines of browsers to render HTML emails there is an assumption that this video tag will allow you to embed your video directly into your emails allowing the enduser to view your video there. Think again! A study conducted by CampaignMonitor shows the real story.

In the image below you can take a look at the different email clients and which (1) actually allowed the different types of video files to be rendered:

*image created by CampaignMonitor

I'm pretty sure that the number of red (X's) tells you right away to stay away from embedding video directly into email!

So how do you email your videos out?

There are three approaches to this that we have taken here at Cantaloupe. You can either embed a link to your video, a thumbnail from the video with a link included on the image, or an animated .gif that mimics the look of video in your email. With these methods the enduser would click on the image or link and would be directed back to your website where you have embedded your video.

There are multiple advantages to this approach. One, when the enduser is taken back to your website they are being surrounded by your brand and other call-to-actions. I realize that most email campaigns are heavily branded, but the amount of messaging and call-to-actions that can be included in an email do not equal that of your website.

Secondly, by bringing the enduser back to your website to view the video in your video content management system you are able to track the time of view and other interactions that the user may take on the video. If you are letting the user view the video directly in the email you would lose this tracking.

If you are not currently getting tracking on your video content find out how you can start using Cantaloupe's Backlight video management system.

What's the future?

I would say that in the next few years the ability to embed video directly into email will become more advanced, and once the email clients begin to allow this content to be rendered, there will quickly be solutions that allow you to track video within emails. Until then, your best bet is to use images and links.





Video enable your marketing application with VideoHere™

Friday, January 8, 2010 by Dusty Koekenberg

VideoHere is an online video system that you can embed in any web application with very little development work, no APIs, and no IT investment. Your users are able to point and click to upload, customize, and embed videos inside your user interface. It's like giving your clients their own online video platform within your application.

Get Started Today!




MAKE YOUR CLIENTS HAPPY
So marketers want to use video and you like to make marketers happy. With VideoHere, video features designed for marketers will enable your clients to use and track video content directly within your application quickly and easily.
 
SAVE TIME AND MONEY
You can integrate video features in minutes with no upfront costs, so there's no need to spend lots of time and money building and maintaing video expertise yourself. Instead you can focus on how video impacts client success.
 
NO WORRIES
As video technologies and client needs change, we'll take care of it, no need to worry.
 
Get Started Today!

 
 

Cantaloupe.tv President, Stacy Billanti, talks Online Video and Video Management Software

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 by Dusty Koekenberg


 
President of Cantaloupe.tv, Stacy Billanti, takes time to stop by IndyStar's "Bizz Buzz". Watch as Stacy discusses Cantaloupe's progression in online video production, video content management software, and the future of internet video marketing. Stacy answers the question of "why" you need online video and how Cantaloupe offers an A-Z solution for online video. She even mentions that you should "stay tuned" for a new product offering to be released at the beginning of the year.

How exactly does one go about sharing cantaloupe?

Thursday, October 15, 2009 by Dusty Koekenberg

At Cantaloupe.tv we feel that sharing is something that you learn at an early age. We also know that sharing is one of the easiest ways to get your message in front of hundreds of prospective clients in today's interwebs. To test this, we deployed some Cantaloupers to 'road trip it' to Friendship, IN. In the two part online video series below you will see just how amazing sharing can become when you actually try surviving from it. Honestly, Friendship Rd. leading to Friendship, IN isn't something we could actually write a script for...
 




 
With Cantaloupe's online video management system, Backlight,  we make sharing your online video content as much fun as it is to travel to Friendship, IN. I almost forgot, we make it easy for you to share those videos with your social media channels too...starting with email -- http://www.cantaloupe.tv/exacttarget/integration


A Large Portion of Online Video Views Are Driven by Blogs

Friday, July 10, 2009 by Dusty Koekenberg
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.




Welcome Freshmen! YOUniversityTV brings college campus tours to online video.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009 by Dusty Koekenberg
I have been recently introduced to a website that is taking the college campus tour to a whole new level. YOUniversityTV has brought the college campus tour to online video. With campus tours in all 50 states, universities and colleges are being given the chance to engage with more potential student prospects than ever.

This is the beauty of online video production and online video content management systems, like Cantaloupe's Backlight, becoming easier to use and more affordable.

With the economy in a slump, traveling to tour a college that is 6 states aways is probably out of the question for many soon-to-be college students. With the use of a little internet video marketing and a video content management system YOUniveristyTV is taking the travel out of the equation and bringing the campus tour into the comfort of your home. They have even taken it one step further and are now letting user generated videos to be uploaded to the website, meaning that they are getting free and relevant content that they are then able to distribute.

If you are wondering how your company or organization can utilize online video to help you engage a broader audience contact Cantaloupe or sign up for our Eloupe webinar - Engaging Your Audience the Cantaloupe Way.






I Have Social Media Channels and Video Content. Now What?

Monday, June 1, 2009 by Dusty Koekenberg
You have video and you have social media channels. How in the world are you going to use it and measure it? Let's talk about the three current big social media channels Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Facebook

When using Facebook for your organization there are two different ways that you can handle video. You have to first either setup a Facebook Page or Group. Pages seem to be a better solution for companies because you are often times having longer conversations with your end user and Pages are setup for this. You can learn more about Pages vs. Groups here.

With your Facebook page you can either load the video directly to your page or share a link to your video with your fans. We'll get to how you can monetize the video with a link a little later.

This decision is usually made by looking at whether you want the people on Facebook leaving Facebook and going to your web page with your video or if you are comfortable with your branding on Facebook and allow them to watch it right there. In the example below Cantaloupe has decided to use Facebook as another channel aside from mass email and their website so they post their videos directly to their Facebook page. This allows fans and colleagues to share your video with others very easily. The example that we are going to show here is the laughter yoga video that Cantaloupe produced and you can see how Facebook returns information for video plays on your Facebook page.

Facebook Video Plays Insight 
In the example to the right you are looking at Video Views inside of Facebook's Insights. The first spike on the left was the interaction with the video the day that it was posted. There was a drop off in the next few days so what we did was go into our Facebook page and share the video with all of our fans directly, therefore not relying on them to see the video post in their news feed. This sends each person that is a fan of Cantaloupe a direct message to their Facebook inbox allowing them to watch the video. Over the next two days you can see the spike in video plays that this created for this video. With only about 50 fans on the Cantaloupe Facebook page you can see that there were double that amount of video views. This tells us that the video was shared to others outside of the Cantaloupe fan base which in turn means the video was exposed to folks that we were not having any type of conversation with. We like to upload our videos directly to our Facebook page because you can then see the interaction that is being made with the video just on Facebook.

The other way to share your videos with those on Facebook would be to post a link to your video directing the end user to the page that your video sits on. 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 returns data around the number of clicks and where those clicks came from. One downfall here can be that if an end user clicks to the video and then copies the URL from the page they are on to share the video with a friend you are not going to be able to tell that the friends video view came form this campaign or post.

Become a Fan of Cantaloupe on Facebook.


Twitter

We all tweet, tweet now.

You have 140 characters and it has to be text. How in the world can you share your videos with your Twitter followers and be able to monetize it? Here's how.

You have your video placed on your website, so all you need to do is grab the direct URL to the video and shorten it with bit.ly. Once you have the shortened link all that is left to do is tweet your message with the link included. Below is an example of how you can measure the number of clicks on that link.

Bit.ly Link TrackingThis graph is showing the number of clicks on a video link that was sent out via Twitter by Cantaloupe. The bar to the left is showing the number of clicks on the video link the first time that it was sent out. At the time Cantaloupe was pretty new to Twitter so 10 clicks was acceptable. As time went by and Cantaloupe started to gain more followers we decided that it might be a good idea to send the same link out again. The result is the taller bar to the right. Because there were new followers the number of views doubled from the previous post.

Ok, so they clicked the links but did they watch the video? The way to measure this is to log into your video content management system and check the number of views your video has prior to posting your link to Twitter and then checking those numbers a few times after posting the link. By comparing the change in video views and the number of clicks in bit.ly you can then begin to measure your success. The one good thing about Twitter is that most of the time the interaction is going to be immediate so the comparison between the clicks and video views becomes less of an assumption.

Follow Cantaloupe on Twitter @cantaloupe_tv.

YouTube

You have your video on your website, why would you need to post it to YouTube?

Simple. Numbers.

There are millions of video views on YouTube each month and when using a video content management system like Cantaloupe's Backlight, posting your video to YouTube can be done easily. By posting your video to YouTube you are giving access to millions of people that may have never even knew you existed. So, if they are on YouTube searching for a solution and your video comes up the conversation starts there. By setting up a YouTube channel you can store your videos in an orderly fashion as well as brand the channel with your companies branding and website URL allowing users to quickly engage with you.

The example for this again is the laughter yoga video that Cantaloupe produced. After getting the video up on our website and sent via mass email we posted the video to our YouTube channel. We were able to create some buzz among the laughter yoga world and even had a few laughter yoga websites embed or link directly to our video. The video helps them show what it is they do and allows us to get in front of new prospects.

In this image you can see that Cantaloupe has generated 210 views on this video from their YouTube video channel. You can also see the different websites that are linking to your video.

So, people are watching my video on YouTube but I want to know if we are getting conversions to our website from this. To solve this you would just need to use your website analytics and look at the referring sites to your website. You should be able to filter them down to the number of referrals there are from YouTube that you can then use for conversion rates.

Subscribe to Cantaloupe's YouTube Channel.

So we've covered the three current, big social media channels and how you can monetize your video content through these channels. I'm sure that there are more channels to come and there will be different ways to monetize your video through these channels, but for now why not get started with these?

Exposure leads to prospects that can in turn become customers. Internet video marketing is advancing quickly and the sooner that you can get your foot in the door and start building an online presence with your videos, the farther ahead you will be of your competition.

Learn more about how Backlight can help make your social media video monetization easier.

Follow Cantaloupe through Social Media:

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