Video On Websites

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.

 
Getting started with online video isn't as daunting of a task as some people make it out to be. There are really three things that you need.

 First of all you need a camera, you have to get yourself onscreen somehow. How much you want to spend on that camera is kind of up to you. Video quality isn't really as important as the content, which is one of the other things you are going to need.

Content is king. If you don't have anything relevant to say, it doesn't matter how good the video quality actually is. You can get away with shooting with something like the Flip HD or even using the iPhone 4, which shoots pretty good looking HD video. I'm actually using the iPhone 4 for a different series. The third thing you need, the first two being a camera and content, is probably some form of computer. You don't want to do a whole lot of editing in a Vlog. You  want it to be very conversational and honest, but doing a lot of editing takes that away.

You are still going to need to get it up on the web somehow and other than the iPhone 4, which has some editing and posting capabilities, you are going to need something to get the video from the camera to the computer, polish it a little bit and get it up to YouTube, your website, blog or wherever you are going to put it. I really suggest using a Mac. They are very easy to use and come installed with iMovie, which is a very easy to use video editing system. You can add some lower thirds and graphics without learning something like Final Cut Pro, which is what I use.

If you have any questions or topics you'd like addressed, email me at justin@cantaloupe.tv or find me on twitter: @justingutwein. I hope this is helpful to you, I will be diving deeper into cameras and content in some later episodes. Thanks a lot!

My goal with this series is to help the average person start producing video content for their web presence.  

Mom said never to, but I just can't help it. I do. I do it as I'm skimming the shelves at the library. I do it at the grocery to figure out which can of green beans to buy. I do it on YouTube when deciding which version of the singing cats video to watch. And I do it on corporate websites when trying to figure out whether their videos are apt to align with what I am looking for.

If I do it, I'm sure others do it with your online marketing videos. Your video's thumbnail image - the "teaser" picture in your video player - is so important. It may be all your viewer uses when deciding whether to click "play". You've put in a lot of time and energy getting the video perfect, identifying the right distribution channels to get in front of your audience. Take one final step and make sure your first impression drives them to press play.

Take the following screenshots for example. Would you watch the video for any of these?

Mmmm... probably not this one. Andy looks a bit dazed and there's a not-at-all-compelling ceiling in the background.

What about this one? Although Chris is also mid-word, there's more context. He's in a more interesting setting. His title and personal style might be compelling enough for most to hit play and see what the story is.

Here's what we ultimately went with for our CantaSeries Laughter Yoga video. You kinda want to chick on it, don't you? Go ahead.

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?

All companies, for-profit and not-for-profits alike, face a similar challenge - create awareness of a need and engage customers (donors and supporters, in the case of NFPs) as you move them through the sales cycle into a buying decision. The answer: tell a compelling story. 

Have you heard the Make-A-Wish Foundation's "Summer of 5,000 Wishes" campaign? Check out their website and see the kids' stories. If you feel so moved, sponsor part of a child's wish. At the very least, take away something for yourself and your business.

Notice that Make-A-Wish doesn't focus on what your donation is actually buying (plane tickets or a pirate play set), but tells the deeper, more engaging story.

They tell of Parker, a boy with a love of playing outdoors who happens to have a severe medical issue that limits him. They paint a picture about who Parker is and why this is an important purchase (donation) for you, the customer (donor), to make. 

You and your for-profit business are no different. Tell a compelling story to get your audience's attention and stick in their minds. Your story isn't always about your product. It's about the passion that brought your widget to market; It's about the people who construct it; and it's about the widget out in the wild - how it has made a difference to those who purchased before.

Now, if only Make-A-Wish had added online video to their profile pages... 

For some time now I've been stating that it will get to a point where every business will need at a minimum an "about us" video on the home page of their website to compete (now I actually think it's more like a video on every page that has a major topic or offering). I ran across this article by Mark Robertson from ReelSEO that featured an online video that speaks to the fact that Google is now being aggressive about indexing the videos on your website making more than ever a need for marketers to jump over the "we don't need video" line.

For you non-internet "geeky talk" folks, this means that the king of SEO is trying to help people find your videos easier and will reward those that do it right by pushing your relevant videos "up" on the search page. But, it's only for those companies that actually have videos on their web site along with some know how on how to publish them with the correct sitemap.

Just watch the video and you'll get what I mean:

 Sometimes, you can catch lightning in a bottle, and more often than not, it happens organically.

If you happen to drive past the corner of Emerson and Thompson Rd on Indianapolis' southside, you will probably see Lionel Hills; a 48 year old health claims processor who rides his bike backwards while juggling or twirling sticks.

Lionel is a sensation.  He has quickly become a local celebrity, been approached by local businesses for sponsorship opportunities, and has been featured on the local news.

But here's the most impressive thing.  Lionel has a fan page on Facebook that, at the time this blog was written, has a whopping 6,259 fans.



Let's compare that to a few other popular Indianapolis establishments who are on Facebook:

ENTITY                                            # OF FANS

Peyton Manning                               9,346
Guy on Thompson (Lionel)             6,259
Rupert (from Survivor)                     4,835
Indiana Fever (WNBA)                      3,464
Indianapolis Star                              3,461

The most incredible part of this? . . . Lionel didn't try to make this happen.  

"I ride just because I love doing it and it's good exercise," said Lionel.

Ashlynn Bruner, a high school student, decided to create a fan page for him, and his history is still being written.

Here's the point:  organic, non-manufactured content is the most infectious; in video marketing and otherwise.  In today's online marketing, controlled messaging can have an adverse effect on your organization's goals.  Embrace authenticity, and let natural stories rule your content approach.

To find out how Cantaloupe TV can uses organic authenticity to enhance your web content, email me at bevans@cantaloupe.tv.  We do WAY more than website video firms. 

 We produce lots of web videos, and we are very proud of them.  Each week we will showcase one.  Sometimes they will be funny, feature compelling characters, showcase best practices for online video marketing, and hopefully even be entertaining.




The point of this web video is pure entertainment.  Sure, there are still some behind the scenes hopes. We hope you like and share it. We hope it gets in front of people that have never heard of us, and we hope some of those people decide to go to our website to learn more about us and maybe want to buy our services.  However, our viewers aren't going to share a video of us talking about ourselves with their friends, so we better do something people might actually want to see!

 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.

Go Beyond YouTube
You've heard us say it before - YouTube is a good distribution channel, but it is still just a distribution channel. Regardless where your marketing, branding and culture videos are published (hosted), they should be embedded on your website.

Your visitors, once they find the video through a search, will be driven to a website to view it. Why send them to YouTube or another outlet when your site's SEO could be benefitting from it's views. Traffic to your site and length of time spent on your site are factors search engines take seriously when serving up search results.

Think of YouTube as the search engine that it is. Help your viewers find you in and when they are looking there. Otherwise, help them to find your website - with all of your calls to action and valuable information - when they are using Google, Yahoo or any of the other website search engines.

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?

When you couple online video with a strong SEO strategy, you can drive results in the form of your website’s search engine ranking, generation of additional traffic, and more video views which can create more leads for your organization.  Join Cantaloupe.TV and Slingshot SEO as they share the value of online video and tips on how to implement video SEO in the upcoming webinar, "Video SEO—the hype and how video can improve SEO results". 

Webinar Details:

• Date:  Thursday, July 29, 2010
• Time:   2:00 PM EDT/11:00 PDT
• (45 minutes)

Agenda:

• What is video SEO and why is it important?
• How to drive more visitors to your web properties and convert them once they're there
• Tips and industry best practices

Sound interesting? Sign up now.

"Sales are contingent upon the attitude of the salesman not the attitude of the prospect."
~ W. Clement Stone

Today's salesman doesn't look like those of the past. Today's salesman is 2-dimensional, often electronic and is there for you 24/7. Today's salesman may very well come in the form of a website since the majority people will visit your site before your brick and mortar store or pick up the phone and talk with you.

So, what attitude will your salesman (website) present? Will he be plain and formal? Will he be the slick used-car-salesman type? Will he be sincere and genuine? How will your website/salesman convey this attitude?

Using photos, written text and web-optimized videos can work together to paint the desired picture of your company, your product and your people. Your flesh-and-blood salesman uses all of the tools at his disposal to do this and so should your website. Talk to your customers. Show them your attitude and enthusiasm. Let all of your salesmen and online marketing tools work for you.

Search engine optimization for online video (SEO) remains a hot topic in the world of online marketing. Here are a few tips & tricks to getting the most bang for your buck.

1. Make sure you use your keywords in your video's title, description and tags. The tool you use to manage your web videos should enable you to specify these pieces of information and adjust them over time.

2. Use the content of your website to support your video's SEO. Place your video on a page that makes sense to its message and tags. Let the textual content of the page reinforce the content of your video. This will make it easy for Google and the other search engines to figure out what your videos are all about and serve them up as results.

3. Target specific search phrases, not just single words. "Cupcakes with organic frosting" is better than "cupcakes" (if you're an organic bakery) or "authentic video production in Indiana" rather than "online video" (if you are Cantaloupe).

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.” 

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. 

I came across a great source of futuristist projections:   Cisco's Visual Networking Index Forecast.   Their press release, just released June 2nd, is a great summary of all of Cisco's predictions about the explosion of IP traffic in the future, and the role web video will play.

Fun forecast facts:

• IP traffic will grow over 30% per year through 2010
• The growth in traffic will continue to be dominated by video
• Online video will surpass 55% of consumer internet traffic by 2014
• The amount of video that will cross global IP networks in 2014 every second would take two years for one of us to watch!

So, still not sure about the important role of online video for your business, read more here, and check out Cisco's hightlights video too.   Want to know how to make online video work for you? Give us a call! 

And check out how Cisco is using video in their own online marketing efforts on their website home page.

To wrap up the series on common web video mistakes marketers make, I thought I'd hit on the most fundamental - failing to ask for help when you need it.

Asking for help is super scary and failing to do so may be the biggest mistake we - as professionals and as people - can make. Whether it's crafting your company's new marketing message or determining that web video is a good tool for getting that message out, you are never expected to have all of the answers. 

Producing, distributing and measuring interactive, engaging, authentic web video is what we do day in and day out. Take advantage of Cantaloupe.tv's experience and expertise to round out your team - whether its in strategy, story development, online video production best practices, or interpreting analytics of your website and online videos.

If you don't know... ask.