Tag : online video

The New Age of Silent Films is On Facebook

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29May

Have you ever watched a video on Facebook? Chances are you have. Did you watch it with your sound turned on? According to a Digiday article, chances are you haven’t. The article states that an overwhelming 85% of Facebook videos are watched on mute. It seems a little odd to watch videos, meant to be listened to, without the volume cranked up. However, Facebook users, and apparently a lot of them, make it work.

This seems particularly helpful for those checking their Facebook timeline at work or places where sound would be inappropriate. Sometimes you just have to get a few cat videos or recipe “how to’s” in while at the water cooler. Yet how can they get any enjoyment out of it? Digiday explains that through subtitles and a strong lean towards the visual as opposed to audio, filmmakers are starting to work around this challenge. We’re seeing big bold captions on the top or bottom of videos lately. Some will add text commentary as well. These videos need to hold a viewer’s attention for a minimum of three seconds for it to count as a view, so they better have something stimulating on the screen right away. This is even more true with Facebook’s app and how all the videos on one’s newsfeed comes right after the other like a television channel. This means that there are lots of things to skip, which makes it as important than ever to be eye catching. Since viewers are watching and not listening, marketers and businesses need to take this into consideration. Yet you don’t need to be Spielberg to succeed. Making videos accessible to those who won’t or can’t have their speakers cranked up is a simple step in sending out your videos.

For more info, check out Digiday’s article here: http://ow.ly/xfx7300pGPF

How do you think videos fare when they’re on mute? Let us know your thoughts on this subject!

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Pinterest Gets Serious

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26May

Let’s face it. When you think about the business side of social media, Pinterest isn’t really your first thought. Now, if you’re looking for an awesome recipe or cake topper, this is your site. However, it really can help expand your brand if implemented correctly. With its new update, the social media platform will be able to help businesses even more so.

Entrepreneur.com looks into this new social media news. Pinterest is now offering video advertisement for business users. While this may irk the average user, it will definitely help marketing efforts. With smartphone screens getting wider and larger, video is becoming more popular on all social media fronts. Snapchat’s incarnation and success is proof of this with Periscope and Facebook Live quickly following. This will open up new avenues for Pinterest’s versatility.

We’ve seen the potential Pinterest has on multiple fronts, and social media marketers should appreciate its reachability. We joke around saying it is more for arts and crafts than actual marketing, but the website can be really useful. We like just how”list centric” Pinterest is.  Your content and products will be categorized by your customers. This allows its users the opportunity to search for things that pertain to their interests in a constantly growing stream of content.

No surprise, Millennials have flocked to Pinterest, It assists them in event planning, brainstorming, and overall connectivity to a larger world. Pinterest allows businesses and users alike to create boards of images that open up the floor to product showcasing. Like Instagram, Pinterest focuses on imagery. It can create a sort of “catalog” format so you can see multiple images at one time. This social media platform is a little more strict with how businesses use their allotted space. It can be beneficial to read their branding guidelines. Pinterest can stand tall as a social media platform along side Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Ready to start pinning?

For more information, check out Entrepreneur.com’s article here: http://ow.ly/XY0W300puPO

What are your thoughts on Pinterest’s video ad move? Let us know!

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You Can Do It! The Simple Steps to Creating Your First Online Video

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2Feb

On a weekly basis, I sit down and consult with businesses who need help creating effective marketing strategies.  I relish these face-to-face meetings as they focus on two of my most favorite topics: marketing and strategy.  Something that I have noticed lately is the companies that I encounter have a growing interested in video, which excites me.  Online influencers, including myself, have always touted the power of video in promoting your brand online.  Your target market engages more with visuals than the written word, so it is an important aspect of the online marketing mix.

The scary part of this ride is not knowing how exactly to create the video without hiring a specialist.  If you are fortunate enough to be a business with a large marketing budget, then I suggest hiring a professional.  This will save you time, a very expensive asset in your day-to-day live.

But, not many companies have an endless marketing budget that provides enough capital to produce a professional video.  So the answer is the create the video in-house, with your own team putting all the pieces together.  But how will busy marketers find the time to create a cutting-edge promotional video?

The answer is to take it step-by-step, not all at once.  Creating a video is a fluid process that you can take at your own speed.  To help you do this, I want to share my own step-by-step process on how you can complete your first video!

Let’s get started:

  1. Invest in an inexpensive video camera that can controlled by remote control.  Go Pro’s are great (albeit a little pricey) and have lots of easy applications and settings.  But just a thought.
  2. Print a blog that you have written, or some marketing collateral with a good chunk of copy in it. Setup your camera and record yourself reading the copy directly to camera.  Then review the video and check the following aspects:
    Lighting: is it too dark, too light, too grainy?
    Setting: is it appropriate, too busy as a background, too cavernous?
    Sound: can you understand what you are saying, is there a lot of ambient noise?
    Frame: do you like how the camera is situated in the shot, are you cutting off anything important, or leaving in too much?
  3. Once you have done this, do a few more practice runs, making adjustments to the A-D elements above.
  4. Now you should be at a point where you can create a script/outline for your video.  The first video that you create should be an ABOUT video explaining your business.
  5. Once you create the script, read it aloud and ensure that it does not clock longer than 3 minutes.  Remember your audience is exposed to LOTS of information and visuals, so keep it concise and engaging.
  6. Decide who will be featured in the video.  Usually go with a highly visible and credible person in your organization (which sometimes is not the CEO).
  7. Use the guidelines that you created in #3 and do a few dry runs taping the person.
  8. Review these and make any further adjustments.
  9. Do the final taping.

Now that you have the raw video, you can use a program such as iMovie (which is an Apple program) or a Windows Movie Maker (for PCs) to format the video.  The main formatting items that I would suggest that you add to your promotional video are:

*Titles at the beginning: possibly company logo and slogan
*Titles at the bottom to introduce the speaker (or speakers)
*Call to action at the end with contact numbers and logo again

What is great about the video editing programs is that you can learn them easily (believe it or not) and you can create a wonderful video in no time.  Also, to make you feel a little less overwhelmed, there are templates in these programs that you can apply to your video, thus enabling you to brand and edit it much easier.

My top tip here?  Relax!  This is your first trial, so it is going to take the most time.  Once you nail the format, just imagine how easy it will be to create ones in the future.  Generally  I find that once I teach someone how to do this process, the first one takes a bit of time, but the second video takes about 60% less time.

Now get out there and try it!  I would love to see what you come up with!  Please email a link to me directly at christopher@http://citsprojects.in/clientprojects/thegoagencyusa

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