Benefits of Web Video Marketing

Video has a large appeal to audiences because most people want to “see” something before they will “read” something. Videos can be used to strengthen the consumer experience by educating the viewer about products or services, and by getting the corporate culture and personality of a company out there. This helps to increase awareness and build your company’s brand.

Video content

What are you going to put into your videos?

To begin with, you can create tips, “how to” items, news, or screen casts. A screen cast is where you capture your computer screen using software that shows what you are typing and where your mouse is moving around. Screen casts are great for technical presentations or for those that are “camera shy” and don’t want their face to be in the video.

Which software do you use for this type of video?

Screenflow for Macs, Camtasia Studio or Jing Project (a free version) are excellent options. You can also perform interviews through video conferencing. Tinychat.com, for example, allows you to interview multiple people on your screen. Then you can record them using Skype, Oovoo.com or Tinychat. You can record those using Screenflow, for example, and then you have a video ready to go. Be sure to get permission from people before you record them!

The recording process

The best length for social media videos is usually 60-90 seconds in length. Your viewer ship will start to drop off after 90 seconds. A minute to a minute and a half is best. If you are doing a show, like a “how to” TV show, then 8-10 minutes is best. The first 3-5 seconds need to really grab people’s attention. After three to five seconds, people can easily lose interest. We live in an attention-based society, so it’s important to keep the length of your videos short.

Tips for recording quality videos:

• Maintain eye contact with the lens and portray strong energy. There is no amount of technology that will replace in-person contact, but video is the next best thing.
• Strong calls to action in the video are crucial. Put text underneath your videos or tell your viewers what you want them to do. Always-always-always include a call to action.
• Work with an outline that has bullets instead of a script. You do not want to feel like your reading. Connect with viewers and go with the flow.
• Most cameras shoot in high definition so make sure your make up is good and your hair is fixed neatly. You want your face to look natural and your presentation to be clean.

Equipment and editing

Viewers will forgive bad visuals before they will forgive bad audio so always use a good microphone. Lighting is important and natural lighting is best, so don’t be in direct sunlight but rather take advantage of natural light. A good set location, for example, is standing next to a window.

Cameras that shoot high-definition but don’t cost an arm and a leg include:

• Flip Camera
• Kodak ZI8 is a good choice because it has an external mic jack.
• Cannon Power Shot is excellent because it has a view finder that flips right around so you can record yourself. Don’t be shy. Start recording and, in time, you will lose your stage fright.

Edit your recordings with iMovie. It comes with your Mac. If you are a PC user, use Windows Movie Maker to edit your recordings.

Distribution of your videos for maximum exposure

Distribution of your videos is one of the most important steps of video marketing. If you create excellent videos, but no one sees them, then your company will not benefit from the video. We have included the top ten tips for video integration into social media. These are great tips for maximum exposure of your videos into your social media platforms.

Top ten tips for video integration into social media:

1. YouTube channels are a necessity and it is a good idea to customize the skin of your channel. Embed your videos into your blog or web site. Be sure to put your URL and keywords in the video description. YouTube is owned by Google so keywords in the video’s description will help your SEO efforts.
2. Connect Twitter to your YouTube channel by logging into your YouTube account and clicking your username, “settings”, then on the left of the screen, click “sharing”. You can connect Facebook and Twitter accounts into your YouTube channel to further market your videos and increase distribution. From within your YouTube “sharing” screen, you will have choices of activities. Good settings within your “sharing” options are “like” and/ or “favorite”. If you “like” a video, it will automatically post onto your Twitter account that you liked that video and also onto your Facebook profile with the player so people can easily watch the video and hopefully they will like, comment or share your video.
3. To get videos onto your Facebook fan page, take the URL of the YouTube video and put that onto your Facebook wall.
4. Re-post video content after a few days or so after adding them to your YouTube channel. This is a good way to re-use content with the same videos. Load your videos onto the Facebook app “default Facebook video app” so your friends can like, comment and spread your videos virally. Your fans can help you to spread your valuable video content inside Facebook virally.
5. Use the “embed code” that you can get from YouTube while viewing the video and place it into an external site or blog.
6. In addition to YouTube, you can get maximum exposure for your videos by posting them on Blip.tv, Viddler, and Yahoo video.
7. To broadcast out your video to multiple platforms, try Tubemogul. It is an efficient way to post video content to different platforms simultaneously.
8. Yubby and Blinks.com allow you to create multiple video widgets so you can display multiple videos on the same page. It can look busy, but definitely gets bang-for-the-buck on one page.
9. Email opt-in boxes on your Facebook fan page are a good idea. Tabsite.com is a good way to build a permission based marketing list and then you can send messages to that list. Be sure to include a sentence that says something to the effect like “come on over to my fan page and write on my wall”. It brings your email list to life and lets people feel more connected to you.
10. Go back to your videos and click the “like” button and it will automatically Tweet and Facebook your videos!

By creating professional looking and sounding videos, then distributing them among social media sites, your marketing efforts are magnified and you broaden your reach. Build your brand; reach more contacts with video marketing.