|
Video How-To and Video Marketing Basics
September 29, 2008 · Print This Article · Comments
[Note: This post is part of the Marketing Masters Guide Blog, which is joining the WSD blog.]
Video marketing, or viral marketing as it’s called, can be a tremendous tool for entrepreneurs and small businesses alike. The potential of video hits across all spheres online and even has a place in offline marketing activities. It’s truly powerful… but only if you “hit the mark.” Video can also have it’s downfall. Especially when the campaign is not targeted to a specific business objective and created for the specific target market it is intended for.
Video Potential
Video, much like other components in Web 2.0, have a long list of potential benefits that can not be ignored by anyone seeking to be truly successful online. The way we see it, video:
- Branding: Video, if done right for your company and your market, can be a very powerful tool in branding a product, service, and company. Personality branding, image branding, and story-like branding can be incredible tools that help the social side of your marketing efforts.
- Traffic: Mutlimedia, as far as user behavior is concerned, goes a lot farther in generating huge amounts of traffic than most other forms of content. Why, because it tends to be viral and it presents a message in a dynamic way. Social media has made it even easier to generate short-term AND long-term traffic benefits from your videos/multimedia marketing.
- Viral Potential: As mentioned above, there is serious viral potential. But, don’t think it’s as easy as you think. Simply uploading a home-made video to YouTube isn’t going to cut it.
- SEO Benefits: If optimized and distributed right, video gets really good rankings in search engines. And, in the act of certain areas in video marketing, you’re likely building great linkbacks to your site which also help your long-term SEO efforts.
- Cost: Video, for it to be really successful, does not have to cost an arm and a leg. It can, for sure. However, serious viral winners have been won off shoe-string budgets and million dollar wallets alike. It’s not about the quality, all the time, it’s more about the message and the fickle audience you present it to. In either case, it can be relatively inexpensive.
Small Business Branding blog points out, there are a ton of uses for video in business — viral campaigns online, on website, within a Vlog (video blog), testimonials, product demonstrations, hiring and employees relations, and that’s just the beginning.
Our Fave Online Video Resources
Free Video How-To Online
How to Make YouTube Videos Look Great
Tips For Shooting Better Online Video
5 Tips for Creating High Impact Online Video Ads
Tips for Creating Online Video Ads
Pull in Viewers with Online Video
Top Ten Tips to Improve Your Online Video
8 Tips to Make Your YouTube Video Go Viral
Useful Video Software
The Marketing Masters, as well as my Web Success Diva team, both use Jack Humphrey’s Video Utility Poster. It takes the act of posting video resources to your blog and cuts the time in half. You can easily find and embed video resources into your blog posts. And it’s affordable.
Camtasia Studio is one of the best (PC based) video tools you can find online. Screen capture, video conversion, video editing, and much more. And, it’s super affordable.
Live/Streaming Video Sites
StickCam live video community with live streaming and recorded plays.
Operator11 live, social television network. A bit different from your typical live video community - with some snazzy features.
UStream live streaming community that also allows you to embed video on other sites.
BlogTV is similar to UStream with live, recorded, and chat capabilities.
LiveVideo a cross between a YouTube and UStream, gathering live and uploaded videos.
Justin.TV is another UStream. Smaller userbase and seems to have less glitches.
Video Sharing Sites
Each of these has its own benefits, features, and user reach. This list is just a start, video sharing sites are popping up all over the Net.
YouTube Google Video Blip.TV Tube Battle VideoSift Break
Crackle MediaBum GodTube Kewego
Travellistic BroadBand Sports Helpful Video
Revver Yahoo Video Vimeo BrightCove ClipShack 5Min
UnCut Video MetaCafe DailyMotion Viddler Sclipo
HowCast StupidVideos Imeem Grasper Flickr
TubeMogul.Com Let’s you share your videos to the top video sharing sites on the Net. A nifty tool to submit to multiple sites… and it’s free.
Online Video Editors
EyeSpot Add effects, transitions, etc to videos you upload.
JumpCut Upload, edit and share video.
One True Media Mix videos, pictures, and music - then share.
MovieMasher Online video editor.
JayCut Online video editor with unlimited storage.
Video Egg Video editing online with social networking capabilities.
Mojiti Allows you to annotate and edit videos shared on other sites, mix them up, and re-share them.
StashSpace Upload, edit, and store your videos for sharing on other sites.
Graffiti Vidavee Allows you to add graphics and text to any video.
Online Video Converters
Media Converter Convert your media files from your hard disk, by url/stream (http,ftp,mms,rtsp) or directly from Blip.tv, Break.com, Dailymotion, LiveVideo, MetaCafe, etc.
Vixy.Net Online Free FLV Converter. It can convert YouTube videos to Popular Video formats like AVI, DivX, MOV, MPEG4, 3GP,MP4, MP3, iPod Video and PSP Video.
ZamZar Free Online file conversion service. It can convert your online videos to a number of video formats.
Flvix.Com FLVix can Convert videos from YouTube, Google Video or directly from .FLV file. Supported formats are AVI, MOV, 3GP, MP3, Etc.
All2Convert Can convert videos from Youtube. You can also upload FLV files from PC.
Convert Tube Another Instant Online Video Converter.
VConvert Vconvert can Convert online flv and youtube videos to compatible formats for your iPod/iPhone
Movavi Online video converter, no software to install.
Video Blogging (VLogging) Platforms
BlogCheese Video Blogging System
Revision3 Video blogging networking site.
QuarterLife Video blogging site to meet other Vloggers and connect.
PubClip Share, store, and post video blog, audio, and more.
Blip.TV Known as a video sharing site, they’ve tapped into the VLog revolution.
Jabbits Social networking and video blogging combined.
Video Search Sites
Blinkx.com Truveo.Com Pixsy.Com PureVideo.Com AltaVistaVideo
ClipRoller.Com TubeSurf.Com ClipBlast.Com Dabble.Com
EveryZing.Com VidSea.Com MeFeedia.Com
What Others are Saying about Video
The Secret Strategies Behind Many “Viral” Videos
Dan Greenberg, on Tech Crunch, has a great list of tips that can be useful in understanding the whole thing behind viral video marketing.
Revenue Giant gives a good overview of video and viral marketing for advertising and online marketing.
Small Business Guide to Web Based Video Marketing
Click Smart Marketing provides a great tips list for small businesses (but really applies to all) on web-based video marketing.
Internet Video Production and Marketing Tips
Jim Kukral has a great video and PDF available with some really good tips.
The Case for Video Search Engine Optimization
ReelSEO, an excellent blog all about video, presents the case for and some tips on seo’ing your videos the right way. Video is a great tool to leverae search engine traffic.
Using YouTube as a Giant Focus Group
MediaMojita shares some finds across the net related to using YouTube’s insightful information to help you in your video and viral marketing.
Photo Credit: Racum on Flickr
Related Diva Posts:
Check Out the Conversation on FriendFeed 
..." 
Excellent Post with lots of resources. Some I know about and many others that I didn’t.
I’m a video newbie and one of my challenges is to improve the video quality to my YouTube videos.
Running on my computer the video quality is high. When up loaded to YouTube it is much lower quality.
My videos are only 2 - 4 minutes in length. I have seen other peoples videos on YouTube that have reasonably good quality.
Any suggestions???
Happily Retired in Ajijic, Mexico,
Joel Smith
Casa Preciosa, Ajijic, Mexico
http://www.CasaPreciosaAjijic.com
[Reply]