Video Marketing Isn’t Just About Selling

February 6, 2012 By 1 Comment

Don’t get me wrong: video is a great way to show off the things your business sells. There is no better way to sell a cheeseburger than to show a happy customer biting into it. A client talking about how great of a job you did installing that new water heater is going to do more than any print ad.

But it won’t take long for sales fatigue to set in. You know the feeling. A commercial break that just won’t seem to end during your favorite show or that endless stream of tweets begging you to sign up for a service.

It’s easy to fall into the same trap when producing videos.

An endless library of videos that highlight your products and services is only effective up to a certain point. Chances are that your company has so much more to offer!

In this post, I’ve identified three superb video marketing campaigns that create value for the viewer rather than attempt to convince them to buy their products of services.

Show Off Your Expertise

If you’re a professional or B2B services company, video is a great way to give your expertise away for free. No, really. You should. I don’t mean everything, but just enough to prove that you know what you’re talking about and to entice people to want more.

SEOMoz, an SEO SaaS firm based out of Seattle, releases videos exclusively on their Google+ page. In these Whiteboard+ videos, their CEO Rand Fishkin often gives away a lot of free tips and tricks for businesses and organizations who want to improve their search engine rankings and social influence. Not only are they creating value at absolutely no cost, SEOMoz is focusing on one network as a delivery method, which alludes to a deeper and thought-out video marketing strategy.

Celebrate Your Philanthropy

In the insurance industry, it can be difficult to make exciting videos that highlight your services. HCC Medical Insurance Services does a great job of producing videos that highlight the brand and mission of their company. In the video below, HCC takes us on a tour of Gleaners Food Bank, a non-profit that their employees actively support:

In addition to building brand equity by showing off their philanthropy, their travel tips and stories have a ton of entertainment and informational value. HCC has a nice, well-rounded library of content.

Full Disclosure: HCC Medical Insurance Services is a client of 12 Stars Media, and the above video was produced by our Full Service Production Team.

Advocate For Your Community

For weeks I have been trying to work Pivot Marketing‘s excellent YouTube Channel into my posts. Pivot is a local Indianapolis ad agency based in Fountain Square, an emerging arts and cultural district just south of downtown. Navigate to any marketing firm’s YouTube Channel and you’ll most likely find demo reels and other examples of their work – not that there’s anything wrong with that – but Pivot has taken a different approach. Their channel is dominated by the “Meet Our Neighbors” video series, which highlights other small businesses in and around Fountain Square. In my mind, Pivot is doing two things here: 1) showing off their marketing expertise by producing (for free, I assume) short, fun and informative videos and 2) being a good community ambassador.

A good rule of thumb that I continally see espoused for social media posts is the “Rule of Thirds:”

  1. Sales post
  2. Industry post
  3. Personal post

This means that for every post you make about your products of services, you make two others that have to do with industry news, community updates or personal thoughts.

Businesses and organizations can employ this structure to video posts as well.

For example, for every video a restaurant makes about a menu item, they should make two videos that have nothing to do with anything they sell. Has there been a change in the restaurant industry or FDA guidelines that customers should know about? Is there anything interesting going on in the neighborhood where your restaurant resides? Have your employees participated in non-profit advocacy on behalf of your company?

Remember that a good mix of content is crucial to an effective video marketing strategy. Give your customers something of value instead of just selling all the time.

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3 Video Lessons from the Super Bowl

January 29, 2012 By Leave a Comment

We’re less than a week from the big game. Indianapolis is buzzing. My beloved New England Patriots are in town and I’m breaking out my finest pair of Uggs throwback jersey for Media Day.

One of the most interesting phenomenon surrounding the big game is how media is being produced, disseminated and consumed. Based on my observations, here are three takeaways that any marketer should consider when using online video to promote their business.

Act Fast

There are times when taking your time in producing a video is appropriate. You can bet that when Indianapolis was first bidding to host the Super Bowl, the video collateral in their presentation took weeks to produce.

Now that we’re a week out, the Super Bowl festivities absolutely dominate local media coverage and conversation on social media. You can best capitalize on a conversation when its happening.

I like what the Indianapolis Convention & Visitors Association has done to quickly produce and share videos surrounding Super Bowl events. Check out this video from the NFL Experience downtown:

They got their crew in on the first day, made a killer video and put it out for the world to see. Now they have a full week to promote the event while its still top of mind.

If your business is throwing a big event or promotion, get the word out early. Don’t wait until three weeks after your employee food drive or celebrity guest visit to put a video out. And if you’re participating in the Super Bowl in some way, do not wait another day to let us know!

Encourage and Promote Shared Content

Hop on YouTube and do a quick search for “Indianapolis Super Bowl.” You’ll find a myriad of videos from folks enjoying the zipline, Super Bowl Village, NFL Experience, and even some videos from business preparing for the big game. Now, chances are your brand won’t have nearly the amount of user-generated content around it. However, it’s always a good idea to be on the lookout for videos that customers might make when they visit your coffee shop or food truck. Not only should you share this content on your channels, but you should encourage its creation as well! Customers are always your best advocates.

Avoid Being a Flash in the Pan

Certain events and topics lend themselves easier to video than others, but don’t fall into the trap of producing only the easy content. Too often I see YouTube Channels that haven’t had any new content added to them in months. Just because you’ve produced a lot of video around one topic or event doesn’t give you license to go long stretches of time without producing anything. Try to create a backlog of videos, or at least ideas for videos, that you can release on an ongoing basis. While I’m sure Indy will host another Super Bowl, it may not be for a few years. You can bet that the ICVA will find other things to make videos about!

Now turn off your computer and get down to the Super Bowl Village. There’s only one week left to enjoy the festivities. If you’re struggling with video ideas this week, record your boss riding on the zipline. I guarantee it will get some views and shares.

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Super Video Ideas for the Big Game

January 23, 2012 By 1 Comment

In less than two weeks, my beloved New England Patriots will face the San Francisco 49ers New York Giants in Super Bowl XLVI at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. The city has spent years preparing Indianapolis for the big game, and many local businesses will reap the economic benefits. This event is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to capture video content surrounding all of the festivities. Here are a few ideas:

Welcome Message

Thousands of football fans will descend on Indianapolis from out-of-town, many of them visiting our city for the first time. Why not record a quick video, welcoming them to Indy and explaining a little bit about what your restaurant or shop has to offer?

Special Offers

Is there a dish that visitors absolutely must try, or a something new that you’re unveiling specifically for the Super Bowl? Let visitors know that they can’t leave Indianapolis without paying you a visit. Don’t forget about your local regulars either! If you’re offering a special during Super Bowl week, video is a great way to let people know about it.

Logistics

Even if you aren’t downtown, parking and traffic may still be an issue for prospective customers. Visitors to Indianapolis will not only need to know where you are, but where you are relative to downtown hotels and venues. Candidio can even edit in Google Maps directions and parking locations.

B2B and Service Companies

If you don’t offer a product or service directly to the consumer, especially the average NFL reveller, why not let us know how you and your employees are preparing for the big game coming to Indianapolis? Are any of your employees heading down to Super Bowl village? Lend them a camera for the day. Has your block undergone any changes, or is your building prepping for a party or event? Show us. Not every video has to be centered around trying to sell!

Twitter and YouTube Tags

If you post your videos to twitter, be sure to include #SuperBowl, #SB46 and #Indy. Use #Social46 to let the Social 46 team know what you’re up to. When you upload to YouTube, be sure to include “Super Bowl” “Indianapolis” etc in the video title and keyword tags.

Record Everything

Be sure to keep your video camera handy over the next two weeks. You never know what players or celebrities may come through your door. Even if you don’t attract any famous clientele, you can still produce a nice recap of the footage you collected over the two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl.

You can bet that the general public will be consuming media surrounding the Super Bowl at an enormous rate over the next two weeks. Don’t let this opportunity pass you by!

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Did You Know? The YouTube Nonprofit Program

January 15, 2012 By 2 Comments

Did you know that YouTube has a nonprofit program that offers Channel and video enhancements, for free, to any qualifying nonprofit? It’s true, and it’s a no-brainer for any charity organization who is using video to tell their story.

You can apply for the YouTube Nonprofit Program at http://www.youtube.com/nonprofits. It’s simple and easy to apply (almost all non-political/religious/commercial organizations qualify) and the applications are typically approved within 24 hours (the upgrades come a bit later).

What You Get:

  • A large banner for the top of your Channel
  • Upload videos of any length
  • “Donate Now” button on your Channel and individual videos
  • Listing on the Nonprofit channels and the Nonprofit videos pages

The banner at the top of your Channel can be assigned any click-through URL:

Channel Enhancements

Not only is a “Donate Now” button available for your Channel, but you can enable it on any individual video:

Donate Now Button

This enhancement makes it easy to appeal to potential donors, and lets them give quickly and securely.

Qualifying participants will also have their upload limited lifted. This means that you can upload videos of any length, whereas basic users are limited to videos of 15 minutes in length. Maybe your organization puts on seminars or workshops – you can now post them in their entirety!

The International Rescue Committee’s Channel is a great example of the Nonprofit Program in action. Locally, the Indianapolis Humane Society has enrolled in the program as well.

If you manage the YouTube Channel for a nonprofit, there is absolutely no reason not to apply! Show us your upgraded Channel below once you’ve been approved.

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Video Integration on LinkedIn Company Pages

January 9, 2012 By 5 Comments

In terms of social networking websites, LinkedIn probably doesn’t come to mind immediately when you think about sharing videos. We spend a lot of time talking about YouTube, and sharing your videos on other social networks like Facebook and Twitter. You might be surprised to learn that LinkedIn not only allows for video integration on company pages, but also boasts one of the best interfaces to do so.

Companies can create a profile page on LinkedIn similar to the ones on Facebook. Users can “follow” your page, which allows them to see status updates, new hires and promotions from your company right on their main news feed. In addition to basic company info, a LinkedIn business profile page has a “Services” tab, where you can highlight specific products and services that your business offers:

"Services" Tab

On the Products and Services page, you can create a dynamic photo slider and list individual service offerings. The slider clicks through to an offsite URL of your choosing, while the individual products/services below the slider click through to a deeper page on your LinkedIn company profile:

Products and Services

Opportunities for Video

You can embed a video on the lower-righthand corner of the homepage for the Services tab. Click “Admin Tools” and then “Edit” to be taken to a simple form:

Add Video

All you have to do is title your video and past the direct YouTube link in the bottom field. Easy!

Speaking Engagements

You can also add a video to each individual product or service page. This is a great opportunity to highlight your individual offerings through video. For example, on the 12 Stars Media company page, we created “Speaking Engagements” as a service offering. Here, we’ve included a video that specifically highlights Rocky’s experience as a professional speaker.

With regards to the photo slider, this is an opportunity to highlight aspects of your company that aren’t necessarily products or services. For example, you could create an image showing your employee team, and direct the URL to a video on YouTube where you interview your employees. You could also direct folks to a specific page on your website or blog where you’ve embedded a video.

While not always top-of-mind, LinkedIn is still one of the most popular social networking sites out there. If you’re in a business services industry (IT, financial, legal, etc.) you definitely shouldn’t ignore it. Video can go a long way in making plain, text-based LinkedIn services pages more dynamic and engaging. Consider making “LinkedIn Only” versions of videos so that only appear on LinkedIn so that you can measure how effective they are. One approach would be to interview a salesperson or account rep associated with that particular product or service, or post a customer testimonial.

If you see any examples of good video integration on LinkedIn company pages, post them in our comments section below!

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A Deeper Look at the New YouTube Analytics (Part 3)

December 26, 2011 By 1 Comment

This week we’re wrapping up our coverage of the new features of YouTube Analytics.

Show Video Statistics

It’s the little button that looks like a bar graph:

Show Video Statistics

Clicking the button will extend a drop-down with some very lovely charts and graphs:

Show Video Statistics

These statistics show a high-level, at-a-glance view of the deeper analytics that you can access via youtube.com/analytics.

The statistics here range from the upload date to the day that you view them. You can see viewership growth over time, significant discovery events such as “First view from a mobile device” or “First referral from Twitter” and social interactions such as likes and comments. You can also get a quick look at audience in terms of gender, age and geography.

So how is this useful? Data enthusiasts probably won’t be bowled over by this feature. After all, it doesn’t being to drill down into detail as the YouTube Analytics tool does. However, it can be useful in the following ways:

  1. Competitive Analysis: You can view this data for any video on YouTube, not just your own. Think of the insights into your competitors strategy that you can glean. What sites are their viewers discovering the videos through? What are their demographics?
  2. Simple Reporting: If you work in a marketing department and frequently need to prove the ROI if your efforts, this report makes for an easy one-sheet that you can print and hand off to your supervisor or company owner, without bogging them down with a complicated and in-depth report.
Whether you use the more robust YouTube Analytics or the on-page analytics, it’s a good idea to check your reports often, particularly in the hours and days after first posting your video. Compare traffic across videos: what time of day did you get the best response? Through what networks are your viewers discovering your videos? Once you have a few months and several videos to compare and contract, you’ll be able to gauge how and when to post your videos to get the greatest response. A little diligence will go a long way in improving the effectiveness of your videos.
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A Deeper Look at the New YouTube Analytics (Part 2)

December 19, 2011 By 1 Comment

Last week we took a look at the update to YouTube that included a new and powerful analytics tool. YouTube Analytics, which draws greatly upon the interface and features of Google Analytics, gives you unprecedented insights into when, where and how viewers see your videos.

YouTube Analytics is broken into two main reporting segments: Views reports and Engagement reports. In this post, we’re going to focus on Engagement reports.

While Views reports measures how your videos are found and viewed, you could say that Engagement reports measures what happens afterward. Perhaps “Interaction” or “Social” reports would be an apt way to describe them.

Like Views reports, Engagement reports are broken up into several segments:

  • Subscribers
  • Likes and dislikes
  • Favorites
  • Comments
  • Sharing
Simply put, all five of these metrics show how you have gained or lost those interactions over time via simple line graphs.
However, there are a few added features that give these metrics added value.:
  1. You can track interaction across your content. In other words, you can now see what videos are causing viewers to subscribe to your YouTube Channel. Prior to this, there was no sure way to tell which one of your videos caused a viewer to think “Well, I liked that one. I’ll subscribe to hopefully see more like it!” Now, you can.
  2. You can track the network that videos are shared through. Not only can you see when your videos were shared within YouTube, but also external sites viewers such as Facebook, Twitter and tumblr).
  3. You can see reverse-interactions like Unlikes and Unfavorites. What would cause someone to unliked a video they liked previously? I’m not sure, but you’ll be able to tell if it happens.

These changes are significant because you can now track interaction to your Channel, not just an individual video. For example, if a video was shared through twitter, and a new video viewed it via direct link, you can now know how, when and why that viewer decided to subscribe to your Channel. That’s pretty powerful. Combine that with the ability to track which videos have more virality (Sharing), you can begin to custom-tailor future content to try to replicate this activity.

Next week we’ll cover the added ability to view at-a-glance analytics on individual video pages.

As always, check out Google’s excellent Help Article for more info about YouTube Analytics.

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A Deeper Look at the New YouTube Analytics (Part 1)

December 11, 2011 By 2 Comments

Last week we gave a brief overview of the major update to YouTube that included a revamped interface and a new YouTube Analytics tool that replaces Insights.

Because the update to YouTube Analytics is so significant, we wanted to break down all the new features and explain how you can use them to improve your video marketing strategy.

When you first visit youtube.com/analytics, you’ll be presented with a summary report where you can see high-level data for the video content on your Channel.

A column on the lefthand side will give you access to deeper data sets. The column is broken into two parts: Views reports and Engagement reports. In this post, we’re going to focus on Views reports.

Views reports are broken up into several segments: Views, Demographics, Playback Locations, Traffic Sources and Audience Retention. Clicking one segment will give you an overview summary of that segment, simliar to the summary on the Analytics homepage.

Once you’ve selected a segment, click in the “search for content” box to see a drop-down of all of your videos. You can see individual data sets for each video here.

Search for content

Demographics

The Demographics metric lets you know who is watching your video. Knowing who your audience is is very important when thinking about future video productions.

You can adjust data by gender, age and geographic location.

Practical Use: If you knew your primary audience was in the 25-34 age demographic, what can you do in future videos to appeal to those viewers? Comparing two or more videos: what content is drawing the attention of that demographic versus another?

Playback Locations and Traffic Sources

Formerly known as “Discovery” in Insights, both of these metrics essentially define how viewers are finding and viewing your video.

Playback Locations reveals the page, site, or device the video was viewed on. If you’re embedding your video on your website or blogpost, use Playback Locations to discover how many views that embed is drawing vs. views on YouTube.com. You can also see how many mobile device views you’re getting.

Practical Use: Are your embedded videos underperforming? Maybe you can adjust their location on webpages or blog posts. Is someone embedding your video without your knowledge?

In Traffic Sources, you can discover how viewers find your video on YouTube.com itself, whether through the search bar, suggested videos or links from outside websites or social network.

Practical Use: Are more people finding your video through search or by direct link? Does twitter create a lot of views for you? How can you adjust your video titles, descriptions or keywords to draw more search traffic?

Traffic Sources

Audience Retention

Formerly known as “Hot Spots” in Insights, Audience Retention metrics are extremely useful in measuring the value of your content.

Audience Retention is broken into two additional segments: Absolute audience retention shows the views of every moment of the video as a percentage of the number of views of the beginning of the video, while Relative audience retention shows your video’s ability to retain viewers during playback relative to all YouTube videos of similar length.

Audience Retention

By interpreting the graphs on this metric, you can see at what points of your video do people stop or start watching. If you see a peak in the middle of the graph, you could infer that viewers are skipping right to that section of the video. Likewise, if you see a dramatic drop-off in viewership, you may consider not including the element that appears at that time in your next video. Finally, If you see a gradual decline in viewership across the video, you could infer that the video goes on for too long and viewers got bored.

Practical Use: Is there an on-camera personality that draws more attention than others? Should you consider producing shorter or longer videos in the future? Are viewers rewinding and re-watching a particular moment? If so, why?

By interpreting the many robust metrics that YouTube Analytics offers, you can beging thinking about your content from the eyes of the your viewers rather than as the producer. If you’re producing videos regularly (and you should be), frequent or even daily monitoring of analytics is crucial to creating the most engaging content possible.

Next week we’ll cover the Engagement reports segment, which measure activity on YouTube.com from other users interacting with your video content.

For further information, check out the excellent Help Article that Google has posted on all the tools offered in YouTube Analytics.

 

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Congrats to the Candi Winners!

December 10, 2011 By 1 Comment

We just wanted to congratulate the winners from our first ever Candi Award Ceremony!

The winners of the 2011 Candi Awards are as followed…

 

Introduce people

FlexPac for their candidio We Are FlexPac

 

Best Testimonial 

SpinWeb for their candidio Theta Chi SpinWeb Testimonial 

 

Best Event Promotion

DoItIndy for their candidio Vol. 50 October 25-31

 

Behind the scenes

TKO Graphix for their candidio Five Star Dance Studio Party Bus

 

Best Promote Products and Services

The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis for their candidio MAP (Museum Apprentice Program)

 

Best Tips and Tutorials

IDS Logistics for their candidio Preparing Your Fulfillment Center for the Holiday Rush

 

Most Clever

Unique Home Solutions for their candidio 2011 Labor Day Winners

 

Most Fun

The Tie Dye Grill for their candidio Chris Lytle’s “Lights out” Burger

 

“We Got That BRoll”

The Indianapolis Indians for their candidio Your Group Outing is a Picnic at Victory Field

 

Thanks to all the winners and the nominees for participating! We’re looking forward to nominating more videos for the Candis in 2012!

 

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YouTube Update – What You Need to Know

December 4, 2011 By 2 Comments

In July we covered YouTube’s “Cosmic Panda” - a potential redesign of their interface. On Thursday, YouTube made most of Cosmic Panda’s functionality permanent. While YouTube considers this update to be just “a refresh,” the average user will find their Channel to be nearly unrecognizable.

Upon logging in and viewing “My Channel,” YouTube will prompt you to switch to the new look. Before you do so, you should understand what this means for how your Channel will look and operate.

Channel Layout Themes

You new Channel will be comprised of three main tabs: Featured, Feed and Videos. The “Edit Channel” button will allow you to choose which tab the viewer sees when they first arrive on your Channel.

The Featured Tab has four potential templates that you can choose from: Creator, Blogger, Network and Everything.

Featured Tab

Each gives your Featured Tab a different look and feel. Take a look at all four before deciding on one. I prefer the Blogger theme because it gives a reverse-chronological stream of your recent uploads, as well as a large “featured” video of your choosing, similar to the previous YouTube Channel design. If you want more control over what videos specifically show up on your Featured Tab, rather than just your recent uploads, try the Creator theme.

The “Feed” tab gives users a glance at your latest activity, including what you’ve uploaded, liked, commented on or subscribed to. The “Videos” tab shows thumbnails of all of your publicly uploaded videos.

Channel Design

You no longer have the ability to customize any aesthetic aspect of your channel except the background image. This means that all Channels will share the same shades of grey. Because you have lost the ability to change the opacity of certain border elements, your ability to manipulate your background image into the Channel layout itself is almost limited. So, if your old background image include drawn borders or other elements that otherwise accentuated the previous modules, we recommend you edit it (simplify, in most cases) immediately.

You can see that the new 12 Stars Media Channel has a simplified background with the logo hugging the side of the video player.

Playlists have been expanded to include multiple thumbnails, rather than just one. Users can also set “Featured Channels,” a social element that seems to have replaced “Friends.”

Insights (Analytics)

The update to Insights is perhaps the most significant and useful. Some users may have noticed that this was rolled out a few days before the main YouTube update.

Visit https://www.youtube.com/analytics to view your dashboard, which bears a striking resemblance to Google Analytics. Insights is broken into two categories: Views and Engagement.

Views is relatively unchanged, with the exception of “Audience Retention.” This strong metric shows when viewers begin to lose interest in your video and stop watching. This can be particularly useful in analyzing what content should be repeated in future videos, what should be discarded.

You can see from the graph below that this video probably went on a little too long:

Audience Retention

Engagement Reports covers the social aspects of your Channel: who subscribed to your Channel and when, as well as who liked, commented or favorited on your videos. This data set can be useful in determining when to upload videos, as well as who your engaged followers are.

Aside from the analytics dashboard at https://www.youtube.com/analytics, a new button has been added to individual video pages, just to the right of your views count:

Analytics Button

This button provides extremely useful, at-a-glance data, including “Significant Discovery Events”:

On-Page Stats

 

Significant Discovery Events shows how first-time referrals occur and via what network or medium, such as mobile or search. You can also glean quick demographic data using this button.

CNN reports that more channel-focused changes and channel templates are coming soon, so keep an eye on your channel. Spend some time analyzing your Insights – you should be able to find ways to optimize your effectiveness on YouTube!

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