OK GO have Gone Viral… again

American band Ok GO have managed to have two of their music videos go viral. The first internet sensation was the video for their song ‘Here it goes again’ commonly referred to as the treadmill song and left viewers asking the question "how the hell are they going to top this?"

Well they have!  Their next attempt is a video clip for their song ‘This too shall pass’ with a very complex Rube Goldberg machine and it’s amazing. Word on the web is that is was done in one giant tracking shot.  At the time this article was written it had 6,332,571 views 9 days after being uploaded.

I can’t even fathom how someone could come up with such a thing, let alone make it work!

Well done boys

Your new fan.

 Enables Auto Captioning on all videos

You tube announced in a press conference this week that they will be rolling out their Auto captioning service on all videos. The Auto-Captioning service works via voice-analysis—not unlike the technology that allows you to speak the name of a person into your smart phone and have it dial them without pushing any buttons.  But it’s far from perfect.  Speech-to-text, as a technology, has been around for years.  But it’s yet to have been perfected to the point where I can dictate a Word document’s contents by voice only to my PC and have them come out error-free.  So there will be some hiccups in the system’s ability to accurately caption some videos.

The reason for this move is to open up the online video movement to people who don’t speak English and wish to learn, and those who are hearing impaired. There is also the fact that turning audio into text will most definitely help clarify search  results. If YouTube’s Auto-Captioning service  works properly it can help Google indexing the content of those videos.  That should instantly make it easier for videos to be properly listed in search results—based on their actual content as opposed to just their titles and tags.

Auto Captioning on videos is going to make it easier to find the content you want, and easier to get your content found by those who want it.

At present the captioning is not working very well for those of us with Australian accents as you’ll see on this screen shot! Saying that, the technology is improving everyday and I’m sure it wont be long before the creases are ironed out. It makes for hilarious viewing in the mean time though!

The reason for the screen shot is that when I tried to embed the video the captions no longer worked, it seems they only work on YouTube. To enable the captions press ‘CC’ on the tool bar and then Transcribe Audio

article source here

The Revolution Will be Streamed

2010 is the year of the online video, with Youtube being the second largest search engine. Here are some factors as to why online video is so important for small business.

Popularity: More and more people are spending their time infront of the computer rather than the television. Its all down to the popularity of ‘Real Time’ that the internet offers. People want to find out whats going on now, not wait until the broadcasters decide its time to share their heavily edited version of events. Similarly people want to find out more about the products that they are interested in rather be forced to sit through the same few adverts every few minutes.   

Cost: Television has always been the marketer’s Mecca since its invention but has remained out of reach financially to many. In comparison online video is a very cheap, one off cost that will keep giving after the initial outlay.

Variety: As people are waking up to the idea of using online video to promote their business, so is their creativity. People are now using video to educate, inspire, sell, recruit, inform, even to create a series about their interests that people can subscribe to. The possibilities are endless and this is only the beginning.

Personality: The simple fact is people like doing business with people. They can relate and trust the opinions of their peers. Video is a way that you can introduce yourself to your clients in locations that you could never get to visit in person.

Sharing: Once you have your video it is real easy to show it to thousands of people thanks to the sharing sites available such as Linkdin, Facebook, Twitter and of course You tube.

Video really is the way to give your company massive exposure with minimal outlay. While still maintaining the personal approach that small businesses are built on.

Small and Medium Business Intend to use Video in 2010

Here are some statistics I found today which were compiled by a company called Implix.

These are the results to their poll after questioning 200 small to medium businesses from a variety of industries and

countries on their email marketing strategy for 2010.

Benefits of Email Marketing with Video

• 64% of them think they’ll get a significant boost to conversion rates.
• Over 50% said that it will improve click-through rates and drive customers onto landing pages.
• Over 20% said that video emails can also reduce support and training costs
• On the flip side, only 4.7% of those polled saw no benefit.

• 29% said training courses use video email best
• 22% said product offers
• 19% said product demos were key
• 18% use it for customer testimonials.
•  

In conclusion More than 80% of respondents plan to use video emails in 2010

Time to get on board I’d say….

 Thanks to Christopher Rick for bringing the Stats to my attention

Is Text The Enemy?

There is a lot of hype at the moment around the fact that online video is over taking the popularity of text on websites. This argument appears to be true as more people get involved in this marketing revolution. It’s becoming increasingly important for businesses to have video on their website to ensure they are ranking highly on search engines like google. It’s wonderful that people are so readily embracing the concept of online video at the beginning of its popularity, thus positioning themselves as leaders in their market.

However it should be noted that text is not the enemy.  Admittedly, pages and pages of writing are going to lose peoples attention very quickly but your online video shouldn’t replace the written word on your website. Video and text should work along side each other to form a concise summary of what it is you are trying to say. Video should simplify your message and the best way to do this is to incorporate text as well. there are 2 ways to do this effectively:

1) Include captions in your video: Captions can be added during editing and can be anything from a title page, key words that are important, the name and title of the speaker, name of a product etc. Having captions throughout the video will break it up and keep the viewer interested as well as coming across as a more professional production.

2) Have key points underneath:  When sharing your video you should have the key points underneath where the video is embeded. This is important if your video is over 4 minutes long, as people will usually lose interest before the end or not have time to watch the entire duration.

Both these tips are important when  considering people who will be viewing your video while at their desk in a crowded office environment. This way they can glean your message without having the audio playing and come back to watch the video later.

The 5 P’s to keep in mind when Planning a Professional Online Video

Plan: Having a plan is a very important first step and will help you get exactly what you want to achieve out of your video.

Your plan needs to include answers to the following questions:

• What are your goals for the video?
• Who do you intend your audience to be?
• What topics will you cover?
• How many videos will you have?
• Who will be performing?  
• What do you expects your audience to do?

Practice: it is quite common for people to feel nervous once it’s switched on they make a mistake and get flustered. This is completely normal! no one walks straight in and nails it. The only way you can over come this is to practice, and more importantly, allow yourself to practice realising the first few take are yours simply to get the feel of what you’re doing.

Pace yourself: Have a relaxed tempo, make sure you aren’t speaking too quickly or there aren’t any lengthy pauses.

Pronunciation: Make sure you speak clearly so that your viewers can understand what is being said.

Emphasize: Be aware of key words and slightly raise your voice when saying them or have a brief pause to express a point.

Eye Contact: You need to look at the camera as though it’s a friend you are talking to. It makes the video much more engaging.

Control your body language: Try not to appear too stiff, and make sure you smile, you are talking to a friend remember!  

Length: Short is best. Ideally 1min in length. Be sure to say your script aloud as it takes longer than a read through in your head.

Publish: Remember by having your video embeded on your home page it makes the website ’sticky’ and encourages people to stay there longer and have a look around. If you have a series of videos you can publish them on your blog which all adds to rich search engine content. You should also upload your video to as many video sharing sites as possible, ie You Tube.

Promote: Make sure that once your video is complete that you are letting people know about it. You can do this by linking to it on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. You could also put a link on your email signature to ensure that its getting maximum exposure.

Performance: The best performance indicator has to be feedback and results. The best way to measure this is to include a clear

Call to Action at the end of you video (ie what you want the audience to do next).

By keeping these pointers in mind when you decide to embrace online video you will breeze through the production process and should start seeing the results you desire.

The full article is here

2 MINUTE VIDEO ALLOWED TO AID APPLICATION   

Tufts University in Boston  America has allowed potential students to submit a short video supplement to their application explaining who they are and why they want to attend Tufts. Out of the the 15,000 applicants 1000 of them chose to send a video to overcome the formality of the written word and allow them to express their personalities effectively.  The popularity has arisen due to the fact that many students struggle to stand out and only a handful are accepted into Tufts each year.

Whether for personal or for business we know that the use  video allows you to put a face to the name and a lot of the students have jumped at the chance to be able to show who they are rather than just have their name written on a piece of paper. As the most emotional medium it’s a wonderful way to display empathy compassion and humor  which can often be lost or misconstrued when written or typed. The Boston Globe has set up a gallery of some of the entries for you to look at, I like the one with Rubiks cube and the piano.

Closer to Home, The free to air channel ABC3 put the call out for young Australians to submit a 2 minute video application to become a children’s presenter on one of their shows. They received over 5000 applicants hoping to get a slice of the action. To have a look at some of the audition tapes click here  

The Video Supporter Wall

The different Types of Video That will make your Website Sticky 

7 Tips for effective Selling Videos

The 7 tips for having an online video that sells products are:

1)      Use the 80/20 rule to decide where to start. This suggests that 80% of your income is generated by 20% of your products;this means your initial video should focus on the products that are already earning you the most money

2)      Keep it short and sweet: Your video should be no more than a minute long. If the product is particularly complex you could extend this by 30secs but have a total time of no longer than 90 seconds because people will simply lose interest.

3)      Conduct A/B tests: this is recommended so that you can test which type of video will work best for your site but that’s what we’re here for!

4)      Captions: They suggest that captions and titles on your video increase your conversion rate.

5)      User reviews: The article recommends adding user reviews, or video testimonials because people appreciate hearing recommendations from their peers.

6)      Include video in your on-site search results: They suggest making the most of your ‘quality traffic’ (that is people who are searching rather than browsing) you should have a video for each product that is searched for

7)      Getting the most of your video: They suggest ensuring that you include your video in as much of your marketing as possible. Ie adding a link to your email signature or uploading it onto your social media profiles.