Interestingly, despite the common consensus that online video only appeals to teenagers with a penchant for falling off skateboards, eMarketer found that among adults aged 25 or older, almost half of females and roughly two out of three males view online video content at least once a week.
While your small business might not have the content-production resources of larger firms like Universal Music Group, Nintendo Wii and National Geographic - all of which operate popular YouTube channels - it is still possible for you to exploit video content to grow your business. Here are a few tips, as well as pitfalls to avoid.
Create a strategy
Most companies want to embrace the latest technology trends and incorporate cutting-edge marketing techniques into their business processes, but there is no point in adopting a technology without first having a clearly defined content strategy in place.
So, the first thing is to be clear about the reasons why you want to use video and the type of content you want to share. For example, product demonstrations might suit an SME with an innovative product to show off, while video lectures or video blogging might suit a firm of consultants who want to demonstrate their expertise on a particular topic.
Here are some questions that will help you develop your video content strategy:
- Who do you want to watch your video?
- What message do you want to share with your audience?
- Will customers/clients be willing to appear in a video?
- Can I get my message across in ten minutes or less?
- Is the proposed video consistent with the corporate strategy?
Hardware and software
Getting started with video requires nothing more than a digital camera with video capabilities, a PC and some editing software. Unless the slick production values of a major television advertising campaign are absolutely essential to your overall marketing strategy, or you are planning a ten-minute epic to promote your products or services and want to avoid giving your audience eye strain, you probably won't need to hire a company to prepare the video content for you. Your budget will also be a big factor here as independent production companies do not come cheap. If you do decide to make a longer video yourself, it would be worthwhile to invest in a handheld video camera.
Mac users will find iMovie an excellent choice for no-fuss video mixing and editing. For Windows users, Windows Movie Maker is a good equivalent. iMovie and Windows Movie Maker are intuitive and user-friendly - making them ideal for those without advanced video production expertise.
Formatting and hosting
The three most popular video file formats are AVI, MPEG, and Quicktime (MOV). Not everybody has configured their computer to play all three types, so it can be a good idea to save the video in all three formats and give your viewers the option of choosing their preferred format. As a general rule, AVIs are probably the best option as almost all Windows machines will be pre-configured to show video in this format.
The most obvious place to host your video online is on YouTube.com. YouTube provides the easiest method of uploading, the largest potential audience and of course by participating on YouTube you send out the message that your company is not afraid of new technology. If you haven't done so already, create a YouTube channel to promote your company and link it to any social networking sites that your company participates in.
Embedding video
Another option is to embed video on your company website or blog. That's a cinch if you know a little HTML. The basic HTML embed format looks like this:
< EMBED SRC="yourvideosfilename"> < / EMBED>
(remove the spaces in the above)
Inside the main EMBED command, you can place other sub-commands, including:
- HEIGHT="--" and WIDTH="--" This sets the height and width of the space in which the embedded item will play.
- LOOP="--" This states if the video will play again and again ("true") or if it should play once and stop ("false" or no use of the LOOP command.
- AUTOSTART="--" This tells the browser to start the video right away ("true") upon its download completion or to wait until the viewer clicks to start playing ("false" or no use of the command). Use this with caution as some internet visitors will take exception to having video foisted on them against their will - especially if they are using a dial-up connection.
So, a complete piece of code to embed a video that's, say, 200 x 100 pixels in size, plays automatically when people visit your site, but does not loop, will look like this:
< EMBED SRC="yourvideosfilename" WIDTH="200" HEIGHT="100" AUTOPLAY="TRUE"> < / EMBED>
(remove the spaces)
In the next issue, we will take a look at how you can produce video content on a budget, give tips for generating the best video and sound quality, and look at some pitfalls to avoid.