My answer is – YOUTUBE!!!

Often the response I get is: “Isn’t YouTube for silly cat videos and dogs on skateboards?”

The answer is – NO.

The perception that YouTube is a repository of poorly shot and edited videos uploaded by the unwashed masses is a hold over from it’s early days.

Today, YouTube is a much different beast: it’s the home for brands, businesses, and dogs on skateboards. YouTube is the #2 search engine in the world, so it’s important that your video is there for people searching for information about your product or business.

Not only that, as cord cutting continues to grow and connected TVs proliferate, YouTube is is set to become a leader in the next generation of broadcasters with it’s billions of videos, TV friendly redesign, and $100 million investment in original content.

While this is all well and good, how does this benefit you, your brand, product, and business? Below is a list of the top three reason I believe that YouTube should be an integral part of your social media strategy and the place where you should host your video.

• YouTube is the world’s #2 search engine so it’s important that you have something there for people to find when they go searching for you. The last thing you want is for the only video on YouTube about your brand or business to be some potentially negative UGC.
• Embedding YouTube videos on your website increases SEO. That said, if your video is going to live front and centre on your site, you may not want to embed a YouTube video. Depending on the success of your video, YouTube may decide to run ads against it.
• YouTube videos are iPad and iPhone ready (and nearly every other platform). You’ll never have to worry about someone not being able to view your video because their device doesn’t support it.

If you’re interested in making a video or have any questions, send us an email and let us help you make video part of your strategy!

Thumbnail via Skateboarding Dog

But just because you can do it yourself, should you? Mark Evans, co-founder of the Mesh Conference and principal at ME Consulting, recently discussed this subject on his blog. In his post “Why Startups Need a Demo Video” he makes the following points:

• A video should be a high priority, even it means biting the financial bullet in the short term.
• A well made video can play a key role in capturing peoples’ attention.
• A bad video, such as a do-it-yourself screen capture video, creates the perception the product or service is low-quality.
• A video can be a way to break out from the pack.

Send us an email and let’s talk about how we can add video to your website, Facebook page, YouTube channel, or press releases. We can help you get your message in a compelling and inexpensive way with out compromising quality.

Thumbnail via SPACE STATION 11.

Image courtesy of iVillage

Reel SEO is a great resource for online video marketing. Recently they interviewed Kelly Wallace, chief correspondent and head of video at NBC-owned iVillage, who offered the following four tips for brands and sites who want to start doing more with video.

1. If a video comes off as advertorial, it’s not viewed in the same way.
2. iVillage has seen great success creating franchises—special programs for every day of the week—like a television network.
3. Consider your video an extension of your brand.
4. Do as much shooting as you can in one day to save on the budget.

I would add to this that you should also:

1. Define your audience.
2. Determine where your video is going to live.
3. Consider the video’s role in your larger social media strategy.

At More Bigger Video we provide all of our clients with a creative brief that helps determine the answer to these questions and more. If you’re interested in making a video or have any questions, send us an email and let us help you make video part of your strategy!

Source: reelseo.com

What is the lifespan of a Facebook post? Visibli analyzed over 200 million Facebook fans to find the answer. They found that:

• Facebook posts receive 50 percent of their “likes” in the first 80 minutes;
• 80 percent occur in the first 7 hours;
• 95 percent within 22 hours.

via PR Daily

One thing I have become accustom to hearing is: “we want a viral video”. In most cases clients want a viral video that will also explicitly explain their product or service. Trying to marry these two things together can be difficult.

My observation of the most viral brand videos of 2010 is: the videos are not necessarily meant to explicitly explain the product. This, in my opinion, is because the companies and their products are already established and do not need to be explained, therefore they can focus on being clever.

Luckily, a clever or funny video is not the only way to make your video go viral (though it definitely helps). The most important thing you can do to help your video get noticed is to optimize it for shareability.

Here are three ways you can make sure your video is optimized for easy sharing:

• Make it short: videos that are 15 seconds or less are shared 37% more then 30-60 second and one minute videos, and 18% more then videos over a minute!
• Tap into people’s psychological share motivation. This can be an emotional need, the need for self expression, or the desire to share information. Think about your intended audience, what resonates with them?
• Optimize your video for Facebook by hosting your video on YouTube. One of YouTube’s greatest features is it’s integration with Facebook. Share any YouTube link on Facebook and the video is automatically embedded on the wall. This means when people click the video it plays for them on Facebook, they don’t have to go anywhere else to watch it. Why is this important? Because Facebook dominates the sharing of social video.

Do you have an idea for a video for your business or want to know more about how video can help grow your business? Send me an email and let’s talk!

How does video fit into your social media strategy? Do you want to know how you can harness the social nature of video to get more out of your video? Then read on!

Online video is social by nature: people are used to sharing videos on Facebook, Twitter, and email. But sharing is only one part of the social phenomena, the other is the conversations that happen around content, like video.

Social video marketing is all about participating in the conversations that are happening around your video online: on your website, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, wherever people are talking about your video. According to Dave Evans, author of Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day, actively taking part in the conversations happening around your video positively impacts peoples perception and naturally persuades people to take action.

How can you put social video marketing into action? Follow these easy steps:

1. Make sure people can leave comments on your video, whether it’s on YouTube or your website.
2. Follow your video (if you host your video on YouTube, you can use YouTube Insights to see where people are sharing it).
3. Participate in the conversations happening around your video, wherever it’s happening. By participating in the conversations people will form a positive opinion about your company which increase the likelihood they take action.

Do you have an idea for a video for your business or want to know more about how video can help grow your business? Send me an email and let’s talk!

For more on social video marketing and an interview with Dave Evans, click here!

I have long argued that hosting your videos on YouTube is better than hosting them yourself. If you do decide to host your videos, you can increase the search-ability of your videos by creating a Google Video Sitemap.

A Google Video Sitemap will get your videos indexed by Google which will increase their likelihood of showing up in Google’s Universal Search and Google’s Video Search. Google also supports MRSS (Media RSS feeds) which can be used in addition to or instead of a sitemap.

Setting up a Google Video Sitemap or a MRSS feed is fairly straight forward so your developer should have no problem figuring it out. For instructions on how to set up a Google Video Sitemap or information on how to submit a MRSS feed to Google click here.

Do you have an idea for a video for your business or want to know more about how video can help grow your business? Send me an email and let’s talk!

Above is a great interview by Reel SEO with Mari Smith, social media marketing expert and co-author of “Facebook Marketing, An Hour A Day”. Mari makes some very good points about why you need a video. They are:

1. Video ties into social media because it is programmed into our DNA is programmed to recognize faces.
2. No amount of technology is going to take the place of talking in real life where you can feel a person’s energy and read their body language. But the next closest thing, is video.
3. With video, you can look in the camera and be intimate and feel much more connected.

Do you have an idea for a video for your business or want to know more about how video can help grow your business? Send me an email and let’s talk!

In my opinion the two most important tips are: cross-platform promotion and obsess on Insights, not comments.

As soon as you have uploaded your video you should notify your fans via Twitter, Facebook, email, etc. It’s up to you to get people to watch your video, you can’t expect that because you’ve uploaded a video that your friends and followers are going to find it. By leveraging your existing social media channels you have a built in audience for your video. That being said, it’s important to promote it at a time when the most amount of people are going to be online.

Everyone likes feedback, but comments and likes aren’t the most important thing when it comes to measuring the success of your video. Your YouTube channel comes equipped with a pretty powerful analytics system that will tell you everything from demographics, discovery, community, and hot spots. This information is useful for determining who your audience is, where they are watching your video, and how long they are watching for.

Do you have an idea for a video for your business or want to know more about how YouTube can help grow your business? Send me an email and let’s talk!

Gravol is the number one pharmacist recommended anti-nauseant. Gravol, together with the Children’s Wish Foundation of Canada, has created a online resource to help families feel their best. I was brought on to make a video to promote this resource.

This project changed the way I work. We went in with a concept for the video, but the client wanted other options, so I presented them with three different types of videos to choose from. They chose a different option and I think the video turned out better because of it.

If you’re looking for a video for your business, but you’re unsure what kind of video would work best for you, send me an email and I will present you with several different options and we can work together to figure out which one will work best for you!