Ut-Oh - We’re Not Using Online Video to Market Our Business

Video marketing is becoming an online marketing technique that is gaining popularity fast. In fact, multimedia or video marketing is on its way of replacing old fashioned text and print marketing in the not so distant future. If you wish to keep up with your competitors, you’ll have to incorporate multimedia in your marketing campaigns.

Online video usage continues to grow at an explosive rate. July figures from comScore indicate that in the U.S. alone, 21.4 billion videos were watched -- up 88 percent from a year ago. That usage was spread across 81 percent of the internet population watching a remarkable 135 videos per user.

It's becoming quite obvious that multimedia as an advertising medium is here to stay. If you are just beginning to add video marketing to your advertising campaign here are 5 tips to help you create a quality video that will get results.   

1. Keep it Short

We are all very busy, the phone is ringing, new email coming in by the minute, reports are due, late for the meeting, the last thing we need is a 20 minute video to get 2 minutes worth of information. Anything for the Web, whether it's print, audio, or video needs to be as short as possible. A good rule of thumb is to keep video between two and eight minutes in length. If you can make a video that has good entertainment qualities then eight minutes is OK. If you don't have any comical skills, then you're better off keeping the video closer to the 2 minute threshold.  

2. Don't Be a Stiff

Unfortunately, starring in videos clearly is not a natural thing for many. In fact it takes a special talent to be able to speak and act normal in front of a camera. If your video does not have a natural look and a comfortable feel, your audience will notice right away and tune out or worse yet, click away. Straight talk is OK but if you can mix in a natural carefree tone the audience will notice and be more receptive to what you have to say. 

3. Take Advantage of The Visual Medium

Ever seen a video with a person sitting at a desk, speaking about a particular subject? Did you notice the crooked picture on the wall, the messy desk and the wrinkled shirt; yea real exciting. This is not a video. Video is meant to present a visual experience as well as a verbal meaning. Take advantage of video by including a visual story line. Get out from behind the desk, move around a bit, change scenes and interact with others. Mixing a visual story with what you have to say has infinite more impact than a static video.

4. Stay in Focus

When shooting or editing a video on a big screen or monitor, it's easy to lose prospective of the real size. With online video, the majority of your audience will be viewing it on a smaller screen. To improve the visual experience for your audience, most of your video should be close up, being careful to frame the subject matter closely. If you're recording or capturing PC screen video, zoom in on important content and use larger text in presentation material where appropriate.

5. Ensure Your Video is Internet Friendly

One of the concerns when uploading video to the Internet is that the quality will be sacrificed. The last thing you want to do is spend time and money developing a high quality video only to have it butchered once you distribute it. You can minimize any potential video degradation by following this guideline:
 
For standard definition (SD) videos:
• Format: H.264, MPEG-2 or MPEG-4
• Resolution: 640x480 
• Frame rate remains same as original video
• Audio sampling rate: 44.1KHz for MP3/AAC

For high definition (HD) videos:
• Format: H.264, MPEG-2 or MPEG-4
• Resolution: 1280x720
• Frame rate remains same as original video
• Audio sampling rate: 44.1KHz Stereo MP3/AAC
• Maximum 1GB file size and 10 min. duration

Video marketing is becoming a popular Internet marketing tool. In fact, the internet is moving away from the traditional text style of advertising while moving toward a higher reliance on graphics and video. Video marketing has business advantages over the old school print or text style of marketing which should be taken advantage of. Companies and businesses that include Internet multimedia in their marketing campaigns can gain a distinct advantage over their competition. If you are seeking continued or expanded business growth you need to incorporate video into your marketing.