Blog: Video

Video presents a story quickly, and in an effective and visual way. To maximize your budget, we can help you repurpose video multiple ways. It starts with capturing and converting video into an online form, like this video. We're posting it on our blog, on our website and here, in our e-news. We can help you create the video and use it in multiple ways.

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Online marketing spend grows every year. In fact, some analysts predict that this is the year that online ads budgets will surpass traditional print. So while search, social media and banner ads can all be effective and worth adding to your marketing repetoire, don't forget about the medium growing as fast or faster than all of them - video.

Why is the importance of video marketing increasing so quickly? First, some statistics:

• According to Marketingprofs.com, the average user of online video watches more than 16 hours of video a month and videos on YouTube are watched over 3 billion times a day.

• According to Socialtimes.com, in the third quarter of 2011, online video ad growth surpassed online video view growth and online video revenues were set to triple by the end of 2011.

• YouTube is the web's second largest search engine.

• More video was uploaded to YouTube in the past month than the three big TV networks produced in the past 60 years.

Pretty impressive. Another reason to incorporate video into your marketing plan - Google loves video. More and more searches are producing video results on page one (where you want your site to be).

And don't avoid video because of cost factors. You don't need Steven Spielberg to direct your video for it to be effective. If you have an iPhone, you can shoot a video.

So if people love them, Google loves them, and they aren't difficult or expensive to create, why wouldn't video be at the top of your marketing list in 2012?

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When we were children, we fervently believed that wishes could come true. Even if we didn’t believe in Santa, we knew that the presents under the tree on Christmas morning were real.

As we grow into adults, we find it harder to believe in possibilities. We have tasks to do, appointments to keep, and obligations to fulfill. We’re so busy that we don’t take time appreciate the goodness around us.

We hope you find time during this Holiday season to reflect on what’s good in your life and how it can be even better in 2012. Even in difficult times, there are always possibilities. If only we take the time to believe, they’ll become realities.

We shot this video last year, yet it still brings smiles to our faces. Happy Holidays from all of us to you!

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Most if not all website owners would like higher rankings in Google and for users to spend more time engaging on their site. If you are one of them, why not kill these two proverbial birds with one stone - video.

For each search, Google's goal is to provide the most relevant results that also provide the best user experience. This includes a mix of media, including web pages, video, images, latest news, and more. If your website contains only pages, you're missing out on a significant opportunity.

Much like the content of a webpage, Google spiders are able to read copy within video titles on websites like YouTube or Vimeo, as well as descriptions and associated tags. These pieces of information (when well-optimized) communicate to Google the content of the video. When a video link appears on a page of search results, Google includes a thumbnail image. This makes the listing stand out, putting it in an excellent position to get clicked and increasing that page's click-through rate (CTR). CTR is a statistic Google's algorithm measures when making indexing decisions. Further, videos on Google are not only found in search results, but also in a videos-only section (appropriately titled Videos), seen as a link on the left side of the search results page.

Also, when you upload a video from your site to YouTube, it then lives on the second largest search engine on the web (behind Google, of course); another tremendous opportunity for a user to find your website.

People love watching videos. According to a comScore study, released in February 2011, 82.5 percent of the U.S. Internet audience viewed a video online, while a Nielsen Company report showed that U.S. users spent almost 45 percent more time viewing online video in January 2011 than during the same period in 2010.

People also enjoy sharing videos. When a user posts a link or shares one of your videos, this results in a backlink directed to your website. And we all know how much Google likes backlinks.

So grab the video camera, have some fun, and improve your visitors' experience and your rankings!

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In a previous post I said that to save time editing it's best to shoot less video. Now I will tell you the exact opposite and encourage you to over shoot. It really will depend on the project you're working on. In cases where you know you won't stray from the script you will know exactly what to shoot. With other projects you'll find that there are still some questions about the final project. When that's the case it's important to shoot extra video. And because most cameras are shooting digital files and they're no longer consuming tapes or discs it's easy to overshoot without using up your budget on tape stock.

Even when I know exactly what needs to be shot and I know I have my best take in the can I still shoot extra. I shoot the same scene several times more and I'll even shoot video that hasn't been scripted. It's these kinds of shots that often make a nice addition to a project. A lot of times there are shots that you may not think of until you're on scene and you'll realize there's something you hadn't considered so you shoot it. The worst that can happen is you'll take a few extra minutes shooting and bring it back to the office and decide you don't need it afterall. But if you don't shoot it and you get back to the office and decide you need it then you'll be taking a lot more time to go back out and shoot again. So save yourself the frustration and money of having to reshoot by shooting a bit extra the first time around.

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