27 Sep 09 On-Site Video and Viral Video Marketing
Video Marketing
Video marketing is a modern approach to website (product/service) promotion and can produce website-traffic and sales if utilised properly. The great thing about video marketing is because of digital video and various cost effective video editing software – you don’t have to spend through-the-roof to produce an effective video marketing campaign.
The Social Web – Connectivity and Interaction
The ‘social web’ allows users to interact on a more personal level than ever. Users demand more technological advancements to improve their connectivity to other people, organisations, products and services. In the old days a well designed flat web page was good enough to push a sales message, however in 2009 the old traditional two dimensional methods fall far short compared to the rich-new-media methods being broadcast all over the web that are creating high user interest, capturing users imagination and enticing user interaction. The trick with using video as a marketing vehicle and generating new traffic is to try to generate ‘interaction’ through its use whether that’s recommending a friend, e-mailing a link or enticing user participation.
Video Marketing Types
There are two main types of online video marketing; on-site and off-site. Both types house lots of various methods and video marketing techniques that can help create a great presentation, user interaction and increase website traffic.
On-Site Video Marketing:
The traditional website-introduction video which offers users a visual presentation of your website, brand, products or services does not really cut-it these days. To really benefit from on-site video as a marketing tool you need to think out of the box. Presenting information in video format is one thing, getting users to interact because of a video presentation is another.
Examples On-Site Video Marketing Techniques:
On-Site Video Review Section: – Create a video review section allowing users to upload standard or mobile phone video reviews of your product/services.
On-Site Video Forum: – Generate user interaction by creating an on-site video forum allowing users to take part in themed-discussions and commenting on each other’s video posts
On-Site Video Competitions: – Create competitions for the best uploaded funny/factual/critique based video about your service/product. Users can vote for the best one.
On-Site Static-Viral Video: – Create a video section on your site were you generate uniquely interesting videos (funny/shocking/reality based) on a monthly basis that will generate user attraction/interest and word of mouth traffic.
(Don’t forget to add all the ‘share and post-it’ buttons/links allowing users to save your video to their favourite social networking platforms and invite friends to watch)
N.B. On-site video hosting can be expensive especially if you are allowing users to upload videos to your site. To manage this there are various video formats and video length restrictions that can be applied which can ease the amount of space required. If done properly the revenue generated via your video based traffic conversions should cover any costs.
Off-Site Video Marketing
Off-site video marketing focuses on the placement of marketing based videos on exterior websites to yours with the aim of driving traffic to your website. This can be done in the form of uploading videos to the major video-sharing platforms. Some of these platforms allow you to create your own profile page which showcases all the videos you upload. When thinking about creating a video for the social network scene a ‘viral-video’ will usually always outperform any standard advertisement based video about your product or services unless you can do it on a level similar to the Sony Bravia advert. If you would like to see the top 20 viral videos log on to the Video Viral Chart.
Viral Video Marketing Techniques
There is a lot of advice about making a viral video out on the web but there are three main aspects everyone agrees on which are:
1. Length – Keep it short, not over 2 minutes
2. Content – the two main focuses of viral videos are humour/shock
3. Video Title – Use popular searched words in your video-title: UFO, Sex, Secret, Shocking, Funny etc.
Once you have created your viral video e-mail your friends, submit it to blogs, forums, the popular social networks such as Myspace and of course all the other major video-sharing sites.
Uploading Your Video To Video Sharing Sites
Today there are masses of video-sharing sites that will allow you to upload videos for free, the most popular ones are listed below individually, however there are online video sites that will submit your video to the leading sites by just creating one account thus cutting down time and effort registering and uploading your video one at a time, a great resource for this is TubeMogul.
Top Video Sharing Sites
Google Video, BrightCove, PhotoBucket, YouTube, DailyMotion, Spike, Myspace, Vimeo, BuzzNet, Flixya, BetaWave, Kewego, MyHeavy, EbaumsWorld, StupidVideos, Vmix, CastPost, Famster, Porkolt, VideoWebTown and Vidmax.
Video Optimisation (Video SEO)
Optimising your video is important for search engine performance. There are a few ways you can optimise your video utilising the meta-data file, video title and embedding a link in your description. In the meta-data file make sure you place your keywords inside each meta-data-tag following search engine optimisation guidelines. Your title tag serves two purposes; one is aimed at adding popular search words that will grab user’s attention and also adding your product service keywords. The other video SEO aspect is adding a link to your website in the video description field so users can visit your website.
Relatively Cheap-To-Make Great Viral Video:
Tags: Video Marketing, Viral Video
Reader's Comments
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great article, some really helpful tips on video marketing. Liked watching the video, that’s how to do it!