Do Videos Help Your Brand?

July 30, 2018 Tags: Video, video content marketing, video marketing Joe Ruley

“Business decision makers LOVE online video because it gives them the most amount of information in the shortest amount of time.” – Robert Weiss

Each year the same thing is said repeatedly when it comes to making videos for your business or product. “This year will be the year for video.” It’s a farce. There’s never a specific year that’ll be a break-out year for video – every year is the year for video. And there’s a good reason for this too. According to a recent Cisco study, 82 percent of consumer internet traffic will be done via video by 2021.

The use of video among small businesses is hitting a stride and solidifying itself as the “must-have” marketing tactic. This might come as a surprise, but 61 percent of all businesses are using some form of video content in their digital marketing plans. Granted some of these videos can be one-offs with no other purpose than to portray one product and nothing beyond that. But, the use of video among marketing plans is more readily becoming a must.

In-Store Video Advertising Now On Refrigerator Doors

November 19, 2015 Tags: digital marketing, marketing, Video Slava Vidomanets

In-store advertising has been used for years. Even video advertising has been used in stores before…but, not like this. Now, stores are able to use in-store video ads on refrigerator doors.

While being tasted at grocery stores, convenience stores, and drug stores, these video ads proved to be a success. Over the 11 weeks, stores saw a 13% increase in traffic to cooler doors with a 4% increase in sales of products from coolers with video ads. Additionally, they saw a 19% increase in sales of promoted fountain drinks. This success is driven mostly by the “wow” factor as many people have never seen anything similar.

Being sold at a reasonable price, companies are able to invest in this technology or brands can foot the bill to get their video ad running in store.

In-store advertising is going to a whole new level

Video Is The New Tweet: The Latest On Twitter Video Ad Integration

February 17, 2015 Tags: digital advertising, mobile ads, Twitter, twitter ads, Video, video ads Slava Vidomanets

The New Age of Social Media Video

As social media platforms move away from YouTube and into hosting their own video, we’ve seen the quantity of videos increase, engagement increase and social media users embrace the constant presence of video in their feeds wholeheartedly.

Keeping Your Business Mobile: New Techniques You Need to Try

January 16, 2014 Tags: Geoconquesting, Mobile, mobile marketing, Rich Media Messaging, RMM, SMS, Video Slava Vidomanets

Hopefully you read my blog last week. If not, shame on you! I’ll forgive you this time, but it was about mobile marketing and why it will be important for your business to adapt to this rising trend.

According to a Motorola Solutions survey, retailers believe that over the next five years, 56% of all transactions will be completed via mobile POS, self-checkouts at terminal or on mobile devices. In that same survey, 42% believe that improving the in-store experience will involve sending coupons to a customer’s phone based on their location in the store. If you still don’t think you need to take advantage of mobile, look around the next time you are in a restaurant or waiting on a street corner and really notice how many people are on their phones. These are all potential clients!

It’s no surprise that people’s attention spans have reduced dramatically over the past couple of years. With video accounting for 50% of all mobile data, you’ll need to adapt to this trend. Micro-content will be key in keeping your customers engaged with you. You will be seeing more companies take advantage of Vine, Instagram Video and even Snapchat as they continually rise in popularity.

Cezar Kolodziej, president and CEO of Iris Mobile predicts that Rich Media Messaging (RMM) will explode in 2014 (with already a 99% open rate and double the conversion rates of SMS). RMM allows Android users to no longer receive iPhone content that they will not be able to open and iPhones will stop receiving Flash videos that are not compatible. RMM allows companies to send messages designed for each specific phone which allows the image, video or coupon to fit the screen.

Have you considered Geoconquesting? This is done by setting up a geofence around your top competitor’s location(s) and scheduling a message to go out on high traffic days and times for those areas. This is first accomplished by getting a second opt-in from your customers. After you have received that information, you will be able to send messages to your customers when they are near your competitors. You will be able to send a real time text message to them saying something like this: “Stop by our location in the next hour and receive 15% off any full-priced item! Show MSG when checking out.” This gives them a specific call-to-action and incentive to leave your competitors and come directly to your store.

Have you already adopted mobile marketing techniques? Are you seeing a bigger ROI? Comment below and grab my attention on Twitter.

Putting Your Business in Front of the Camera

December 6, 2013 Tags: ben and jerry's, how to, instagram, marketing, Social Media, Video Slava Vidomanets

Your business has a Facebook page and Twitter account, but does it have an Instagram account? You might be asking yourself, “Why do I need an Instagram account too?”

If you have read my previous blog about the power of video, then you will know the future in social media marketing lies in video and pictures. A study done by Brainshark shows that video equals higher viewer retention; the information retained in one minute of online video is equal to about 1.8 million written words.

If you think video isn’t the future of marketing, ask yourself, “Why would one of the most popular apps decide to add it to their repertoire?” According to a study done by Eloqua, about 46% of people say they’d be more likely to seek out information about a product or service after seeing it in an online video. Don’t get overwhelmed, you don’t need to post videos all day long. Rather think of this as a creative marketing tool for your company’s social media presence.

Getting started is quite easy; all you have to do is download the Instagram app, switch over to video and start recording! Here’s the most important part: to record you have to hold down the button the whole time. Releasing the button will stop the recording, which is how you edit video to add different angles to the video. The best way to figure this out is by recording a few test videos. The great thing about using this video tool is that the maximum time you can record is 15 seconds. You might think that’s a short time but stop what you’re doing right now and count to 15. 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississppi…you will see how much time you have to work with.

Some great examples of how to take full advantage of this service are:

How-to videos are great! Whether you are demonstrating how to tie a tie or fix a flat tire, these types of videos tend to get lots of views. Use the #HowTo hashtag to gain even more exposure.
Give your viewers a behind-the-scenes video of your business that shows people the inner workings of how you work. Ben and Jerry’s did a really good job at this.
Have some fun and make a stop-motion video.
Involve your fans! Create a unique hashtag and have your fans make their own Instagram videos. Fans can submit their own videos using your unique hashtag for a contest.
Promote an event. Are you having a sale or hosting an event? Give sneak previews of what is in store, which also serve as free advertising for your event.
Customer testimonials. Get some of your customers in front of the camera and have them tell the world what they love about your business. It’s nice to see real people using your services or products, and you can even tag them on Instagram to gain the trust of your viewers.

The possibilities of your videos go as far as your creativity can go. If you need some inspiration, go to the Explore tab and look at some videos. Are you already using Instagram video for your business? Connect with me on Instagram and show me some of your creative videos.

Why Should Your Company Care About Video?

September 4, 2013 Tags: content marketing, instagram, Social Media, Video, Vine Slava Vidomanets

There are well over one billion smartphones around the world. Translation: there are well over one billion “photographers” and “videographers” around the world. Thanks to the popularity of Vine and the video setting on Instagram, video is quickly becoming the norm in the social media world. Facebook is even toying with the idea of adding video ads to your timeline. Nothing is launching in the near future, but don’t be surprised if you see video ads on your timeline in the next year or so.

One of the benefits a company gains by using social media is being able to connect more personally with current and future customers. Think of how much easier it would be to demonstrate your product or service’s features and advantages rather than writing up an article that might not translate well to everyone reading it. One statistic shows that 17% of people spend less than four seconds on a website, but they are willing to spend 2.7 minutes watching a video on the internet!

Even the job search process is being impacted by the use of video resumes and interviews. A video resume allows an employer to get a better feel for a candidate that a paper resume cannot show. Some companies are conducting initial interviews with out-of-state candidates over Skype or similar services rather than flying them out for an interview. Using this service allows a company to get an initial feel for a candidate before they fly them out and interview them in person, saving both time and money.

Video has been proven to more likely be shared online and has a greater chance of going viral. In Google’s index, video is much more searchable and it is over 50 times more likely to appear in front page search results. Did you know that the average person has a better ability to retain information when both auditory and visual senses are being used?

In April 2013, over 60 million people in the US watched video on Facebook. Do you remember Kony 2012? Of course you do, because it only took six days for it to reach 100 million views and I bet you were one of them. You don’t need to shell out thousands of dollars to hire a film crew to come in and make your video, but be careful you aren’t recreating “The Blair Witch Project” with your in-house videos. YouTube is the second largest search engine only behind Google with the most searched phrase being “How to.”

Your clients are already engaged in video…are you?

Go Viral With Vine

February 11, 2013 Tags: Advertising, Social Media, Twitter, Video, Vine, Viral, Viral Content Slava Vidomanets

Some businesses are already harnessing the power of the free video app Vine to market their product. Vine allows users to post a six second video to be tweeted to your followers and the possibilities for these videos are endless. New and intriguing videos have the potential to go viral, especially if done the right way. Do you want to use Vine to make your business go viral? We’ve put together an infographic with some helpful hints.