As search engine marketers, we all know that content is king and that content is more than just text. Images, video and audio each represent a fantastic opportunity to drive traffic to our clients sites. As such, the latest Horowitz Associates report caught my attention.
According to the report, six out of ten high speed Internet users watch or download online video content at least once a week and 86% do so on a monthly basis. Leading the way is news, user-generated and non-professional content, followed by movie previews, music videos, sports events and podcasts.
It's the user generated content figure that has me asking, is it time to experiment with video marketing? Should my future blog posts be in video and how long before clients buy into the creation of videos as a means to meet their marketing objectives? Inspired by my colleague Jennifer Osbournes post on podcasting, I thought it would be interesting to poll SEP experts and conduct some research for video marketing and share some appropriate benefits and tips.
Benefits of a Video Marketing / adding video to your website include:
* Viral: Increases the potential for your message to go viral through social networks.
* Cost: Depending on client objectives and/or target market, a quick search of the net can find companies
producing online ads from $500 or free if you decide to use your own camera! 🙂
* SERP's: Videos are now included in search engine results
* Technology: There is now a plethora web based help such as video publishing, editing and post-production services to assist.
* Analytics: Increases stickiness of site by increasing average time users are engaged
* Educate: Everyone loves 'How to' books, videos following this format educate the audience
* Branding: Not as many sites using video, therefore your seen as an expert in your field.
Tips for creating an online video:
* Offer videos in both low and high fidelity options. For dial up internet users, the lower fidelity videos take less time to load.
* Offer the videos in different types of video formats. Different people use different video players, which may not be able to play the format that you offer.
* Ensure that your website's brand is watermarked or displayed throughout the video. This assists with brand recognition and help people to find your business easily.
Top 15 Popular Video Sharing Sites:
Look beyond your website. Create a channel / account not only YouTube, Google & Yahoo video and MySpace, but the following:
#1 Metacafe
#2 Photobucket
#3 Videoshift
#4 iFilm
#5 Putfile
#6 Bolt
#7 Dailymotion
#8 vidilife
#9 Guba
#10 Grouper
#11 Veoh
#12 Rever
#13 Yikers
#14 Addicting Clips
#15 vSocial
Lastly, 48% of online adults this year said they have visited video websites, that's way up from 33% in the previous year. Add to that stat a Pew Internet study showing those with some college education or graduates, showing the largest growth for online video usage than any other group, the future of content may very well be in video....so look for my next blog post, filmed for free by my Daughters, in video. 🙂
source: http://www.jemof.com/th.html