YouTube is five years old. And whilst many five year olds consider tying their shoelaces to be a great achievement, YouTube has managed to achieve world domination.
Try to think back to those dark days before video became part of our online furniture; when video was the preserve of broadcasters and businesses had to shell out a small fortune for advertising airtime. Tricky isn’t it?
Video is now as much a part of our visual culture as print media. We can watch it on our phones; we can share it with our friends and even easily produce and upload our own content.
The arrival of YouTube and similar video sharing websites (like Vimeo) has had a huge impact on business marketing, as has the associated shift towards accessible video technology (such as pocket HD video cameras and simplified editing software).
Businesses can now get their message ‘out there’ at rapid speed, and if done correctly, the results can be staggering.
Commercial video producer Elke Theissl said: “When Mediacove Productions started out five years ago it was all about DVDs with fancy cases, now we’re finding that businesses want their video online. It makes good sense.”
This isn’t just down to the rise of YouTube, developments in streaming technology have allowed businesses to host video content on their own websites. Conference footage, major announcements and information clips are displayed on many a homepage.
With a shift towards multi-platform news media, potential clients are becoming increasingly aware and discerning of the online face and content of companies and organisations. They want websites to be updated regularly and expect a rich mixture of text, pictures, videos and interactivity.
Good video marketing is creative and hooks in the viewer. Video is not the place for the blatant hard sell – it is a genre that relies on the ‘water cooler’ factor; though it could be argued that the tired old water cooler has now been replaced by Twitter, Facebook et al. In short, your video needs to get people talking; otherwise it will become white noise, a lost and unloved file floating in cyberspace.
Once your video is uploaded you need to let people know that it is there – this is when you can really benefit from a good social media network. You can post links to the video on Twitter or allow blogs to link to your content. If you have eye catching and interesting content, word will spread quickly.
Take care not to overuse video; what you produce needs to have meaning and significance. Viewers are smart – give them information that they can benefit from and mean it. Bombarding them with hastily prepared video clips is a guaranteed turn off.
If internet legend is to be believed, the first ever video posted to YouTube was of a guy talking about elephants. There is no doubt that your business has something far more interesting to say. So, go on, grab a camera and try it out.
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