Tech public relations firm Softscribe launched its Video Email Snacks social media product, aiming to help its clients reach out more effectively to key audiences. The video emails are essentially just brief personal messages from a company executive that can address or link to more in-depth material. There is no new technology here, however, so there's nothing really to get excited about, other than the idea of sending video email itself. Unfortunately, no real guidance was offered on how to make that happen.

There is some value in video and video email, I suppose: educating consumers quickly (diffiult concepts as well), establishing tighter client bonds, driving clients to existing content on forums or social media sites, etc. SoftScribe managed to develop an example ("Twitter - Are Your Customers There Without You") which is worth a look, but in the end it's little more than a video and most serious marketers have been leveraging that platform for many years.

"Video Email Snacks are short, entertaining, high value 'face mails' that a viewer can access at the best time for them during their day," said Michael Squires, president of Softscribe Inc., which provides marketing and communications programs for green tourism and hospitality, green government and related markets. "It works. In a case study on how to add video to an email, Marketing Sherpa reports up to a 25% jump in conversions."