'Net Features : video production

Overcoming the Video Hurdle with BizVision

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 20:35:00 GMT

One of the big problems with marketing through a content asset like video is that you have to actually create the video.

Of course, there's a segment of the digitial media population that is pretty good at that, and you'd be wise to consider tapping into their skillset whenever you can (as opposed to doing it yourself). Fortunately, there is at least one service we've come across that can make that virtual dream a reality.

BizVision, a provider of video-powered online training and professional education services, has announced the availability of a network of professional videographers, trained to provide webcasting and video streaming services on the company's cloud-based video solution. Problem solved!

BizVision provides the infrastructure to stream or record conferences, events and training sessions anywhere and last year alone managed more than 10,000 hours of video webcast events. By organizing these video professionals, BizVision is poised to not only give thousands of video professionals and webcasting technicians some additional work, but make the process of video production for brands all the easier.

With online video established as a preferred medium for distance education and training, BizVision's services and solutions have been optimized for companies and professional organizations that need to enlist only periodic help from video and webcast teams for mandated trainings and professional development, as well as other presentations.

"By being able to provide local production resources in all 50 states, our videographer network helps our clients overcome what has traditionally been a major hurdle in remote video webcasting and recording," said Rob Chipman, founder, president and CEO of BizVision. "Our internal video production expertise has enabled us to fully grasp the intricacies of webcasting and multiply the effectiveness and revenue of our clients. As video has fast become a valuable medium for communication and online learning, we have streamlined the cost and process of capturing live learning events to provide organizations with a single solution."

Video Production Guide for Merchants

Linc Wonham — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 20:30:00 GMT

You may be an expert in ecommerce. You might also know all the latest design trends and everything there is to know about SEO. However, what do you know about video?

The eTailing Group reported that in 2010, 73 percent of online retailers used video on their product pages. This is up from 55 percent in 2009 and only 20 percent in 2005. According to eMarketer, 74 percent of the top 50 retailers use product videos; 40 percent use category videos, and 38 percent use other types of informational videos.

Web video is no longer “a nice to have” feature for an online business, it has become an essential. It is now one of the most effective sales tools for ecommerce companies and all online marketers.

“Customers respond to video because it provides an effortless way for them to make product decisions,” says James Booker, business development manager at shopping cart software provider Volusion. “Instead of looking through multiple images and scrolling through several bullet points of specs and technical requirements, shoppers receive valuable information all in one place.”

So, how do you make a good video? For starters, understand that producing an effective online video is not too difficult – as long as you remember a few simple guidelines.

Keep it simple and keep it short
Most Web users have a limited attention span, especially for an introduction to your product and/or service. Effective online videos are short – maybe two to six minutes at the maximum. If the video covers a complicated subject, break the video into a series of shorter ones. This is especially true for instructional or “how to assemble the product” types of videos.

Simple means keep the frame uncluttered. Shoot your video with a plain background – maybe a light-colored pastel wall decorated only with your logo. You don’t need fancy backgrounds and camera moves. The simpler the stage, the better the video will look.

When you are in the editing phase, stay with the same concept – simplicity. You don’t need fancy wipes and dissolves. Stay with cuts only and maybe a quick fade-in at the beginning and a fade-out at the end. The only effect we recommend is using captions and subtitles – superimposed text to reinforce the message and to explain the product and services.

If you are anticipating doing a series of videos, you may want to create a standard video intro and title section for the business. Keep it short. I have seen standard intros that went on for 30 seconds, 60 seconds, or longer. Not good. Keep the intro short.

You may also want to create a standard program “outro” – a credits section that includes contact info – the business’ email address, website and phone number so that potential customers can contact the business and buy your stuff.

Another good tip is to superimpose the businesses logo and website address on the bottom right of the video throughout the entire piece. Not only does this reinforce the marketing message, it makes it more difficult for a competitor to steal or co-opt the video.

Make the video and audio look good and sound clear
You don’t need the most high-resolution video or the highest bit-rate audio. The video just has to look clean and the audio has to be clear without break-ups or noise. That is not hard to do with today’s gear that is completely affordable.

Almost any high-end HD camcorder or video camera will work; the major selection factor is to make sure it has an audio-in jack so that you can add an external microphone. The built-in mikes found embedded in many entry-level camcorders are not very good. Usually, they are omnidirectional mikes that capture sound from many directions. Instead, it is preferred to use a unidirectional microphone – one that captures sound from the direction in which it is pointed.

This can be a shotgun mike mounted on the camcorder, a boom mike held over the talent’s head, a mike held in their hand or even a small lavaliere mike pinned to their lapel. All will work better than the inexpensive mike built into most camcorders.

Both wired and wireless types of microphones are good. Wireless is often slightly more expensive but provides much more freedom to move around. Either way, make sure the batteries in the mike are fresh and try to have someone monitoring the audio via headphones while recording. It is much, much easier to fix an audio problem while recording than to later try to repair it in the editing process.

To get good-looking video, follow these two suggestions:

- Use lots of light. Yes, modern-day camcorders can almost shoot in the dark, but by adding an extra video light or two, the resulting captured image will be noticeably sharper and cleaner.

- Use a tripod and don’t move the camera around. Unless you are doing some kind of music, dance or sports video, there is not much reason to move the camcorder or handhold it. By using a tripod, not only will the video look a lot more professional, the camcorder and editing electronics will have an easier time of compressing the video for Web distribution. Similarly, it is not a good practice to zoom in and out. Cut from a wide shot to a close-up if you need to show details – don’t zoom. Live-on camera zooms are the mark of a true amateur.

The video has been shot and edited – now what?
Depending on how much traffic you expect to get, and how professional you want the video player to look, you can create a video player and host the video yourself or use a video-hosting service. One option is to stick it on YouTube or another public site and then embed the video into the HTML. However, for the best customer experience, the highest-quality playback and the ability to create a video player that matches the site’s look and feel, you ought to use a professional online video platform.

In addition to handling compression options and bandwidth costs, an OVP enables customization of the video player’s look and feel, its dimensions and even its shape. Many platforms enable the post-production addition of captions and other capabilities that will improve the overall shopper experience.

“The major advantage of using Web video to market products is that it transforms an otherwise stagnant product image into a moving, engaging sales tool,” says Booker. “Whereas in a retail store there are sales clerks to demonstrate the product and answer questions, online video can take that very role by showing online shoppers how the product can be used and, more importantly, demonstrate benefits that are impossible to portray through mere product images or descriptions.”

About the author: Ian Snead leads the marketing strategy and product focus for online video platform vzaar. The company has positioned itself as a professional video-hosting service providing a low-cost service with an easy-to-use interface and serves over 1,500 companies worldwide.

Big Upgrades for Sorenson Online Video Platform

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 03:15:00 GMT

Video is not the next big thing, it's the new big thing.

Sorenson Media's online video platform has a few new features worth mentioning including full video player compatability, WebM support, Facebook integration, automated video sitemaps, closed captioning support and a direct integration with Sorenson's Squeeze server.

“With more video formats and players than ever before, customers demand choice and control. We designed this new feature to give them both, without sacrificing the ease of use for what is already the most intuitive and highest-quality OVP on the market,” said Eric Quanstrom, COO of Sorenson Media. “With these enhancements, users benefit not only with from full integration with social media tools and the industry-best Squeeze encoding engine, but also from Sorenson 360’s unique mix of comprehensive advantages.”

Users can now choose from all major video players (Flash, Quicktime, HTML5 and Silverlight) and publish video in the most popular formats, including Flash (Spark and VP6), MPEG-4 (H.264), WebM and Windows Media (VC1). Sorenson 360 supports WebM encoding and playback for users interested in creating Web environments using HTML5. The ability to automate the creation of Video Sitemaps for the purpose of SEO is another of the more marketer friendly features of the platform and something that will be most appealing to agencies.

Social and video of course go hand in hand and Sorenson has got something for that community in Facebook Integration. The video player now includes an Facebook sharing button on the video player giving users the ability to post their video along with comments directly to their Facebook accounts

Developing Web Video for Profit

Mike Phillips — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 21:30:00 GMT

In a recent online study*, Elastic Path found that people are watching large amounts of video online and on an increasing variety of devices – no surprise there. But the study also finds that viewers are also starting to warm up to the idea of paying for online video. That’s very good news. Creating and marketing online video can be a costly and time-consuming endeavor. It’s time to make those videos earn.

YouTube is, as expected, far and away the leader in the online video space with 81 percent of respondents claiming to have used YouTube in the last 12 months. However, 34 percent used Netflix and 19 percent used iTunes/Apple TV – both paid services. Even more encouraging, 43 percent of total viewers in the survey actually paid to watch online video (excluding adult content).

The reasons given for paying for online video content include:

To gain access to videos that I want to watch when I want to watch them (56%)
It was cheaper than alternatives (cable/satellite TV, DVD, etc.) (32%)
I wanted to avoid watching advertisements (31%)
To gain access to exclusive content that is not available on other media like TV or DVD (23%)
The content/service was recommended by a friend, colleague, etc. (16%)

While the first two reasons likely apply to categories such as TV shows or movies, the last few reasons are particularly intriguing. Essentially, it shows that paid online video content is not the exclusive domain of the Hollywood producer community.

Also encouraging is that 35 percent of respondents have already paid or would consider paying for an online short film, while 34 percent said the same about instructional or how-to videos. The clear leader for paid content is, of course, full-length movies (75%) followed by TV show/show segments (39%). But if you consider the broad scope of short films and instructional videos, plenty of opportunity exists for Web professionals to actually charge for some online video content. Think of the example of Kindle Singles; Amazon’s latest paid content offering featuring 5,000-30,000 word e-books priced anywhere from $0.99 to $3.99. Surely, many of those are of the instructional and short story variety. Might the same model work with video?

Leading the way in online video that respondents claim they will never pay for include non-professional or user-generated videos (84%) – a healthy reminder that every video a business produces should be of the absolute highest quality possible. Faring no better, 84 percent said they would never pay for online video of news or current events.

For those who have the resources, audience and creativity to create paid video content, things are looking good. Of course, this does not apply to most Web business owners. But consider this: 71 percent of the survey respondents say they would be willing to watch embedded advertisements if it meant they could watch premium content for free. The key phrase of course is “premium content.” There is no reason a business cannot package video as premium content then freely embed advertising (at a premium, of course) in the video. On the other end, 56 percent of those surveyed said they would likely pay extra to watch video without ads – so, if your content is popular, your “premium content” channel is the one without advertising.

Below are a few more ways to use video to generate revenue:

Create landing pages for your videos. You don’t need to sell anything directly in the video, but create specific landing pages relevant to the videos’ content. This way, you keep the viewer in the same frame of mind from the video to the website, and closer to the goal set forth – whether that’s a sale, a sign-up or a download.

Consider a paid advertisement linked to your video. Sure, this will cost money in the short term. But if you have some really compelling content (perhaps an exclusive how-to) or just need to make a splash announcing your company and services, this is a good option. The market is crowded – getting your video widely seen is imperative to the end goal for which the video was produced.

Include a coupon or special promotion code in the video. Coupons and daily deals are all the rage right now. Take advantage of this. Have you made a video explaining your product’s new features? Get a coupon code in the video so the viewer can act on his impulse. Also, this gives viewers a good reason to subscribe to your video feed.

*The study polled 1,005 U.S. adults over the age of 18 who had downloaded or watched online video at least once in the previous 12 months. More than half (53%) had watched or downloaded online video at least once per week. The most active online video viewers are 18 to 34 year olds, with 63 percent saying they watch weekly or more.