Written by Lesa Seibert | 07 July 2010
Posted in Multimedia Tip of the Week

by Lesa Seibert, President, Xstreme Media

Are you scared to create a web video?  Do you cringe at the thought of starting the process?  Never fear, we are here. 

People ask why they should use video on their website.  The answer is because it is very highly persuasive, can represent you or your product much better than a static photo and people like them.  A nice video can deliver your message that will engage your viewer much better than any text or photo can.  Some successful videos can attract hundreds or thousands of new visitors to your site, many of whom will buy products or services recommended to them in the video.  It works for any industry. 

The main key to creating an effective web video is to plan it out.  Most people just jump in and end up with something less than desirable.  Here is a simple 10-step process to create an effective web video:

1. Decide on the primary objective of the video.  Is it selling a product or service?  Is it to educate?  Is it a demonstration?  It mus have a single purpose or your audience will get confused.
2. Who is your target audience?  Make the video with them and their needs in mind.  A children's video would be much different than a video targeted at housewives.
3. Decide how to present the topic.  Will it be dramatic or humorous, lively or factual?  Will there be a presenter or off-screen narrator?  Try to get a balance of facts and emotion.
4. Plan the structure of the video - beginning, middle and end.  Introduction to grab their attention, middle with info an facts, and end a call to action.
5. Decide on the best length for your message.  Try to use the shortest possible time frame.
6. Decide who will own the project to make sure it is completed on time and on budget.
7. Set a deadline for completion, even if you are doing it yourself.
8. Research and get information and items to use in your video - photos, logos, graphic, etc.
9. Write your script.
10. Now it's time to record.  Find a good setting with good lighting or go to a studio.

Being prepared when you decide to do a web video will save you lots of hours of frustration and headaches and ensure you get a finished product you are happy with.

Written by Lesa Seibert | 30 June 2010
Posted in Multimedia Tip of the Week

by Lesa Seibert, President, Xstreme Media

The Internet is starting to fill with podcasts, audio files, video files and all sorts of multimedia content.  There is only one problem, search engines cant see or hear.  Since their appearance on the Internet, none of these formats contribute to a page's search rankings. That is because search engines are text engines.  Everything they index and follow is text - they can't see pictures, they can't see videos and they can't hear audio.  But, things are changing. 

Search engines are better than ever at indexing multimedia, if it is optimized properly.  From Flash elements, to presentations and soon spoken words in videos.  We will look at how things are changing in the online world of multimedia optimization in this two-part series.

The first format we will discuss are Flash and Flash video files.  Flash has always been discouraged because of the inability to index in search engines.  Things are changing, though.  Adobe released specific Flash code to Google and Yahoo! in 2008, which gave them the ability to index the content but not the images in Flash files.  According to Google's Webmaster Central blog: 

"We've improved our ability to index textual content in SWF files of all kinds.  This includes Flash "gadgets" such as buttons or menus, self-contained Flash websites and everything in between. [We can index] all of the text that users can see as they interact with your Flash file.  Also, the words that appear in your Flash files can be used to match query terms in Google searches.  [However], placing the text within an image will make it effectively invisible to us.  We do not index FLV files, such as the videos that play on YouTube, because these files contain no text elements."

When you optimize a Flash file for the Internet, it is important to understand what can and can't be read by the search engines.  The following items are those elements that can be read by the search engines:

• Titles of Flash presentations
• On-screen content
• Banner content
• Menu words
• Button labels
• Other forms of text

Text is the key word here.  If you can read it and it is visible then the chances are good that the search engines can now index that content.  If you have never optimized your Flash files, it is the best time to do that to make sure that search engine friendly text is included.

In part II of our discussion, we will look at video optimization.

*Resource - Website Magazine, March 2010

Written by Xstreme Media | 02 June 2010
Posted in Multimedia Tip of the Week

by Lesa Seibert, President, Xstreme Media

TubeMogul has become the video content distribution service of choice for more than 125,000 people/businesses including NASA and the White House.

Users upload video to TubeMogul and then choose to distribute it to the top viewing sites while getting detailed analytics for those videos.  The service is free for up to 100 videos per month.
 
Detailed analysis that is available for your videos includes:

• total views
• actual watched minutes of each video
• how many times and where the video was imbedded
• keywords searched to find the video
• comments on videos

A paid version of TubeMogul is also available that includes detailed analytics, automated distirbution through video feeds, a developer API, data feeds and the ability to upload more than 100 videos per month.

Features included with the Free version of TubeMogul inlcude:

• Automatically update your status on Facebook and Twitter with a link to your video as soon as it goes live. The status update/tweet will read: "VIDEO: [Video Title] [Link]."
• At the click of a button, submit your videos to social bookmarking sites and content recommendation engines such as StumbleUpon, Reddit, Spurl, and more.  
• With Destinations, media companies and content creators can easily create and automate customized video distribution venues. TubeMogul will ingest video files, automatically transcode the files to fit any site's technical specifications and then distribute the results within seconds. Transcoding settings for iTunes is built into the product and other outlets are easy to set up. This opens up thousands of possibilities for publishers, allowing automated distribution to niche video sites, custom FTP sites, content delivery networks (i.e. Edgecast), cable outlets (i.e. Comcast On-Demand) and many more.
• Choose a frame from your video to be the thumbnail image. This feature is available for all sites that allow thumbnail customization.
• See which blogs and websites are linking to your videos according to sites like Technorati, Google and Digg. Know how remarkable your content really is!

TubeMogul is work checking out if you put video content on the web.

  

Written by Xstreme Media | 27 May 2010
Posted in Multimedia Tip of the Week

by Lesa Seibert, President, Xstreme Media

Your company probably is not ready for video advertising, but it is certainly ready for you.  It can be intimdating as Vizi Zigler, President of NBC Universal once said, "Trying to understand online video is like taking a Polaroid of a moving train.  It's a blur."  It is a fast-moving opportunity, but one that you can tame.

Proponents of video advertising believe video advertising is the future of content.  According to comScore, video is larger than search with 33 billion video views versus 15 billion searches per month.  US consumers watch an average of 12.71 hours of video per month.  eMarket notes that by 2013 it be a $4 billion market.

Online video advertising provides a targeted, measurable and real-time means to drive important performance metrics: impressions, video starts, completions and acutal conversions.  Some video advertising networks you might consider are:

Google:  Google's YouTube is the second largest search engine next to Google itself.  You can also participate in Google's InVideo ads and on the Google Content Network.  Clcik-to-play video ads are also available along with Google Gadget Ads. 

YuMe: This video advertising network uses it's ad management platform, ACE, to give publishers and advertisers teh ability to identify, calssify and track content.  It is the first cross-platform ad solution with the ability to server multiple ad formats and placements through a single, unified system.

SpotXchange: Performance based video advertising.  They offer traditional video overlays, video banners and pre-roll and pre-game video ads accompanied by baner ads. 

VidShout: Advertisers can create videos by uploading images or their own videos, add taglines, choose music, upload voice files and include transition effects, then automate the development of landing pages and syndicate the video on more than 60 sites all while getting activity and lead reports.