October 14th, 2009 at 10:20 am
Are you one of those millions out there hooked on the viral video craze? This article describes the opportunities that viral videos offer to internet marketers.
It’s actually just like a disease. It’s already more of an epidemic rapidly spreading over the cyberspace. Despite the many worries of this world, people just can’t seem to stay away from video clips of people doing typically nonsensical things. People can’t seem to keep their fascinated eyes off the wildest and oddest videos available. People certainly can’t resist passing on these ‘nonsensical’ videos to other people by posting these videos in their personal homepages, other websites and emailing them to their friends.
You may have noticed, even night shows and morning news shows feature some of these viral videos. Usually they put on air the most watched viral video online, particularly videos that were most rated and viewed at YouTube. These videos’ main value comes from being truly odd and wild that people just can’t help but laugh when they see them. Some people just get carried away by the hype and even if they didn’t think the video was as funny as some people think they are, they keep their opinions to themselves, laugh with the rest and pass on the video to others.
Viral videos are truly catching, and internet marketers have definitely seen the potential of these viral videos in spreading their marketing message around. It so happens that web sites hosting these viral videos have grown much in popularity. Thus, internet marketers are now using videos extensively in their marketing strategies. You, too, can take advantage of the viral video craze. Just follow these simple steps.
— Using Viral Videos in Internet Marketing
1. Make Your Own Viral Video
You have to make your own video to post at YouTube, at your website, at your online blog, and anywhere else in the internet. However, you must remember that viral videos have certain factor that makes them irresistible. This is what you should keep in mind when you make your viral video.
For instance, you can make a commercial concerning your product. The video clip must be short so that they’re easy to download and view. However, the commercial has to be distinctly funny and unique so it can go the rounds of effective viral videos. Just look around at YouTube and find the most-viewed clips there. Those are the types of videos that make the viral rounds. You must therefore pattern your video clip after these videos.
Do not post a perfectly normal video commercial online if you wish these videos to have some viral effect. Do not wax lyrical about your product in your video. In other words, don’t make it look like a perfectly typical infomercial. Perfectly normal video clips just don’t spread and they’re not going to be effective in marketing your products or increasing traffic to your site.
2. Become a member of video blogging networks
Uppermost in your list of sites to join is, of course, YouTube. However, there are other video blogging sites in the internet. Look around. You must also make it a point to post some of these videos in your site and blogs.
3. Post your viral video and make some more
After you have posted your initial viral video and people seem to have picked it up, then you should immediately follow up with more such videos. Do not let your followers’ attention wane from you, keep them entertained and keep them supplied with more viral videos. This way, you are going to have a loyal following of persons who will eagerly wait for your videos.
July 29th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
Viral video marketing is often used as a way to promote a site because it’s fairly simple to accomplish when compared to other mediums such as direct mailing, pay per click ads, or search engine marketing. Viral Video Marketing is far more cost effective than direct mailing or pay per click marketing.
Initially, one needs to create the Initial Buzz, which can be a little difficult and requires some creativity. Attracting a target audience is where viral video marketing excels. It is known for generating a high, fast response rate because the message is passed to others through the customers who enjoyed the videos.
Strategies that will help you in your Viral Video Marketing Campaigns:
1. One must provide an element of surprise, humor, or an educational aspect to your videos so that people will want to show it to their friends, which will make it viral. Personally, I have emailed some video ads to my friends because the ads were funny or informative. I later discovered that my friends also sent these videos to their friends and made it more viral. Can you imagine the power of this? If you can create this kind of viral aspect in your videos then you have a potential goldmine.
Filming videos can be fun, but they require a lot of time, effort and creativity to make them compelling, entertaining or different in some way to rise above the competition to be shared by others. Nobody wants to have a boring, low quality video on their website.
2. Allow people to use your videos on their web sites. This will help you to gain a lot of links pointing to your website which will increase your link popularity and help with Brand Recognition. You can reach a much broader audience than you could have ever done on your own using this technique.
3. Create a blog on a website and add videos and images on a continual basis to create a viral video marketing campaign. This strategy has been used by many video game marketers with great success and helps to create brand awareness. Providing information on these topics will also keep audiences hungry for more.
Viral Video Marketing as a way to promote your site is highly effective with minimal costs compared to many other advertising methods. Apply these strategies to your viral video marketing campaigns and watch your business grow quickly which will also enable you to compete with some of the big name marketers.
April 1st, 2009 at 12:00 am
Videos are a fun, easy way to market your business. Sure, there are dozens and dozens of other marketing strategies from article writing to blogging, from press releases to podcasting. But nothing says “cool, connection, and creative” like a video.
More and more businesses of all sizes are making videos about their companies. They’re not only posting them on their websites, but they’re adding them to their blogs. To gain global 24/7 visibility, videos are posted to dozens of video-sharing sites like YouTube and Google Video. And why not – it’s free, easy-to-do, and can have a significant impact, in some cases, on the traffic it drives to your website.
There are many more reasons why videos are a great way to market your business.
- Quick and easy. Basic videos can be quick and easy to make. If you add special effects, complex scripting and audio, callouts, and other interactivity, a short, but near perfect quality 2 to 3 minute video might take 10 more hours to produce. But perfection isn’t necessary for a video to produce the results you want. With the high-quality software available nowadays, you’ll be surprised at what you can do with even a little bit of training. You can develop a simple video in less than 30 minutes.
- Videos are time-shifted. This means that anyone can view your video when it’s convenient for them. Someone can watch your video at 8:15 a.m. in the morning just as easily as they can watch it at 9:07 p.m. at night.
- Videos are place-shifted. Videos can be viewed wherever you want. Videos can be viewed on the web, on a DVD or on a portable device like your phone or iPod. This added convenience makes video an even more attractive way to communicate with your target audience.
- Videos enjoy a wide distribution channel. Videos by their very nature are easy to “package” which makes them easy to slot into a variety of different distribution channels. You can post them on your website or blog, you can load them into your computer and run them over and over at a tradeshow event. You can post them to dozens and dozens of online video-sharing sites. You can burn them on CDs and give them away or sell them. You can even send them via email.
- Videos can be viral. Viral videos are those which are so fascinating that viewers feel compelled to forward them to others. They blog about them, write about them in the print media, and feature them on radio and television. A viral video can literally be spread across the world and viewed by millions within a matter of hours.
- Videos are fun to create. Nothing is more empowering than working through and producing your very first video about your business. Using the right software and going through a little bit of high-quality training, you’ll have everything you need to know to get started. The more of them you make, the easier and faster the development process will become.
- Videos are a great way to communicate. As our sophistication with technology changes, so do the ways in which people like to interact with others. Most people are visually oriented meaning that is how they best understand and interact with their world. This makes videos the perfect marketing strategy to communicate with today’s consumer.
- Videos are all about Web 2.0. Web 2.0 is the latest “version of the web.” It’s about how developers and users are interacting with today’s web platform. This new generation is all about connection and community – including web-based communities, social-networking sites, blogging, podcasting and anything that has to do with facilitating collaboration.
These are just some of the many reasons why videos might be a great way to market your business. Learn more about this area to see how you might leverage your time, money, and energy to communicate with your target market in a new and interesting way.
