In this episode of Actionable Marketing In Minutes we go over some tips and tools to enhance your video marketing campaign.
Use the player below to listen to this episode, or the download link to load it on your device for listening later. You can also find our RSS feed by clicking here, or subscribe by email in the sidebar to the left.
Download the Social Media Marketing Best Practices Guide here!
Not able to listen? Why not read the episode transcript below:
Problem
We’ve discussed the importance of including videos in your marketing toolkit on other Actionable Marketing in Minutes podcasts. REMEMBER: It’s really important for you to jump into doing this because videos are – hands down – the type of content with the highest reach and fastest growth, thanks in great part to the incredible adoption rate of mobile devices.
But we have not yet touched on how easy making a video can be. As you know, you can film your video with your smartphone, camcorder, or digital camera. But did you know that you can perform all the necessary steps to create your video, edit and upload right from your smartphone? We’ll talk about that some today AND we plan to expand on that topic in an upcoming podcast, so be sure to check back.
Solution
Before we get into the details about some of the top video-building tools, I’d like to point out: Social media marketing is important for all businesses. Yes, even yours…. While this podcast will touch on just one aspect of this subject, I encourage you to download our Social Media Marketing Best Practices Guide for more insights and tips on how to effectively execute social media marketing programs. This ebook gives general guidelines as well as best practices by platform. Click the link in the podcast description to download this actionable guide to social media marketing.
Ok, let’s get back to the tools you might choose to use to build your video content. Once you’ve decided what type of video you want to create – stop motion, time-lapse or standard – and have captured your video, you’ll no doubt want to make a few simple edits.
Both Macs and PCs include free software to help you do this– Windows Movie Maker on PCs and iMovie on the Mac. But, if you want to explore other options, you will find quite a few more that will meet your needs when you do your research… For starters, here are a few of the most popular alternatives.
1. Prezi: allows you to create what is essentially a giant slide presentation and then the software enables you to zoom, pan and fly all around the presentation to create a dynamic feel. This is really good for businesses who want to replace the usual slide deck with something a bit more active and interesting.
2. YouTube Editor: A free tool that’s very convenient if you’re using YouTube to host your videos, since it gives you some nice editing capability right in YouTube. You can also add annotations and transcripts to your videos to make them more SEO friendly.
3. Camtasia: Works both on the PC and Mac, Camtasia is the market leader in the screen capture video world. Screencast videos are a great way to demonstrate how something online works. Some of the features allow you to add focus to areas on your screen, annotations and URLs.
4. Animoto: You can create very professional videos quite easily with this tool that automatically produces beautifully orchestrated, completely unique video pieces from your photos, video clips and music. The secret and limitation to this tool is the constrained set of customization options.
5. Videoshop: This is an inexpensive app that is perfect for small businesses because it is simple, yet fairly robust, in terms of editing, in that you can flexibly add both text overlays and your own audio instead of soundtracks. This is one of my favorites.
6. iMovie App: Very similar options to Videoshop, but some people think it is a bit easier to use.
Benefits
Once you get the opportunity to review your video editing options, you will see first-hand that there are tools available for just about every video idea you have. Some of them take a little more practice than others, but they each have the capacity to help you create the video you envision to get your brand out there and increase your reach.
Remember, now is not too soon to get on the video-production bandwagon. Videos continue to be the fastest growing form of preferred content by online visitors, and this preference is only fueled by the growth in smart phone usage.
We hope you’ve found this information helpful. Please connect with us on Twitter @DirectiveGroup or on LinkedIn. Let us know what you think and what you’d like to hear about next. And if you like our podcasts, please share with your networks using hashtag #actionablemarketing. Join us next time for more actionable marketing in minutes.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 6:44 — ) | Embed