The U.S. audience watching online video continues to build, hitting a high of 86.5 million Internet users in December 2009, according to marketing research firm comScore. While a good deal of these folks are laughing along with giggly babies and checking out videos from their favorite entertainers, plenty of consumers and businesspeople also are tuning in to how-to demos, product announcements, event keynotes and other types of marketing content.
In a recent Target Marketing Group webinar, "Lights, Camera ... Share and Sell," Doug Garnett, founder and CEO of Atomic Direct, a Portland, Ore., full-service DRTV agency, and Gary Lombardo, director of product marketing at Brightcove, a provider of on-demand video marketing solutions with headquarters in Cambridge, Mass., shared their insights on not only how to engage prospects and customers with video content but also how to use social media channels to distribute these messages.
A few ideas to consider:
- Review your video archives, looking for material that's still pertinent to your current products and services. Be prepared to edit out any content that's outmoded and not useful to the audience, says Garnett, such as long animated logo openings. Social media users have no patience for content that doesn't get right to the point.
- Length is relative to the value of the information being offered, Garnett explains. It might take an instructor 10 minutes to demonstrate a dessert recipe from a cookbook offered on a publisher's Web site, while a marketer of Mediterranean cruises might break its videos into shorter, highlight-driven spots.
- Lead with messaging that sounds both interesting and possible, say Garnett, since people will give you just 10 to 15 seconds to make your case before clicking away.
- Remember to post video content to all aspects of Facebook, says Lombardo, including status updates and features on fan pages and groups. With Twitter, marketers can point back to videos hosted on their sites or use Twitter video-sharing applications like Vidly, Twiddeo and TwitVid, among others.
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