Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

YouTube has released a cluster of new products designed to help small businesses and first-time video advertisers record and publish videos in a bid to broaden the pool of potential media buyers using the online video service.

The quality of the resulting ads is, of course, largely dependent on the performances given by the people in it. And getting potential customers to see such an ad is another challenge altogether, but the basic production tools have been provided for free....

Over recent years, the criteria for engagement on social media has evolved from announcing your brand or product to finding a way to tell a story.

Quality branded video campaigns allow companies to project said story in some really creative and unique ways. Whether you're spreading brand awareness, announcing a new product, or launching a company, great branded video makes customers feel an emotional connection. And that emotional reaction can be really powerful.

In fact, a recent survey by eZanga found that 30% of respondents were less likely to skip video content if it was humorous. And research by Dr. Karen Nelson-Field found that 65% of videos that elicited a feeling of exhilaration were most remembered.

When it comes to finding the right platform to promote your video, Facebook is a strong contender. In fact, just this past January it announced that platform now sees 100 million hours of daily video watch time. So to help inspire your video marketing efforts on Facebook, I put together a list of 10 clever examples from brands like Apple, LG, BMW, and more. Check them out below....

Looking for ways to connect with your audience?

Telling stories with video increases engagement, triggers social sharing and gives people a reason to talk about you online and offline.

In this article I’ll highlight eight ways to combine storytelling, video and social media....

Thanks to the growth of platforms like YouTube, Vine, and Vimeo, video is becoming an increasingly effective marketing channel. With 90% of online customers finding videos helpful during the decision-making process, their importance even extends as far as sales qualification and conversion.

To help you pin down your strategy, I’ve looked at 6 examples of perfect B2B video marketing. These businesses have mastered the art and created unique videos that showcase their brand’s value, personality, and sometimes, awesome sense of humor!...

The efficacy of using videos in online marketing has long been known to digital marketers. Video content has come to dominate the web and, with it, the nature and focus of many a big brand’s marketing strategy. The power of video to increase the reach of businesses, build brand identity, boost social followings and secure valuable new leads is becoming plain to all and sundry.

Yet, despite this universal acclaim for video (something that can be seen through rising budget spend on video), there is still a huge amount of confusion as to exactly how it is helping businesses achieve their aims. Perhaps a lot of the confusion comes down to the slippery and often misleading nature of video marketing data and with it a difficulty in pinning down a reliable idea of ROI.

In this article for Search Engine People, I want to look at ten video marketing metrics and how they can be used to establish ROI. First though, let’s take a look at the importance of goal setting.

In an effort to get to the bottom of what makes videos successful on social media, we set out to answer two not-so-simple questions: Where does video perform best? In what format does video perform best?

RWhat we found is that there are so many ways to go about it! Video format, length, content, captions, and graphics (to name a few) all play a big part in the success of your video content.

But one stat really stood out to us: Square video (1:1) takes up 78% more real estate in a person’smobile newsfeed than does landscape video (16:9).

That’s a lot of space! And with mobile content consumption on a dramatic rise, this felt like something we had to get to the bottom of....

Producing quality videos for your ecommerce site is hard, we know. Equipment is expensive, and specialists who know how to use that equipment cost even more. For that very reason, many ecommerce businesses will settle for photos and graphics just to get the job done.

These six statistics show that video might just be an investment worth making. Sure, you’ll have to dig a little deeper into those pockets at first, but the results will return more than you dreamed....

Instead of tapping photos of shoe styles on retail mobile apps, imagine being able to pinch, swipe and tap to view the product in a 360-degree, interactive environment. Such experiences could soon be the norm on mobile, thanks to new technology enabling 360-degree immersive experiences.

In a nutshell, 360-degree video is video filmed in a complete, 360-degree panorama by using a special camera with multiple lenses. Users can click and drag inside the video to pan the perspective, allowing them to view the content from essentially any angle.

Several stunning examples of the technology are available on YouTube—but support is only available for desktop Chrome and Android devices. Users can pan around a hot air balloon in mid-flight for beautiful views, swim with the dolphins with GoPro, or experience a front-row seat on Saturday Night Live....

Thanks to the ongoing advancements of technology, creating a high quality video is no longer an expensive or arduous process. In fact, it has become a common form of content marketing used by PR professionals.

Not only are videos incredibly engaging they are also far more efficient at transmitting information than either text or images. The numbers speak for themselves:

• By 2016, video user numbers are expected to double to 1.5 billion
• Online video traffic will make up 55 percent of consumer traffic by 2016
• YouTube has more than 1 billion unique visits per month
• 76 percent of marketers and PR professionals plan to add videos to their site....

What if we stopped trying quite so hard with our video content marketing? What if we just told our true stories honestly and simply, and with empathy for the very real problems our customers have? 

A video from a tiny Arizona startup busts some common myths about using video as part of a content marketing program. There are three other things to love about it, too....