Options for incorporating video into your Powerpoint presentations
Powerpoint is a bit like Marmite. You either love it or hate it. However, the same person can love Powerpoint one day and hate it the next - because it all depends on who has put the presentation together and how they present it.
An innovative way to make the most of Powerpoint is to use video to enhance the visual potential of the medium. There are a number of different ways that you can use video to make a presentation more engaging. Here are some of our favourite ideas.
Using video in your face-to-face Powerpoint presentations
If you use Powerpoint to deliver presentations at meetings or conferences, there are ways that you can use video to liven up your visual aid. Your other option is to completely waste the opportunity and use Powerpoint to display a list of bullet points (you know exactly what I…
An overview of the options available for TrueView YouTube advertising
AdWords for video allows you to advertise in a similar way to the traditional TV advert - your advert can be displayed on a video before, during or after it or in the Youtube and Google Display Network search listings. The big bonus is that you don’t have to pay unless someone watches your entire advert. Adwords has been innovating a lot over the last year or so with its TrueView ads now available in a range of formats on mobile (from August 2012):
YouTube have also recently produced the ‘Advertiser Playbook’. It is a detailed guide (122 pages) to using YouTube and AdWords and includes the latest (2012) best practice information and strategies for building big audiences on YouTube and increasing traffic to your website.…
8 top tips and examples of producing great low cost video from scratch
If you are new to marketing with video, starting simple could be the key.
Throughout the process of creating less expensive and less challenging video content, you will learn the ropes and be inspired to build upon the basics.
The learning process will generate ideas that will contribute to developing a more thought-through video marketing strategy; putting you in the position of being able to justify bigger budgets in the future.
Examples of successful video using a bootstrapping approach
Here are some great examples showing just how effective low cost videos can be.......
This example shows screencasting in action - as well as showing you how to use Screenflow as a tool for yourself!:
The production of this video animation was definitely not inexpensive. However, it shows how mobile phones can produce great results:
Finally, this video…
Explainer videos for marketing story telling
I'm writing this post about explainer videos since we've just created a new explainer for Smart Insights, which you can see below. At the same time I thought it was worth showing how you could use explainer videos in your own marketing.
Here's our new explainer video created by First 10 Digital, it's part product description and part brand story telling since we wanted to give potential new users a flavour of why we exist.
We hope it works in conveying what we're about?
The king of content marketing?
They're a major tool amongst all the content marketing options. Some might argue Explainer's are the tool in the content marketing toolkbox. They offer a way to capture and hold the user's attention, and communicate…
A tutorial and examples of adding captions and subtitles to videos
In the past, there were four main things that needed your attention in order to optimise your online videos for search engines; video title, description, category and tags. These things still apply but now there is another really useful tool. Closed captioning means that the content of your video is available in written word format which is something that search engines can read and identify.
What is closed captioning?
Closed captioning is the process of displaying text on a screen (e.g. on a TV programme or online video) to provide additional information to what is already being presented.
The reason it is termed ‘closed’ captioning is that only viewers who choose to activate them will see them. ‘Open’ captions are visible to all viewers.
Some people use the terms ‘captions’ and ‘subtitles’ interchangeably. However, captions are slightly different as they aim to describe what…
Tips to remember when creating an animated video for your business
In Part 1 I showed some benefits and examples of using animations for online marketing.
In Part 2, I will look at some tips to help make your animations effective for marketing. This is what I've found from the ones that worked well and not so well.
Tip #1 Remember - it’s not live action video. Be imaginative!
One of the benefits of using animation over live action video is you can create something engaging and high impact.You can make things happen that would be outside the realm of a typical corporate video production budget.
Many people approach an animation thinking they will need a main character who talks to the audience about the company in a setting consistent with what the business does. If you want to be this literal, you may as well hire a film crew to do a live…
Boost SEO x53 - and other great reasons to use animation in your marketing
There are all sorts of names for it – explainer videos, corporate video, marketing videos, animated web videos…. cartoons for your company - I prefer to call them animated videos! But, whatever you call them, their popularity in digital marketing strategy is growing.
Once animation was limited to those with massive six figure production budgets, but current technology means you no longer need a big studio or access to television broadcast channels to create and distribute animation.
In theory, anyone can have one written, designed, storyboarded and produced tailored to your marketing needs.
Four major reasons to use animation in your marketing
Increased conversion rates – 64%- 85% of people are more likely to purchase after watching a product video. And, on average, people will stay 2 minutes longer on…
A checklist of 7 questions for the perfect brief
If you have decided to go to a production company to bring your corporate video to life, it is important that you clearly communicate to them what it is you want. You need them to understand your concept and buy into it so that they become as passionate as you are about making a success of the video.
As background, see these examples of B2B corporate videos and different formats compiled by Rene Power.
Based on my experience of what is sometimes missing, here's a checklist of questions that will help you write a great corporate video brief:
1. What’s the purpose of your video?
You need to communicate the goal of your video to the company. Is it to launch or support a specific campaign? Is it an attempt at solving a…
How the ‘7 fascination triggers’ will help viewers engage with your brand
Video is a great new way to communicate your business to the world.
Imagine you have found a great production company to help you create shiny, amazing video content. And you have set a filming date and allocated a reasonable budget to make sure you get it right.
But you have no idea what message you want to get across - or what you’re going to film.
The ‘7 fascination triggers’ is a useful tool to help you work out how best to tailor your strategy to elicit the desired response from your target markets.
So what does it take to be fascinating?
How can you grab your audience’s attention and hold it long enough for your message to be heard loud and clear?
The key, according to Sally Hogshead, is to have an understanding of…
A tutorial on reviewing consumer search behaviour in the 2nd Largest Search Engine in the World
As you'll know, YouTube is the second largest search engine behind Google in many countries. It's the number one ranked entertainment site and 3rd most visited in the UK by Hitwise. Given this and since popular videos are displayed in the "one-box" of blended search results for some queries it's worth investigating how YouTube can be used to reach a wider audience.
In this post I'll give a short tutorial on how to find out it's relevance in your market by finding out the number of searches. I'm not suggesting it will give instant results or as Forrester misguidely advised that it's the Easiest Way to a First-page ranking on Google. It may even help you "push back" against colleagues who are asking why you're not doing more work in YouTube.
It's an enormous site…
