Top Reasons for Using Online Video

Here are some top reasons for using online video. Let me know if you have some additional reasons.

Reach – The current popularity of online video is obvious to most out there, with YouTube passing 100 million users at the beginning of 2009. Cisco’s report: Approaching the Zettabyte Era says, “Internet video alone will account for nearly 50 percent of all consumer Internet traffic in 2012,” and that, “YouTube is just the beginning. Online video will Experience three waves of growth.” We’re just in the initial stage, the third (video communications) not coming until sometime after 2015. But the reach is there now and will only grow.

Free Advertising

– Video is an excellent way to advertise a product or service. Adding your own video advertisements to your site or your partners and affiates sites is a great way to advertise using an effective visual medium for no (or very little) cost through sites you have relationships with.

Trackable Metrics – Whether deploying an informational video or advertisement, you want to know, at least, how many views its had. However, now video players are more sophisticated and offer metrics on demographics, most played portion of video, repeat views, shared (and where) and more. This can really help fine-tune a message or ad campaign.

Affordable – Creating online video is now not only relatively easy but the cost of entry is very low. HD camcorders are available for only a few hundred dollars. Webcam quality is now good enough to use on blogs. Software is more affordable than ever. Check this video software review for more information on inexpensive options.

Social Media friendly – Social Media (besides video <wink>) is the hottest thing going on the web today. Thousands of Twitter accounts are added each day. Facebook is still hot. And you can use video with both. With Facebook you can either embed a video in a post or link to video on, for example, YouTube. There are a new Twitter-related video providers popping up each day. A few to check are Twiddeo, Twitvid and Twitube.

Interactive – Interactive video is hot and a great player to check out is Veeple. You can see it in action on my homepage. Drive viewers to deep web links by providing hotspot links in the video. The view simply hovers the mouse over items or people as they appear, the video pauses while a description is reviews and then the viewer can either continue with the video or open a new webpage to learn more (and possibly make a purchase). And, this is all trackable. More players are on the way. It will be fun to watch the features explode.

Expectations – With broadband saturation reaching over 50% site visitors expect to view video on sites they visit. If the site doesn’t have a video related to what they sell or service they provide, another provider might (bye-bye viewer) or the view will go check YouTube. It’s time to jump in and create product demos and service explanations or testimonials on video and the embed them in your site. You should also create a YouTube (at minimum) account to post videos to.

Advertising Revenue – Some new video players offer the option of displaying advertisements in the player. Check out the JW Media Player as one idea. They might appear at the top of the player or embedded at the bottom quarter or third of the video and then fade out. This gives the video owner the opportunity to make some money while their video is getting views. This works best if the advertisements are related in some way to the content of the video. Research the players to see how they determine ad placement and if the payout is worth it.

Multiple Uses – news and announcements, product demos, partnerships, opinion/commentary, spoofs, case studies, presentations, video library, etc.

Targeted Communities – Social media, online communities and forums, YouTube… there are a lot of ways to get your video seen by the right people. There are too many specific techniques to mention in this post but if you do some searching I guarentee you’ll find a method that suits your timing, budget and style.