Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Being your own movie director

YouTube is next up in my review of social media experiments.

I added a YouTube channel to my portfolio of experiments in the social media space in 2009, but have to confess that have made very little use of it since. My own channel that is, not YouTube itself. There are two main reasons for this. First YouTube's benefits were very obvious, so beyond the initial posting experiment I  felt quite confident in recommending it to clients. The second reason was one of time. Putting together even a modest video can be quite a commitment in time and resource. Some of our clients have done this to great effect. We did think about a video blog, but plans to launch this seem to have gone permanently on to the back-burner.

What is it?
YouTube is a video-sharing web site owned by Google which allows the upload of video content and makes use of Adobe Flash Video and HTML5  technology. 

How is it used?
For our clients the most popular videos are customer testimonials, typically conducted on site, production demonstrations and service guides. For these three applications YouTube is a great resource. Since YouTube's debut in 2005 the way we view video and broadcast content has migrated from dedicated  televisions to computers and mobile devices. Consequently user generated content is just as likely to be viewed on the same platform as professionally created content from the legacy broadcasters and judged accordingly.

What does it do?
In a word, YouTube shows and tells without the bother of reading. But in reality it does a lot more than this. For clients who install products and systems it allows prospective customers to view the work and hear and see user feedback. It brings products to life in a way that static, 2D images in a catalogue or on a web site can't do and it can offer step-by-step guides to show how to operate a product, or to service it.

Does it work?
It certainly, in the case of our clients, gets thousands and thousands of visits which are no doubt a positive in search. For clients who track this data 20 or 30,000 views are common, but links on to their web site from this source, likes and subscribers are all just a few.

My view on YouTube
A great marketing tool to better demonstrate your product, to get user endorsement and offer first line service support.


Next time - Pinterest

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