by Ydraw | Oct 10, 2018 | Creative Marketing, Marketing, Simple marketing, Social Media Marketing, Video Marketing, video online marketing, Video Strategy Guide, viral video, Ydraw
We’re coming up on the end of the year, folks! It’s time to look back on your company’s marketing expenditures, evaluate your results and begin planning for the year to come.
But wait, not so fast!
Though it’s always important to look ahead don’t forget to follow through with 2018’s marketing campaigns and finish the year out with a video-marketing bang!
Most companies slow their marketing efforts as the year-end approaches. By consciously doing the opposite of this common trend, you can gain a competitive edge to break away from the pack by keeping your marketing push strong right up until the 2019 ball drops.
Top 3 reasons to for beefed-up fourth quarter marketing:
- Spending Deadlines:It ain’t over, till it’s over.
As the year comes to a close, some departments may locate excess budget floating around. With the “use it or lose it” policy found in most organizations, department managers are looking for opportunities to spend these additional dollars.
Don’t let your department get passed up. Be vocal and visible with your video campaign ideas just in case these other departments are looking for ways to spend their dollars.
Stay on top of your marketing efforts. This includes value-based bullet points that highlight achievable results in the current year and extending into the next year. Being organized and keeping your campaigns rolling forward can help justify last minute marketing purchases.
- 2019’s Budget:Spend More Now= Get More Later.
Now is the time when many companies start kicking off their budgeting efforts and mapping out spend for next year.
During this time, department heads are looking for ways to get the biggest bang for their budgeting buck.
This also makes now a good time to use the current year’s budget to get a head start on next year’s campaigns… think ahead by producing next year’s content NOW!
- Marketing Momentum:Stay Visible To Your Audience.
Don’t let preparations for a busy first quarter make you invisible to your customers during the Holidays.
This is the most wonderful time of the year, where they are programmed to spend some serious $$$. Keep your products and services in view with some fresh videos.
Ongoing communications is key to creating leads and keeping your target prospective customers engaged.
Video and Marketing Are A Match Made In Heaven
If you want your message to find it’s way in front of a set of eyeballs and a pair of ears, the proof of video’s prowess is in the statistical pudding:
- 75 Million people in the U.S. watch online videos everyday.
- Merely mentioning the word ‘video’ in an email subject line, the click-through rate increased by 13%.
- Nearly 50% of all video is watched on a mobile device.
- By 2019, internet video traffic will account for 80% of all consumer Internet traffic
- Videos up to 2 minutes long get the most engagement.
Create Videos Now
These forgotten fourth quarter months can be the prime time to wrap up 2018 with a video that will create a buzz leading into the new year while also increasing your spend that may lead to more funding for the future!
Creating new content can ensure ongoing communication with your audience while building and maintaining brand recognition. This constant buzz breathes life into your value proposition, year round.
2018 Budget: Use It Or Lose It… Create With Ydraw And Market Strong All Year Long
by Jace Vernon | Aug 8, 2018 | animated explainer video, Creative Marketing, Emotional Connection, Marketing, Simple marketing, Social Media Marketing, Video Marketing, video online marketing, viral video, Ydraw
So, you have this spiffy new Ydraw video ready to download and share with the world.
Now what?
Don’t leave what happens next to chance. How you market your video will make a huge difference in how many of the RIGHT people actually WATCH it.
That’s where a social media marketing plan can help. If you’re thinking, “I already have a marketing plan.” Good for you. You’re already a few steps ahead.
But, if that plan doesn’t spell out exactly how you’ll take advantage of the amazingly effective, and mostly free, opportunities on social media marketing sites – then sit down and take some notes.
Your class on Social Media Marketing 101 just got started.
1. GET NOTICED:
Basically, if your business isn’t active on the main social media sites, you may not exist yet to your target consumer.
To give you an idea of how many people are regularly using the most common social media sites, here’s a quick summary of the current numbers, according to Statista:
Facebook: 2.23 billion profiles, with 1.45 billion users visiting daily.
YouTube: Over 1 billion users, with over 500 million hours of videos watched daily.
Instagram: 800 million users and adding over 100 million in the last year alone.
LinkedIn: Over 562 million profiles in more than 200 countries worldwide.
Twitter: 335 million active users visit Twitter monthly.
Pinterest: 200 million monthly active users, predominantly female.
Can you really afford to pass up that kind of exposure?
Or, better question, why would you want to?
2. PEOPLE WANT VIDEO:
Mike Henry said, “We’re operating in a world where ONE GOOD VIDEO can lead to a massive social following.”
Now you have that good video – so what do you do with it?
Not only does social media offer an incredible marketing opportunity, but posts that use video have a much higher conversion rate on all of the social media platforms. Check out just a few of the many powerful statistics on the impact of video in this infographic created by The E Word.
So, if your consumer is browsing Facebook, your video should be on Facebook. If they’re tweeting about their morning bagel, your video should be popping up on their Twitter feed. When they’re scrolling their LinkedIn at lunch, you want that video to smack them right in the face. YouTube? Instagram? Same story – different channel.
Social media allows you to deliver your video to your target consumer on a silver platter.
3. START A CONVERSATION:
You don’t want your marketing plan to be a monologue. Your target consumer really only cares about themselves. If you’re doing all the talking – that doesn’t mean that they’re doing all the listening.
Instead, put your video out there and start a dialogue. Use your video as a springboard into building a community. This will also make your brand relatable and that will attract even more followers.
4. MARKET MORE; SPEND LESS:
Did I mention that social media marketing is …. FREE? That’s right. It costs ZERO dollars to set up business profiles on social media sites and begin posting.
Now, you may eventually choose to pay for ad campaigns that will further your reach, and many companies find it very effective, but you certainly do not have to do that to get started and get your video out there.
Plus, since we already discussed how much more effective video is as a marketing tool on social media, you’ll get pretty good reach without paying another buck.
5. FREE FOCUS GROUPS:
You know the value of focus groups when branding your business or making business decisions.
Well, with social media marketing, you have access to a focus group – 24/7, 365 days a year, that never sleeps, never slows down, and is actively engaging in dialogue on what they like and don’t like.
There has never before been a greater opportunity to talk directly with your target consumer whenever you want than today – on social media.
So, gather information by reading and following their conversations. Or, utilize free tools on platforms like Sprout Social and Hootsuite, where you can access trending conversations pertaining to your target market.
Take it a step further and download apps like Instagram Insights, WhenToPost and Crowdfire to learn more about what is really engaging your target audience and when they’re online looking for it.
You can even learn about your competitor’s performance and connect with Instagram influencers on apps like Iconosquare.
And – yep, you guessed it – it’s all free.
The bottom line is – we live in unique technological times that can sometimes present challenges, but in other cases, offer you an incredibly insightful, effective, and affordable opportunity to connect with your target consumer like never before.
Leverage whatever you can to promote your video and your brand!
And, if you have any questions on how Ydraw can support you in developing your own social media marketing plan, please reach out. We can’t wait to hear from you.
by Jace Vernon | Sep 23, 2015 | Marketing, Presentation, viral video, Writing a Script, Ydraw
What are cave paintings, essentially? A pretentious art show in the middle of a damp cave, that’s what. I can picture the artist was standing there next to the paintings in a Woolly Mammoth beret looking bored. At some point, there were probably caveman art critics who came along. “Oog no like use of space.”
The paintings ended up drawing notoriety and attention. The same is true with today’s online content.
Videos are made to attract attention and hopefully keep an audience long enough to motivate someone to action. That would be pretty easy to accomplish if today’s online viewers didn’t have the attention span of a toddler hopped up honey smacks and jolt cola.
Sounds patronizing, I know, but that’s exactly what the audience has been reduced to. Recent studies show that online viewers have an attention span of 9 seconds. 9 seconds? I can’t even have a thought in 9 seconds, a hazy recollection maybe, but never a full thought.
Ask any six-second “star” of Vine to explain why anyone would subscribe to his or her channel. I’m sure they couldn’t tell you because, quite frankly, the phenomenon of Vine shouldn’t even exist. People shouldn’t have fans for a six-second joke that has been circulating within 5-6 different Vine user variations. It’s absurd.
Unfortunately, that’s the reality we now live in. As we devolve into human versions of Spongebob Squarepants we have to change the way we approach making video content. So now the job is to shake a pair of keys in front of the audience and have them on their backs, giggling and reaching for the shiny–shiny.
Again, sounds patronizing, but that’s the truth of it.
The ‘burger method‘ used to be taught for storytelling.
The meat of the message is in between two carefully crafted intro and conclusion buns. Now, the art of the video is more like the KFC Double Down
A chunk of meat, a bit of cheese, some tantalizing bacon and ends it all with another huge chunk of meat. It may not be very good for you, but it’s popular and people keep on buying it.
This is the formula for a new age. A snack sized informational nugget to fill you up as quickly as possible. Seems kind of difficult, but there are ways to make it work.
Key things to remember with this new format:
- GET TO THE POINT. Since videos are inherently getting shorter, your message should get to the audience quicker. The specific fight is to get your point out before the viewer clicks on the ‘Skip Ad’ button. This is the new marketing battle for many companies. First it was recordable TV– viewers could hit a button and skip the commercials, now it’s a small clickable banner in the bottom right corner of your video. How many seconds do you have? It takes 5 seconds for that button to get clicked. Spitting out your point or grabbing their attention in the first 5 seconds will do you well to get your message out there.
- EXPECT A DROF OFF. Unless the video you make has a very specific purpose, the most important part of your video will not be the end. The end is where most of your audience has already clicked away so they need to see who you are and what you do before that happens. 20% of the audience has already clicked away within the first 7 seconds, so make that time count. Those first seven seconds could make all the difference between a skipped video and a high retention rate.
- A MOSTLY WATCHED VIDEO WILL USUALLY BE THE MOST YOU’LL GET. A mostly watched video on YouTube or post on Facebook, unless it’s a 6 second Vine, is probably the best result you can hope for. As you watch the numbers of where people click away, getting 75% retention on that video is actually amazing. Most videos don’t even last that long. The challenge is not only to get all the information you can in a small amount of time but to also front load the thing as much as possible. Basically, all videos have become the equivalent of children’s shows and the end is now usually saved for a kicker of some sort. Some off chance reward for making it through a video.
Now that you know the formula, the real challenge is getting your message out. The first 7 seconds could be right on point, but the second that video falters, it’s lights out. There is no room for fluff in the entire video. It’s all meat with a bit of cheese. Why am I so hungry all of a sudden? Is KFC still open?
by Jace Vernon | Sep 11, 2013 | viral video
5 Reasons Jimmy Kimmel’s Twerking Girl on Fire Video went Viral – and How Yours Can Too
This article was originally featured on Business2Community.com by Jessica Anderson
Monday night on his show Jimmy Kimmel revealed that he was the genius behind the video that received more than 9 million views in less than a week – Worst Twerk Fail Ever – Girl Catches Fire! In his reveal segment he mentioned that they did nothing to advertise the video, he simply uploaded it to YouTube and, in his words, “Let the magic happen.” However, there are a few key things about the video that helped it get big in the first place – proven methods you can apply to your own videos to boost viewership.
Humor
The public loves funny videos, and Jimmy’s video was hilarious. The fact that it’s an average young college-aged girl makes it relatable, and somehow realizing that it could’ve been anyone tickles our funny bones. Even now, knowing that it was all staged, it is still pretty funny. If you want your video to go viral, it better make people bust a gut and want to show everyone – or at least chuckle a little bit.
In the Now
Viral videos almost always have something to do with current pop culture. It seemed like one day all was relatively normal in the world and the next morning we woke up and “twerk” was in the dictionary. Jimmy Kimmel used this increasingly popular shake-your-booty club move and ran with it. He knew most YouTube users were interested in twerking, wanted to watch it, wanted to learn how to do it, or wanted to just figure out what it was all about. I’m sure if he would have done a “DIY installing a refrigerator – man catches on fire” it would have been funny, but it probably wouldn’t have had over 9 million views in less than a week.
The Unexpected
All the best videos have some sort of unexpected twist. In the case of Twerking Gone Wrong the clincher was Girl Catches Fire. The video would have been great if it ended with the roommate entering through the door and knocking the girl on the ground – but the flames were just the surprise that video needed to send it shooting through inboxes and Facebook pages across the internet.
Title
Of course, if the video would have been titled only “Twerking Gone Wrong” it wouldn’t have been picked up as quickly. If it would’ve been titled only “Girl Catches Fire,” how would people have differentiated it between the hundreds of other YouTube videos entitled “Girl Catches Fire?” The key to the success of Jimmy’s video is the fact that it a couple different mini titles smashed together to let viewers know exactly what is in the video.
Tags
When a YouTube user wants to find a video but doesn’t know the title, they can type in keywords into the search box – and if your video doesn’t have any tags, your video won’t get pulled up in the searches. Jimmy’s video is tagged with several different keywords, including sexy, girl, lady, college, dorm, hot, a**, butt, dance, twerk, twerking, cute, beautiful, shake, university, pretty, fire, accident, fail, epic, vma, robin thicke, miley cyrus, etc… Only a handful of the tags are actually related to the video, and that may seem like cheating – but the beauty of YouTube is that the tags are really hard for viewers to find. So if a viewer was initially searching for “dog obedience classes” they can easily end up watching your online marketing video about which mattress is the best fit or a video of a twerking college girl catching fire.
The Moral of the Story:
Jimmy Kimmel probably wanted to prove to the world how easily a video could be picked up by millions of internet users and even several news stations without doing any extra work beyond uploading it to YouTube. However, he actually did do a little work, and your video has the potential to experience the same success as his so long as you follow the above basic rules of viral videos.
by Ydraw | Jun 20, 2012 | viral video, Ydraw
Viral videos are a constant mystery. What makes some videos go viral, while others do not?
Introducing ‘A Fisherman’s Guide to Viral Video,’ with information from experts on exactly what makes videos go viral.
Viral videos: A Fisherman’s Guide to Viral Video
After watching a video interviewing Thales Teixiera (an assistant professor at Harvard Business School) on his studies of the elements involved in making a video go viral, I came up with ‘Harvard’s Fisherman Guide to Video Viral’.
There are 4 steps in the fish catching process: the hook, the reel, the catch, and the big fish story. Viral video has these same four steps.
In the history of video ads, most people believe that videos need to have a memorable story and have the bait and hook at the end, just like a movie, saving the best for last. In recent studies this is not the case. Many people these days can skip through video ads, never getting to see the video’s bait and hook. Now, videos need to start with the hook.
(1)The Bait and Hook
Your viral video bait and hook has to be within the first five seconds of your video. It should be different, capturing the viewer’s attention with surprise and wonder.
(2)Reeling the Fish In
According to Teixiera, the way to keep viewers viewing is a lot like reeling in a fish, you alternate from yanking on the line, then letting it loose. The typical outlook people have on a viral video is that as long as your video is happy and humorous, people are more likely to watch it. This is not true. A viral video must have some funny and happy moments, and then take them away, and alternate throughout, giving apparent highs and lows.
