Tyler Lessard says, ““Show the readers everything, tell them nothing.”  —Ernest Hemingway Show, don’t tell. That is the simplest yet most powerful lesson a storyteller can learn. As marketers put more emphasis on content that tells a story, we need to remember that old writing adage—even though it’s much easier said than done. Fortunately, today’s marketers are using video to put the emphasis on showing. Video is the perfect format for quickly grabbing busy audiences’ attention. It enables strong storytelling in a short but memorable format that viewers... [...]

Video Script is an online video script (and audio scripts, too, for that matter) writing application. It lets you quickly write video scripts for any marketing video, and using it is easy. After you create your script you can publish it as a PDF, Word or PowerPoint document. Record it yourself, or hand it to an announcer. If you have video creation software, this is a great way to use it to build professional videos. As you know, there have recently been several applications that make creating videos easy: VideoMakerFX, Easy Sketch Pro, Explaindio. No matter how new you are to video, with one or... [...]

David Moth says, “Facebook has been pushing hard to dislodge YouTube as the king of social video in 2014 and so far it’s made excellent headway. And for the cynics among you – yes, a lot of it has to do with autoplay videos. According to comScore, in August Facebook achieved a billion more desktop video views than YouTube, though that obviously fails to take into account mobile views. So how has it achieved this? At Le Web today Facebook’s product director in charge of video, Fidji Simo, discussed the network’s strategy in this area”. Facebook: Our video strategy is all about content... [...]

Philip Trevillion says, “How traditional techniques within video editing, have adapted to the new environment of paid advertising on YouTube.  In the era of online video, digital marketers can find ourselves so caught up in new developments that we forget that film has been around for over a hundred years. Many conventions have emerged within those decades, and although they might now appear to be set in stone, we need to remember that they were born of trial and error on the part of entrepreneurs of an earlier age. What happens when an old life form, which has evolved into the shape we recognise... [...]

Emily Konouchi says, “Video can be key to conversions and sales, a recent study confirms. For email marketers, using video should be a no-brainer, but the email-video combo still feels like a rare pairing. Only 25% of marketers surveyed last year reported that they used video in their marketing, and a quick look at my own inbox supports that statistic. But the emails with video are the ones that I (and many others) find most memorable, so why aren’t more marketers using them? If you’ve been at this marketing thing for a while, you know that video and email were tough to combine:... [...]

Agu De Marco says, “With the growing popularity of mobile devices and rapid development of social networks supporting video content, video marketing is gaining ground and becoming a prominent tool for engaging online audiences. Short-form and highly-interactive videos are here to stay and more social networks like Facebook are competing with YouTube to become the number one video destination. Statistics have shown over the last couple years that people are much more likely to stay on a site, or spend time on an email advertisement if there is a clip to watch. Consumers can now enjoy high-quality... [...]

Amy Gesenhues says, “According to Facebook, the number of videos posted by SMBs has nearly tripled since last year, with the number of companies posting videos nearly doubling in the same amount of time. The social network reports more than 800,000 small to medium sized businesses posted over three-million videos during September alone. Of the three million videos posted by the SMBs, 84 percent were uploaded outside of the U.S. After breaking news earlier this year that it has been averaging over a billion video views a day since June, Facebook continues to deliver more video to its desktop... [...]

Pat Lor says, “Video has become the single most important and effective medium for content marketers, and its popularity continues to grow. Google serves up 188 billion videos annually and Americans consume 75 million video clips per day. In the past two years, video spending by marketers has increased 40 to 50 percent annually. A whopping 76 percent of marketers plan to ramp up again in 2014. The reason for video’s popularity is simple: it works. Video content is easy to digest and information presented in videos has proven to be simpler for most people to retain. The best news for marketers?... [...]

Lara O’Reilly says, “Gobble, gobble. YouTube’s dominance of the worldwide video market is under threat as Facebook continues to ramp up its charge to increase its share of the lucrative online video market. In recent months Facebook began seeding autoplay videos into the News Feed, shortly followed by premium autoplay video ads; the company has increased its mentions of the importance of video in its quarterly earnings and investor calls; and it is reportedly actively trying to poach YouTube stars to create content made specifically for its platform. The results of energized... [...]

Chase Cleckner says, “As a business, there are few things more important to us than our reputation, and we do everything we can to do great work and delight our clients. But how do you share the results of that hard work with potential clients or customers? One of the best ways to improve your business’s image is to use testimonials from happy customers. These can come in many forms, but in essence they are all references from people who have done business with you and are willing to vouch for you. People have become so used to using this kind of “social proof” to make decisions that... [...]