Video may be more important than blogging, podcasting, or RSS. And it’s not just for professionals or amateurs, understanding video’s potential to create interactive, Multi Sensory experiences for clients and prospects is the key to unlocking its value for you.
Why should you care about interactive video? Consider this stat, courtesy of eMarketer: 2006 will be the banner year for online video ad spending growth, posting a 71.1% increase over 2005. And YouTube.com has grown from 58,000 users in August 2005 to more than 12 million in May 2006, according to comScore Media Metrix. In contrast the Wall Street Journal has 2 million print subscribers. Houston we have a problem!
There are three reasons for this growth. First, broadband continues to take hold. Two-thirds U.S. web users now use broadband (per Nielsen//NetRatings), which is the essential ingredient to enjoying rich video content. Second, major publishers like Google, Apple and now Yahoo continue to make significant investments in online video, joining sites like YouTube and iFilm.
But the most important reason why you should care about interactive video is that video helps facilitate a basic desire by users in Web 2.0 for immersion and interactivity. As more of us escape the limitations of dial-up access, we are becoming social networkers, and brand enthusiasts. We don’t just tell our friends we like BMW Mini’s, we upload our self-made commercials.
So what should you do to build the Buzz for your brand? Start building more multi sensory experiential microsites and website filled with rich web content and interactivity like podcasts and videocasts – and don’t forget – integrated marketing is good but integrated and sticky is better!
Good post, Paul. And it’s important for marketers to not view online video only as a vehicle to carry pre-roll or text ads – that’s the old model. They need their brands to become part of that Multi Sensory experience, not layer ads on top of someone else’s experience.
Excellent post – I guess we should all run out and purchase digital video cams.
An additional thought:
Integrated Marketing is Good
Integrated and Sticky is Better
Integrated, Sticky and Indexed (by search engines) is best…
Needless to say, video indexing is not comprehensive yet (at least as far as I know). However, there are some quick workarounds that allow video content to be visible to search engines as well. (i.e. synopses, transcripts etc.)
Chris Biber
http://www.searchingworks.com
Yes posting FULL transcripts to your RSS feed on when you launch these videos is one work around
Yes Rob – as you can tell I am NOT convinced of the benefit for ads layered on top of video. Its too soft for me.
good post paul
you should take a look to our new web service in Beta named rec2mail.com
it might interest you
best
jean