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Selling With Video: YouTube and Facebook Video Marketing http://ift.tt/2iw1sgd Want to create a sales video that converts? Looking for expert tips about building rapport with your prospects? To explore how to sell with video on YouTube and Facebook, I interview Jeremy Vest. More About This ShowThe Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It’s designed to help busy marketers, business owners, and creators discover what works with social media marketing. In this episode, I interview Jeremy Vest, founder of Vidpow, the YouTube-certified agency for big brands and channels including Hewlett-Packard, Funimation, and ServiceMaster. He also created Adobe TV, a video training site for Adobe, and he’s the host of the TubeTalk podcast. Jeremy explains how to hook your viewing audience and introduce them to your product. You’ll discover why remarketing is essential to improving conversions from your videos. Share your feedback, read the show notes, and get the links mentioned in this episode below. Listen NowListen now: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 42:14 — 39.1MB) Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Google Play | Stitcher | TuneIn | RSS Here are some of the things you’ll discover in this show: Selling With VideoJeremy’s Story Jeremy has been designing websites and marketing products online since 1998. He also loved teaching college-level web design, graphic design, and marketing classes. When Internet bandwidth increased enough to do online videos and courses, Jeremy realized he could teach many more people via video so he created xTrain, a video-based training company. Then, when YouTube came out in 2005, Jeremy started getting into it immediately. About four years ago, Jeremy launched Vidpow, which helps brands with strategy for creating videos. In his work for Vidpow, Jeremy combines his love for design with his interest in marketing, especially analyzing what improves conversion rates. Vidpow helps brands understand the universe of video and how to navigate it. Over four years, Vidpow has helped clients get more than a billion organic views. Listen to the show to find out how many websites Jeremy has created since 1998. Misconceptions About Selling With Video After Jeremy helps a client create an awesome ad or video strategy, the first thing the client often asks is, “Why aren’t we getting massive sales?” Jeremy has to explain that there’s no magic pill to sell stuff. It just takes time. Before people take their relationship with your brand to the next level, they need to see your brand 7 to 20 times, whether it’s an email, your website, or social media ads. Even the most viral videos and the best sales videos don’t produce that result. Instead, someone who has watched your video lands on your web page and gets put into your company’s remarketing process. Jeremy believes that video is better than images for selling online. If a picture is worth a thousand words, what’s a video worth? Text and pictures are great, but video has the highest capacity to show emotion. Showing your product or service with a video helps it sell better than any type marketing, other than connecting in person. Another misconception is that lots of views mean that your video is a success. However, if you’re reaching the wrong people, they won’t watch your video for very long. Because the YouTube algorithm prioritizes how long people watch your content, lots of short view times can harm your marketing. Listen to the show to hear me discuss a problem with an Instagram apps article that received lots of views. Traits of Successful Sales Videos Whether your video is on Facebook, YouTube, or Instagram, the first five seconds of your video have to be weird. Seth Godin calls this concept the purple cow. Even if you have a good or great video, odds are most people won’t even watch it. The average view duration of Facebook video is six seconds so you have only a few seconds to engage someone and tell their brain to keep watching. One of Jeremy’s favorites is the video created by Derral Eves and the Harmon Brothers for Squatty Potty. Another favorite is FiberFix. The video immediately poses the question: What would happen if a guy drove a car with joints connected by duct tape off a cliff? And then the car goes off a cliff. People’s brains love mystery; they want to keep watching and see what happens next. Because this video is so engaging and entertaining, the average view duration is through the roof. VIDEO The opening of your video doesn’t necessarily have to be crazy, adds Jeremy, who has done ads for flashlights and products for other companies. If someone is in the market, and you target the right people at the right time, they’ll keep watching. However, the key is evoking raw emotion, whether that’s laughter or sadness. Next, a successful sales video sets up the problem. For Squatty Potty, the problem is modern humans don’t poop at the correct angle and the video includes scientific studies showing the problem actually hurts people. It’s essential to understand people’s pain and why anyone would care about, for instance, a Squatty Potty. After you describe the problem, then you can describe the solution. When you’re setting up the problem, Jeremy recommends focusing only on products or services for which video makes sense. For example, selling a funeral home on video might be a tough gig, although you could talk about the benefits of the service, payment plans, and so on. VIDEO Also, don’t be a “me too” product. If your product doesn’t have something that differentiates it from the thousands of similar products on the market, videos may not work for you unless you have a better price or your video appears at the right time and place. Make sure you present a real problem for which a group of people really needs the solution you’re offering. To illustrate how to set up a problem and offer a solution successfully, Jeremy talks about one of his clients, a company called HyperX. In a viral video for the HyperX Cloud Stinger headphones, HyperX demonstrated the problem (gaming headphones are expensive) in various ways. The solution HyperX created was a great pair of headphones for $49. Because people honestly didn’t believe how phenomenal these inexpensive headphones were, the video addressed the issue directly. The video included anecdotes and included funny situations where people didn’t believe how good the headphones were. The video also said, “I know you won’t believe these are only $49.” With these tactics, the video made the headphones’ quality very obvious. I ask Jeremy how long these sales videos typically are. Jeremy says sales videos typically range from 30 seconds to 5 minutes. If the average sales video is around 3 minutes, you spend about 30 seconds on the problem. The videos are very fast-paced. The camera angles typically move every 3 to 7 seconds because people have no attention span on YouTube. Also, you want people who aren’t interested in the problem to leave early in the video. For example, on YouTube, if your video is a pre-roll ad that’s longer than 30 seconds, you get a free impression if someone leaves before the 30-second mark. Jeremy has even started videos by saying things like “This product is for moms with toddlers. If you’re not that person, please move on.” To convey the solution, direct and infomercial-style marketing videos explain the exact product and then alternate between benefits and moments that evoke an emotion, which is typically laughter. Jeremy calls this part the “benefit sandwich.” For example, the HyperX Cloud Stinger headphones ad showed a benefit, a silly joke, another benefit, a bad meme, a third benefit, and so on. From a psychological perspective, this approach breaks up the content so your video isn’t just a sales ad, it’s a funny sales ad. Next, you offer social proof. Let viewers know that the item was featured on Ellen or in the Wall Street Journal. In the case of the HyperX Cloud Stinger headphones, the video talked about hundreds of gaming teams that used the product. If someone is still watching after two minutes, they’re either seriously interested in your product or are enjoying the video because it’s funny. Toward the end of the video, explain your offer and call to action. You generally don’t want to mention the price so the video can remain evergreen and usable a few years from now. Instead of naming a price in the video, drive people to a landing page to learn more. For example, a movie that’s doing a sneak preview in some cities may show the offer, “See this movie before it comes to theaters,” and mention dates and other specifics. Then the call to action could be, “Click the link in the description to purchase tickets.” Listen to the show to hear how one tactic for a successful sales video is similar to a tactic I used for writing white papers. What Happens After Someone Watches the Video I recall Jeremy’s point that selling a product takes more than one online interaction and ask how he handles remarketing to people who have already watched a video. When someone visits a landing page, Jeremy recommends telling people how much the product costs, what the benefits are, and why they should purchase it. Although people probably won’t buy when they go to the landing page, your audience will remember the specifics. Then you can target them on Facebook, Instagram, Google, and YouTube. Start by showing video ads that share benefits and reasons to buy. Then after a few days if someone hasn’t purchased, show specific offers such as “If you buy now, you can save 23%. Click here.” For the first 15 or so ad impressions, make the ad content about branding. Then orient the ads to your call to action such as saying “Purchase now” and providing a reason to make a purchase. Ultimately, people need to see your brand a lot before they’ll trust you enough to purchase your product. To determine what an audience sees, Jeremy explains if someone watches this video and that video, they’ll send them to another video or an ad. How they determine what to show is almost like drip email marketing. The content of the ads is often derived from the initial video, like this one. VIDEO One ad might show only the funny parts. Another might focus on the offer. Sometimes, an ad animates the price coming into an image because most people believe videos work better on Facebook than text and images. Jeremy says he also runs hundreds of multivariant tests on these ads so he can learn what ads people like best. Listen to the show to hear Jeremy and I discuss multivariant testing of the Squatty Potty video. Smartphone Sales Videos Almost every cat video ever made will beat all of the marketing videos, so low-quality videos don’t mean that much in terms of conversion, views, and subscribers. Any company or brand can create a video with the iPhone or Android smartphone. For instance, if you have a physical location (such as a sports memorabilia company in Dallas, Texas), you could create a commercial with a smartphone and target people and pages with an interest in sports stuff. When you create low-end videos, remember eyes and audio. They are the only important things when it comes to quality of a video. People don’t tolerate not being able to see someone else’s eyes. For example, when a really wide shot shows someone’s knees up to the head, people can’t see their eyes and subconsciously don’t trust that person. However, if your head and eyes are close to the camera, people will feel more at ease and trust you. Video is all about establishing rapport and trust. Shadows can also make someone’s eyes difficult to see. To avoid this problem, record your video while the person faces the natural light from a window. This approach is an easy way to illuminate someone’s whole face in a flattering way. To record good audio, you can buy a $5 to $10 adapter for your phone that allows you to plug in almost any mic. Jeremy uses a Rode mic and says a wired lapel mic also works well. You can get one for $30 to $80. Also, put your smartphone on a tripod so it’s not moving around. Listen to the show to learn what mic I use while recording video on my smartphone. Discovery of the WeekCharacterCountOnline.com helps you edit text to fit a social media platform’s character limit. Whether your text needs to fit within Twitter’s 140-character limit, Instagram’s 2,220-character limit, or some other platform or messaging app, this tool can help. It not only counts characters, words, sentences, and paragraphs, but also tells you how many times you’ve used each word in a chunk of text. For example, if you use the word marketing seven times, you’ll see that below the text box. The tool also tells you how often you’ve used each word as a percentage of the overall passage. With this feature, you can easily identify overused words. To use CharacterCountOnline.com, go to the website, paste in your text, and see how many characters it has. As you edit your text, the stats update immediately. CharacterCountOnline.com is free and provides an easy way to get help with your social writing. Listen to the show to learn more and let us know how CharacterCountOnline.com works for you. Listen to the show! Listen now: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 42:14 — 39.1MB) Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Google Play | Stitcher | TuneIn | RSS Key takeaways mentioned in this episode:What do you think? What are your thoughts on selling with video? Please leave your comments below. Social Media via http://ift.tt/eZnnjC August 25, 2017 at 05:02AM
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Selling With Video: YouTube and Facebook Video Marketing http://ift.tt/2iw1sgd Want to create a sales video that converts? Looking for expert tips about building rapport with your prospects? To explore how to sell with video on YouTube and Facebook, I interview Jeremy Vest. More About This Show The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It's designed to help busy marketers, business owners, and creators discover what works with social media marketing. In this episode, I interview Jeremy Vest, founder of Vidpow, the YouTube-certified agency for big brands and channels including Hewlett-Packard, Funimation, and ServiceMaster. He also created Adobe TV, a video training site for Adobe, and he's the host of the TubeTalk podcast. Jeremy explains how to hook your viewing audience and introduce them to your product. You'll discover why remarketing is essential to improving conversions from your videos. Share your feedback, read the show notes, and get the links mentioned in this episode below. Listen Now Here are some of the things you'll discover in this show: Selling With Video Jeremy's Story Jeremy has been designing websites and marketing products online since 1998. He also loved teaching college-level web design, graphic design, and marketing classes. When Internet bandwidth increased enough to do online videos and courses, Jeremy realized he could teach many more people via video so he created xTrain, a video-based training company. Then, when YouTube came out in 2005, Jeremy started getting into it immediately. About four years ago, Jeremy launched Vidpow, which helps brands with strategy for creating videos. In his work for Vidpow, Jeremy combines his love for design with his interest in marketing, especially analyzing what improves conversion rates. Vidpow helps brands understand the universe of video and how to navigate it. Over four years, Vidpow has helped clients get more than a billion organic views. Listen to the show to find out how many websites Jeremy has created since 1998. Misconceptions About Selling With Video After Jeremy helps a client create an awesome ad or video strategy, the first thing the client often asks is, "Why aren't we getting massive sales?" Jeremy has to explain that there's no magic pill to sell stuff. It just takes time. Before people take their relationship with your brand to the next level, they need to see your brand 7 to 20 times, whether it's an email, your website, or social media ads. Even the most viral videos and the best sales videos don't produce that result. Instead, someone who has watched your video lands on your web page and gets put into your company's remarketing process. Jeremy believes that video is better than images for selling online. If a picture is worth a thousand words, what's a video worth? Text and pictures are great, but video has the highest capacity to show emotion. Showing your product or service with a video helps it sell better than any type marketing, other than connecting in person. Another misconception is that lots of views mean that your video is a success. However, if you're reaching the wrong people, they won't watch your video for very long. Because the YouTube algorithm prioritizes how long people watch your content, lots of short view times can harm your marketing. Listen to the show to hear me discuss a problem with an Instagram apps article that received lots of views. Traits of Successful Sales Videos Whether your video is on Facebook, YouTube, or Instagram, the first five seconds of your video have to be weird. Seth Godin calls this concept the purple cow. Even if you have a good or great video, odds are most people won't even watch it. The average view duration of Facebook video is six seconds so you have only a few seconds to engage someone and tell their brain to keep watching. One of Jeremy's favorites is the video created by Derral Eves and the Harmon Brothers for Squatty Potty. Social Media via Social Media Marketing Podcast helps your business thrive with social media http://ift.tt/eZnnjC August 25, 2017 at 05:01AM
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How to Be a Great Storyteller http://ift.tt/2vk1XvO Marketing is all about developing relationships with audiences. Take it from Manny Rodriguez, the CMO of UCHealth and a true renegade thinker. Rodriguez changed the university clinical network’s image by marketing for people, not to them. Through storytelling, he provides a personal touch to advertising that other hospital networks can’t match. On the Renegade Thinkers Unite podcast, Manny Rodriguez chats with Drew Neisser about how he revamped UCHealth’s marketing strategy. Here are the episode’s highlights: The Right Man for the JobBusiness is personal for Rodriguez. Prior to joining the UCHealth team, he was being treated there for leukemia. After receiving care from multiple medical institutions, he’s now leukemia-free. Rodriguez has a new lease on life and dedicates his career to helping patients with terminal illnesses. “Being a survivor of ultimately a disease that takes many lives is a motivator for everything I do,” Rodriguez says. His experience as a former patient makes him the perfect fit to advertise healthcare to people needing assistance. Passionate team members drive businesses. Since Rodriguez had been in the prospect’s shoes, he is determined to assist those who require medical care. His heartfelt leadership allowed the marketing team at UCHealth to deliver a personal message that garnered genuine engagement with patients. The Marketing Strategy Gets a CheckupAccording to Rodriguez, the bar for marketing is set low in the healthcare industry. “All health marketing is really inward focused,” he says. “It’s about, ‘Hey, look how great we are’…But we’ve gotten away from the fact that what we do is about the patient.” To remedy this, UCHealth developed a patient-centric campaign. Rodriguez’s team wanted to let the audience know that patients are the heroes at UCHealth—not the institutions. Rodriguez’s team toiled over 18 months of initial research and conducted countless interviews to get the project off the ground. The end result was a series of short videos like this: You can’t help but shed a few tears after listening to Peyton’s story. UCHealth doesn’t tout itself as Peyton’s saving grace. She is the protagonist. Rodriguez acknowledges the power these videos have. “You really feel, hear, and sense the heartache and the emotion and the feeling in the story,” he says. Appropriately, UCHealth’s tagline is “Your life. Your story.” Advertising Is Only Half the BattleFor UCHealth’s strategy to work, it needed to practice what it preached. Rodriquez wanted to tune up the peripherals of hospital visits. “I walk into the hospital feeling sick. My expectation is I will walk out feeling better,” he says. “But then there’s everything else: How easy was it to make an appointment? How easy was it to park my car? What was the food in the cafeteria?” Right down to the music playing in the hallway, Rodriguez’s team revamped the patient experience inside and out. Lesson Learned: It’s Not All About YouAs UCHealth demonstrates, brands shouldn’t toot their own horn. Marketers should show concern for the prospects, and make the advertisements about them. In your own marketing ambitions, try to strike a chord with your audience. Even if you struggle to make your idea heard, keep pressing. Rodriguez says it best: “You gotta believe in yourself, and you have to believe in the idea. You have to fight for the idea, and don’t give up…Persevere. Keep fighting. Keep pushing forward.” The post How to Be a Great Storyteller appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Social Media via Social Media Explorer http://ift.tt/xMddWR August 24, 2017 at 01:31PM
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Stadium’s live-streamed sports and original programming comes to Twitter http://ift.tt/2vszQJS Stadium, the live streaming sports network that just this week partnered with Facebook for exclusive broadcasts of college football games, is today bringing live streamed sports to Twitter. The network will run 24 hours a day on Twitter, broadcasting live and on-demand games and events, highlights, classic games, as well as original and daily live studio programming. These streams will be available via the @WatchStadium Twitter account, as well as Stadium’s own website and the streaming service Pluto TV. The deal to include sports streams from Stadium was previously announced at Twitter’s NewFronts back in May, where the social network detailed an upcoming slate of programming which also included both new and expanded deals with Bloomberg, the NFL, MLB, PGA Tour, the WNBA, BuzzFeed, Cheddar, Viacom and others. On Twitter, Stadium’s programming will only be available to U.S. users. By streaming video to Twitter, Stadium hopes to drive traffic back to its linear network WatchStadium.com, where sports fans are able to watch an additional 2,500+ college games. This lineup includes football, men’s and women’s basketball, lacrosse, and volleyball events from conferences such as the Mountain West, West Coast Conference, Patriot League, Conference USA and Southern Conference, the company says. Alongside the games it airs, Stadium is also launching three signature studio shows: Inside the League, Campus Insiders and The Rally, which are live at 4:00 p.m., 4:30 p.m., 6 p.m., 11 p.m. and 1 a.m. Monday through Friday. The company will soon begin selling subscription access to its broadcasts, through a package called Stadium Plus. This will offer paying customers the ability to watch over 500 exclusive games, classic events and commercial free “Stadium TV” re-airs as well as video-on-demand content. This will cost $4.99 per month. “We stand alone in our ability and enthusiasm for taking the concept of a television style 24/7 network into a new digital marketplace and aligning our distribution with current fan behaviors and next generation platforms,” said Stadium CEO Jason Coyle, in a statement about the launch. Stadium says it’s preparing for its over-the-air launch of its 24/7 sports network, which is scheduled for next month.
Social Media via Twitter – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com August 24, 2017 at 11:15AM
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KFC Is Using Virtual Reality to Train Its Cooks “The Hard Way” http://ift.tt/2vs7Mqd Virtual Reality, gamification, employee training, and fried chicken…These are not things that would usually go together. But leave it to the iconic brand KFC to bring us yet another “un-usual” marketing idea to whet our appetite for its product. Whether it’s an ever changing lineup of Colonel Sanders spokesmen in its recent television commercials—or even sending one of its chicken sandwiches into space, KFC is determined to keep its 70-year-old brand relevant in the age of AI and VR. And according to George Felix, KFC’s Director of Advertising, the Colonel remains central to KFC’s current marketing initiative. KFC has just rolled out a virtual escape room used to train staff in the food preparation method that Colonel Sanders, himself, developed over 70 years ago (he called it “The Hard Way”). Using a VR headset, staff are guided through the process of preparing KFC’s Original Fried Chicken under the watchful eye of the Colonel. Would-be cooks must adhere to a strict 5-step process before they can exit the food preparation room. “The best person to teach staff how to cook Original Recipe Chicken is Colonel Sanders,” says Felix. “Through the magic of VR technology, we’ve been able to bring the Colonel back in a fun and engaging way that really supplements our training, pride, and excitement for the KFC brand,” he adds. KFC’s advertising is designed to enhance the brand and to drive sales. By incorporating the latest technology in its internal marketing strategy, KFC is hoping to attract the attention of a younger audience—both from a staffing perspective and also from a consumer standpoint. As KFC becomes known as an innovator in the quick service food space, this can translate into new customers who are eager to embrace and identify with forward-thinking brands (even brands that are over 70 years old!). Felix is quick to point out, however, that in marketing, technology must be in the service of strategy—and not the other way around. He advises other companies that may be contemplating an innovative, tech-based marketing campaign to focus first on the brand challenge, and then figure out how the technology can help solve that problem. He also recommends working with trusted, knowledgeable partners and to be willing to make some mistakes along the way (as long as there is a solid framework supporting your efforts). You can learn more about the KFC virtual training room, how it was developed and even hear from the head chef for KFC, “Chef Bob”, in the podcast below—from Social Media Explorer’s Drew Neisser. (That’s Drew in the photo below— he’s the one preparing fried chicken with the VR headset!). The post KFC Is Using Virtual Reality to Train Its Cooks “The Hard Way” appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Social Media via Social Media Explorer http://ift.tt/xMddWR August 24, 2017 at 08:08AM
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How to Convert Your Blog Posts Into Videos http://ift.tt/2w1qFDX Looking for an easy way to create video content? Do you blog? In this article, you’ll learn how to turn a blog post into two types of videos you can share on social media. #1: Segment Your Blog Post for ScriptingVideo is the perfect way to repurpose your content. Start by looking at your blog post as a script. However, you don’t want to record the whole blog post word for word because the resulting video would be rather boring. Instead, think about how your video can highlight important elements of your post. Write your script in a way that allows you to divide the content into short segments, because recording a short segment well is easier than trying to record a longer narrative. For example, a chunk of text in your script might include a heading, key concept or quote, or one or two supporting details that will help your audience understand the content. Once you have your segmented script, you can choose to either record yourself on-camera or to create a slideshow of still images and text. #2: Create an On-Camera VideoSo what do you show in your video? You can easily record yourself using your smartphone video camera and an affordable mic and lighting setup. If you don’t have studio lighting, film near a window or outside. When you begin, you can record your script all in one take, but be sure to pause between the segments in your script. This way, after you import your video into a video editor, cutting your segments into clips is easy. For instance, you might look directly at the camera and record yourself sharing the following types of segments, with a 3- to 5-second pause between each segment:
After recording is complete, you want to combine multiple segments into a single video. To do this, upload your files to your favorite video editing tool. iMovie is a great option if you have a Mac computer, iPhone, or iPad because the program is included and easy to use. If you’re a Windows user, HitFilm Express is an excellent free video editor that’s compatible with both Windows and Mac computers. The key with both iMovie and HitFilm Express is to create the video segments first and then add them in the desired order to the video timeline. In this example, you can see the HitFilm Express timeline. While this article focuses on the iMovie interface, the same general steps apply to other video editing apps. If you’re using HitFilm Express, check out this tutorial. Begin editing by breaking your video segments into clips. To do this, split the video before and after each segment. In this example, which shows the desktop version of iMovie, the clip is being split at the end where the audio turns into a flat line. This task is where your pauses between each segment save you time as you edit your video. With this visual cue, you can easily determine where to click and insert the split. A line will appear to mark where you make your first split. Now create another split on the other side of the sound where the long pause is. Next, delete the video before and after the clip you want to create. In this example, you’re left with a 4- to 5-second scene. Save your clip as a new file with a descriptive name such as “blog post name_intro.” You need to repeat the process of creating a clip for each video segment. For instance, you might save additional segments as “blog post name_point 1,” “blog post name_point 2,” and so on. After all of the clips are ready, create a new movie project and import your clips into it. In this example, notice how each clip is named to reflect the segment it contains. (As an added benefit of breaking up your video content like this, using these clips in other content later is quick and easy.) After your clips are imported into your video project, you can drag and drop the clips to the timeline, where you can put each clip in order and insert transitions, title slides, and so on between each clip. To preview your video, click the Play button. If, after previewing, you need to move a clip, simply click and drag it to the desired position. When you’re happy with it, export your video into your desired video format and upload the exported video file to your favorite social media platforms.
Tip: Make sure you add captions to your video because lots of viewers will watch with the sound off, especially on Facebook. Many social media platforms have a tool that generates the captions for you, and then allows you to review and edit the generated text. #3: Develop a Slideshow VideoCreating a slideshow with images and text from your blog post is a faster way to produce a video than recording yourself and editing video clips. You can draw from large libraries of stock photos and videos, and programs like Adobe Spark allow you put together a slideshow of images and words. Adobe Spark is a free browser- or app-based program for creating videos in just minutes. The key is to know what you want to say. Because you already created a script based on your blog post, repurposing your post as a video should be relatively quick and easy. To get started, sign up for Adobe Spark (or a similar program) and create a new project. Then click the red circle labeled Video. You can create your video based on a template or start from scratch. If you’re looking to create a video quickly, the templates are helpful. After you select a template, choose the slide style you want to create: Video, Text, Photo, or Icon. Now add your blog post highlights on the slides. The example below is based on a simple template, and shows how the template has been customized with text and images from a blog post. You can move the slides around until the organization of the content brings your story to life. When you’re happy with the content, you can change the theme colors and music. Select from the options available in the top right, but note that you’re limited to the options Adobe Spark provides; you can’t upload your own music or mix your own color theme. When you’re done, export or download the file. To do this in Adobe Spark, click Share at the top of the editing window. In the window that pops up, make sure you toggle the Remove Adobe Spark Branding option to On so your video doesn’t display the app’s branding. Then on the left under your title slide, click Download. You now have your video created for free without a branding watermark on it. Tip: If you like Adobe Spark, you can also record your video segments and turn them into clips. Then add those clips to Adobe Spark along with any text and images from your blog post. Conclusion Blog posts are a wealth of source material for social media marketers looking to broaden their reach with video. In fact, when you start looking at your blog as a script, you may see many applications. For example, you might create a longer how-to video for YouTube and use single clips from that video to create a shorter video for Facebook or Instagram. What do you think? Want to try any techniques from this post? Have you used any of the tools mentioned in this post? Please share your thoughts in the comments. Social Media via http://ift.tt/eZnnjC August 24, 2017 at 05:06AM
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Former CIA agent hopes to buy Twitter to kick Trump off http://ift.tt/2xdoegd Remember Valerie Plame Wilson? The former CIA agent, who got involved in what became known as the “Plame Affair,” has a solution for ridding Twitter of America’s favorite troll. Wilson launched a fundraiser last week to buy the social media service, tweeting: So far, Wilson has raised just $12,000 of the $1 billion she’s seeking. It’s unclear whether Wilson is doing this to pressure Twitter to block Trump or if she actually believes her mission will pan out. Twitter, of course, would cost much more than $1 billion. (Its market cap is about $12 billion right now.) But Wilson says that if she owned a significant stake, that it would put pressure on the company. “If we can’t get a majority interest, we’ll explore options for buying a significant stake in the company and champion this proposal at the annual shareholder meeting,” Plame writes on her GoFundMe page. “If that’s impossible for any reason or if there is a surplus from this campaign, 100% of the balance of proceeds will be donated to Global Zero, a nonprofit organization leading the resistance to nuclear war.” Plame’s complaints about President Trump’s use of Twitter are not uncommon, but CEO Jack Dorsey has said that Trump’s tweets that suggested violence toward journalists didn’t break the rules. Wilson says it’s the threat of nuclear war with North Korea, which “takes it to a dangerous new level.”
White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders disagrees. In an emailed statement sent to news outlets earlier today, Sanders called Plame’s endeavor “ridiculous,” and suggested the shortage of funding for Wilson’s idea underscores that Americans are satisfied with Trump’s Twitter use. Featured Image: Mark Wilson/Getty ImagesSocial Media via Twitter – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com August 23, 2017 at 03:44PM 6 Smart Strategies to Shine in 2018 http://ift.tt/2voCQag Slow to housebreaking and quick to bite my pant legs, after two months of frustration I declared, much to my wife’s shock, our new puppy Louie was my “worst dog ever!” Blinded by memories of his practically perfect predecessor Pinky, I simply couldn’t see the potential within our whirlwind of fur and teeth. Three months later, I’m happy to report that Louie is well on his way to becoming a world-class companion. So, you might ask what changed and why is this story relevant to marketers? Well, first and foremost, I needed to recognize that despite the visual similarity to his predecessor, Louie is a canine of a different color and requires a customized strategic approach, one that embraces his strengths and tempers his weaknesses. And second, I needed to start to imagine the wonder he could become, opening the door to a slobbery yet enduring love fest. It is in that spirit that I offer these six strategies to succeed in 2018 and introduce you to six sages kind enough to share their wisdom on my podcast, Renegade Thinkers Unite. 1. Proffer a Profound PurposeFour years ago, Coss Marte was in solitary confinement just hoping for a piece of paper to write down his wish list should he actually get out of prison. Today, he is the founder and CEO of ConBody, a fast-growing fitness company that’s branched out into Saks Fifth Avenue and online courses. After recognizing that his drug selling was “creating a web of destruction,” Marte has made it his purpose to help people like him get on their feet (15 out of 17 of his employees are ex-cons) and he also helps current inmates in Rikers Island get fitter as well. 2. Double Down on DesignEarly in my career, a client suggested that our “brilliant” campaign was merely “polishing a turd.” At the time, it was simply accepted that marketers had to play their product cards as dealt rather than driving the creation of something more appealing. Jerome Nadel, CMO of Rambus, thinks that a hands-off approach is nonsense and deploys “design-led marketing” to make sure what goes to market is worth the energy to sell it. Nadel sums up the benefits of this approach noting, “Better products and services are easier to promote and sell.” 3. Engage via an Emotional ExperienceThe health care industry is not exactly famous for offering a warm and fuzzy experience. Hoping to fix this, the CMO of UCHealth, Manny Rodriguez, ended up being put in charge of customer experience as well as marketing. Explains Rodriguez, “What I quickly realized is that in order to succeed with this notion of being patient-centric, we had to sell an experience…and we needed to stop talking about ourselves and start focusing on the patient.” The result was a better experience and some of the best examples of brand storytelling I’ve seen in 2017. 4. Transcend via Total TransparencyMost CMOs would describe their challenge as tough but few compare to that of Morag Lucey’s, who became CMO of Avaya shortly before they filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. And rather than retreat into silent chagrin, Lucey and her team got ahead of the story, noting that the problem was debt from a leveraged buyout and not the business’ fundamentals. Making sure that all stakeholders both within and outside the company, “understand exactly what you’re going through,” notes Lucey, was absolutely crucial. 5. Create Catchy ContentContent is only king if what you create is surprising, relevant and has a strong emotional hook. A great example of this comes from the Mars brand Whiskas. Reports Rob Rakowitz, Mars’ Global Director of Media, “recognizing that people who are adopting cats or kittens weren’t equipped with all of the knowledge and insights that they should have as new pet owners, we created Kitten Kollege.” Enrollment levels in Kitten Kollege would make any marketer meow. 6. Invest in IntegrationIn this age of programmatic, real-time digital optimization, many marketers are tempted to push out different messages across different channels. The problem with this approach is that the big brand story gets diluted. Grant Johnson, CMO of Kofax, faced this situation when various companies were pulled together under one leadership team. Concludes Johnson, “Part of cutting through effectively is a relentless focus on delivering consistent messaging across every touch point and element of a given campaign.”
Final note: You can find these and other episodes of Renegade Thinkers Unite on iTunes, iHeartRadio, Stitcher and Overcast. The post 6 Smart Strategies to Shine in 2018 appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Social Media via Social Media Explorer http://ift.tt/xMddWR August 23, 2017 at 09:32AM
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Use your Instagram to make money — here's how http://ift.tt/2vomEWI Use your Instagram to make money — here's howThis could be making you richImage: pixabay By Team CommerceMashable Shopping2017-08-23 14:12:08 UTC You already spend tons of time each day on Instagram. What if you could also use that time to grow your business and even make some money? It’s totally possible, but you’re probably not going to be able to figure it out on your own. If you've got a business, brand, or even just want to boost your own page, check out the Complete Instagram Marketing 2017 Training course. It will teach you how to master Instagram marketing and grow your account with the right followers — plus it's a pretty sweet talking point to bring up during job interviews. You’ll begin by building an Instagram marketing plan and daily posting schedule, and then learn which tools you can use to schedule posts and create images and videos. Next, it'll show you how to create and optimize Instagram ads in a matter of minutes. Finally, you’ll learn how to attract thousands of targeted followers and build deep relationships with them — which you can turn into cold, hard cash. The Complete Instagram Marketing 2017 Training course normally costs $195, but you can get it for just $25, a savings of 87 percent. Social Media via Social Media http://ift.tt/1N1mMj1 August 23, 2017 at 09:23AM Twitter hashtags are 10 years old and they wouldn't have happened without old-school texting8/23/2017
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Twitter hashtags are 10 years old and they wouldn't have happened without old-school texting http://ift.tt/2vY8DSO Twitter hashtags are 10 years old and they wouldn't have happened without old-school textingHBD Twitter hashtags!Image: vicky leta/mashable
By Karissa Bell2017-08-23 12:00:00 UTC
Yes, it's really been 10 years. Twitter's most iconic feature is celebrating a big birthday today. Exactly 10 years ago, before there were iPhones, Android phones, or a Twitter app, one Twitter user came up with the idea of using the "#" symbol to group tweets together. That early Twitter user was Chris Messina, who has said the idea originally stemmed from what are now two major throwbacks from the early days of the Internet: IRC and T-9. IRC, or Internet Relay Chat, is an old web standard that enabled messaging via group chat rooms. The format we now know as a hashtag, where similar messages are grouped together using the # sign, was already a well-established part of IRC in 2007, so it made some sense to bring the same dynamic to Twitter. It was also, as Messina points out, easier to type on old phones that used T-9, an early form of predictive text when you still had to tap out messages via your phone's keypad. (Texting was hard before touchscreens!)
More surprising though, is that Twitter's founders came close to ignoring the idea completely. Before he had sent that first hashtagged tweet, Messina showed up at Twitter's offices to pitch the idea to Twitter cofounder Biz Stone and a few other early employees. "Because brevity is essential on Twitter, he suggested using the 'pound' or 'hash' character common on phones (this was pre-iPhone) to create groups of related Tweets," Stone recounted in a blog post published today.
Unfortunately for Messina, Stone was more concerned with dealing with the site's frequent crashes, which famously plagued the service in its early days. "It was an undeniably elegant proposal, but I really needed to get back to work. I turned back to my computer screen to help get Twitter back up and running, hurriedly ending the conversation with a sarcastic, 'Sure, we’ll get right on that,' ” Stone wrote. Luckily for all of us, Messina brushed off the brushoff and tweeted out his idea anyway. It was awhile longer before Twitter's founders embraced the idea and starting officially supporting it. But they eventually added hyperlinks to the tags, which cemented their status as one of Twitter's most recognizable features. Of course, the hashtag has evolved a lot since then. Today, Twitter users send more than 125 million hashtags a day, according to the company, which is celebrating the milestone with — what else — a dedicated hashtag and custom emoji. Social Media via Social Media http://ift.tt/1N1mMj1 August 23, 2017 at 07:22AM |
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