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Possibly the biggest differentiator at present between Google Plus and other social networks are Hangouts – the chance to video conference at the click of a button with up to 20 other G+ users. Hangouts are moving forwards quite quickly now as the G+ developers and third parties realise the benefits of making recording G+ Hangouts a one click process with Hangouts On Air.
The Dalai Lama, the Muppets and a few others were the first to be permitted to record their Hangouts On Air, and now the facility to do so is being extended more widely. Hangouts On Air is being turned on initially for celebs, public figures and those with large G+ followings, but it is likely that a full rollout will not be far behind. The really cute feature is that once the Hangout is finished, a private video clip will be uploaded to your account at YouTube.
For businesses and marketers, this new feature, once available to all, offers an infinite number of possible uses to reach a wider audience, to offer one on one training sessions, for recorded customer support ‘calls’, to archive webinars, to preserve fascinating discussions, meetings or focus groups – the list truly is endless.
Until this feature is rolled out fully by Google to all G+ users, there are plenty of other options for recording Hangouts, such as Camtasia, Camstudio (an Open Source version of Camtasia) and Fraps (which avid gamers will know for recording their gaming moves).
The benefits of Hangouts for businesses do not yet seem to be being explored by many businesses, large and small, and yet the content and collaboration and discussions created within Hangouts by those who do use them can be seen all over G+. Are you using Hangouts? For what purposes? Have you experienced any problems? What do you feel is the potential for this type of application within your business?
Google have given YouTube a makeover, offering a new layout to make finding content an easier task.
At the moment this is not live, but if you want to give it a go, it’s very simple.
Go to youtube.com and click Ctrl, shift and J (Chrome) or Ctrl, Shift, K (Firefox) to open the developer tools.
Click on Console.
Then type in the following (you may need to clear the error log first)
document.cookie=”VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=ST1Ti53r4fU”;
Reload the site and you get the new layout.
In other words, YouTube has become far more personal and is encouraging you to subscribe to channels to keep up with content you may enjoy more than the content from categories that Google shows by default currently.
For businesses, it is now even more important to create video content and to have a channel which your customers and audience can subscribe to. Regularly adding new content will drive your viewers back through their own personal subscriptions page, giving you an additional mechanism for reaching potential fans, friends, followers etc.
Encourage those who watch your videos to like, recommend and share your content, and don’t make it all a one way street. When people subscribe to your channel, check out theirs. You never know what gems you may find and there are always opportunities for comments and dialogue that will help to improve the view that YouTube (and hence Google) has concerning your content and activity.
We shall be looking at Google’s ‘new’ algorithm this week and video is just one part of it.
Properly search engine optimised videos are 53 times more likely to turn up in the first page of Google results, according to new research.
Forrester Research found companies which use video for search engine marketing were getting higher search results ranking than text-based content.
Both YouTube and Facebook can provide great video marketing avenues for businesses.
Facebook provides easy options to share video content, and hopefully push it viral, and you can get interested people ‘tagged’ in relevant video, to show up on their profile page.
YouTube has a great Google-powered search engine, and is the go-to site for people looking for video content. Picking the right SEO keywords could lead to a lot more traffic coming to your video on YouTube, and, hopefully, following up by visiting your site for more information.
With social media networks now launching integrated video chat options, the internet is finally moving into the realm of video over traditional content – and businesses which get this right will reap the rewards.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – specialists in Search Engine Optimisation and Internet Marketing.
In case you have been under a rock, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook and Tony Bates, CEO of Skype have just made a live announcement about new chat and video chat features within Facebook.
The first announcement was about the Open Computer Project, which has been underpinned by a need for better infrastructure to deliver service to Facebook users – servers and data centres. As this is not the core interest of the readers here, we’ll gloss over it!
The next announcement was the one everyone has been expecting following Google+ opening its field trial doors last week – video chat within Facebook. G+ has Hangouts and some of us are addicted, and very excited about the potential for our business clients, as well as on a wider social level for consumers. What was Facebook going to announce to compete with this?
I have to admit to being disappointed. My initial feeling is that this announcement has been rushed out because of the Google+ launch.
It (or someone) has missed the fact that G+ is a field trial and certainly does not seem to have taken any account of the fact that hundreds of thousands of users are clamouring for, and not getting, G+ invites. Google is not relenting in a hurry and just letting people in in droves; the product development forums make it crystal clear that Google is trying extremely hard in this, its third attempt, to get social right this time. New users are being let into the trial in trickles, not floods. Ergo, IMHO, there is no immediate threat to Facebook’s userbase right now, and this early announcement may prove an undoing over time.
G+ has launched with a slick mobile app for Android, and also a mobile browser interface which is intuitive and easy to use. Facebook has launched video chat and chat enhancements without any mobile solution. I think implying that this has not been done yet because FB wants to get the desktop/browser version working first was the first real indication of the hurry to get this announcement out. particularly when later on in the presentation, Zuckerberg clearly states that the three biggest trends that drive FB activity are 1) apps 2) mobile and 3) groups.
If that is the case, and FB needs user activity to grow its business, then surely you would focus on providing a mobile app from the word go for this new partnership with Skype? After all, Skype have had a mobile app for years and 50% of Skype’s own traffic each month – a staggering 300million minutes – is video chat. Adding over half a billion potential users of this video chat facility would imply to me that a mobile app would be essential in light of the massive growth of mobile internet access. (And might help pay for those new data centres Facebook are building!)
Seeing how the clunky chat has been improved (um, not much at first glance!) makes G+ Hangouts look even more impressive. And Zuckerberg’s comments when asked what he thought about Google + Hangouts by Ben Parr of Mashable gave an even greater impression that this has been rushed out. Focus on the fact that 1 on 1 video chat is going to be the biggest use. Hmm, no, I don’t believe so. The killer app is group video chat, and the facility to do precisely that has been included in Google+ from the outset, whereas FB are planning to work on it over the coming months.
Part 2 of our impressions about this and its effect on businesses using Facebook to follow shortly.
Combining a YouTube video presence with online marketing services could help boost awareness of your brand.
Facebook and Twitter have proved to be really useful tools for companies to increase their online presence.
But combining that with video on YouTube could open up your business to new customers.
Even simple, explanatory videos, that can help consumers understand your products or brands, or demonstration videos either showing how to use products, or giving hints and tips, can help increase visitors to your website – and, ultimately, boost your profits.
Using social media for the sake of it is not advisable as potential customers want quality, valuable content.
But if you are already finding success with Facebook and Twitter, adding a YouTube channel could round-off your online marketing campaign.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – a best practice Internet Marketing Agency.
Interestingly, there was a discussion about this recently in the office.
Which software would you recommend to turn a series of photos into a video that can be shared on Youtube?
Youtube must have heard us! This week YT announces the addition of new functionality which allows anyone to splice together photos to form a video suitable for uploading to the site and sharing.
For many people, this will prove a godsend. Especially for those with no video camera, but also for those who only have a series of photos available which needs editing into a film.
Remember how useful videos are in ensuring higher search engine rankings for your business? This could be your chance to find those missing SERPs, simply by melding photos into a short video clip.
It’s the weekend – time to go play with some funky tools that may permit us to put videos from photo selections that had been deemed only usable for the in-house photo album unless we bought specialist software!
What content should you be creating in 2009/2010?
Back in the olden days of search engine optimisation, it was all about text. Building websites full of textual content, sending emails full of text, sharing text through bulletin boards, and so on. Most people had dial up modems and images just slowed the connections down to a grinding halt, so text it was.
The term ‘content is king’ became widely known amongst all in the internet marketing industry, and text-heavy web pages, articles, ezines, newsletters led into blogs, forums, ebooks and more. However, in 2009, content is not so much text as visual, real-time, interactive, and you need to be creating content fit for the King in 2009/10.
And that king is broadband.
Whether it is a 30second video clip, a 1 hour webinar with full video content, video and audio chat rooms for customers with archives of previous sessions, slideshows and presentations, podcasts, or any other non-text based information to share with your website visitors and followers, you need to move away from text based content as fast as your user’s internet connections will allow.
Look at the search engines. No longer are the search engine results purely text. There are images, maps, videos, and more. In June 2009, video searches made up 27% of all Google search queries in June 2009. Every which way you look, we are fast moving away from text and discovering what the internet is capable of as connections pass 1ooMbps and approach 1Gbps for the lucky few.
Twitter will go visual any time soon, or an application similar to it, and we already have Youtube as a household word. If you are focusing on text for your content, get out of the box and think about the easiest way to convey messages to your users and website visitors, and start creating exciting, innovative content for your audience.
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We all operate in a dynamic, visual world, although the internet up till recently has been mainly a textual, static medium. That is, until broadband and available bandwidth meant serving videos became more of an option for all.
As video has taken off through the likes of Youtube (now a household name!), so many internet users have become accustomed to viewing and sharing videos through the Net. Although TV still seems to be the primary viewing mechanism, the growth of access to video online has meant that users are far more comfortable with it.
For many internet users, video is a great way of making information available to them, and the visual medium is far easier for getting messages across to the masses than text. Consider for instance a How To guide that details how to configure and install software. As we all know, most technical manuals are very difficult to understand (particularly if they have been translated) and often leave the consumer baffled and reaching for the phone to call technical support. However, a small clip of video which shows the precise steps which need to be taken, and screenshots to clarify those steps, can help solve the consumers’ problem and free up your tech support guys for more complex queries.
There are many ways to use video on your website, and adding it is easy, providing you ensure your hosting company allows you sufficient bandwith for your users to download or stream it. The other option is of course to put it on Youtube or a similar video site, and embed the video into your website. You should offer high and low badnwidth options, and decide whether to offer a stream or a download.
Anyone determined enough will steal your content should they choose to do so, so there are few ways that are within the majority of business budgets to protect it entirely. However, if what you want to do is make sure the information gets out there, if it is stolen and posted elsewhere, it is at least helping you advertise and promote your brand!
Way back when, in about 2003, Ben Hammersley coined the phrase ‘podcast’ and who could have believed that a mere 5 years later, something which was perceived as geeky, is now mainstream. In fact, it is so mainstream that the majority of popular podcasts are produced by major media companies eg the BBC, but it has given anyone a chance to produce their own radio show. Video and TV meanwhile have sort of gone the opposite way. Whereas much of the content for TV used to be made by mainstream media, now Youtube and many other sites are littered with attempts at film making by all and sundry.
The ease of listening to and watching content on the Web, rather than having to be literate and read text, has risen because a) there has been a massive drop in price and hence accessibility of quality digital video cameras and b) the huge growth of broadband capacity and the ever-increasing bandwidth available to every day internet users. It is no longer the domain of just those rich enough to be able to afford an expensive T1 or leased line; anyone can upload a video clip.
The important point is that marketing messages can now be made available in multiple formats to suit the target audience, whereas previously the use of the Internet was restricted for some because of the heavy reliance on text to get messages across.
Users are able to access larger files eg a video clip, and the phenomenal growth of Youtube means that it has, as Google did in the previous half of the decade, become a household word, a website known by millions around the globe. The growth of the ipod and MP3 players has also meant that many people download podcasts to listen to on the way to work, whilst out jogging etc.
Less and less people are into reading textually heavy pages and bite sized snippets offered in either audio or video are known to be more effective. It is very hard to get a large word document to go viral, but if you get it right on Youtube, your clip, complete with marketing message, can go global in days, or sometimes, hours.
Spending hours carefully phrasing your marketing blurb in print or on a website can now be replaced by time spent creating short, snappy, adverts, or by providing informative podcasts that carry the marketing message within them. Neither need be expensive to produce, should be made to be easy to share with others, and can easily be just as effective.
Remember though to create low and high badnwidth versions if you want to reach as large an audience as possible. Broadband is not yet available everywhere, and restricting access to only those who are lucky enough to have it will create resentment amongst potential customers.
