In an age of quick surfing and shrinking attention spans, businesses are looking for new ways to talk about what they do. And with video, it’s possible. Video gives you the opportunity to tell your story. Period. And by leveraging the power of brief and concise storytelling, video can quickly capture and communicate the essence of your business, service and brand to a broad population of people.

The Value of the Medium

Video gives you a medium that can shorten the time your costumers may require to make decisions. In a climate where authenticity is key, video adds a layer of trust and intimacy to your content – and by leveraging it in sites such as YouTube, instantaneously puts it into the public sphere. Add the power of social sharing and search engine visibility to drive traffic, and you have the opportunity to capture an attentive audience like never before.

But while all this is true, you still may ask, is video really that important?

Short answer: yes.

Monthly Snapshot of Video Viewing Stats

Last month, comScore, released data from the comScore Video Metrix showing that last June, 178 million U.S. Internet users watched video content, a solid one million user increase from June 2010. On top of that, the average viewer watched 16.8 hours of video content and the U.S. Internet audience engaged in over 6.8 billion separate video viewings, an all-time high.

If these statistics show anything, it’s that video consumption is trending upward. 48 hours of YouTube content is uploaded every minute and according to a recent Pew report, 71 percent of online users are now accessing video sites like YouTube and Vimeo, compared with 33 percent 4.5 years ago.

With YouTube surpassing Yahoo as the 2^nd largest search engine on the Web last year (2^nd only to it’s owner Google), it should be clear to everyone that video offers the opportunity for unparalleled exposure to a massive internet audience that is only growing steadily larger.

As attention spans continue to dwindle, being able to effectively tell your story in a timely fashion will only become more of a challenge. This means we must not ignore the millions who watch video, and are becoming accustomed to consuming content through this ever-growing medium. It is clear that video is here to stay. Now it’s up to us to stay with it.

Fear of the Social

We constantly hear from people who think that getting into the world of social media is a terrifying leap from the traditional media they are used to. It doesn’t have to be scary when you slowly integrate what you are currently doing with a bit of the online world. And remember, trying this doesn’t mean the commitment to a million-dollar media buy.

I’d like to highlight some campaigns that have caught my attention by doing a great job of integrating social media with print, radio, TV, or websites.

Beginner

I noticed a Toyota Sienna commercial last week that finished not with their website, but with their youtube site. What’s great about this is it drives consumers to a site that is the consumer’s, not Toyota’s, “safe zone”, making it feel much more comfortable.

Intermediate

Using navy.mil as the jumping off point, the Navy utilizes various social media resources, including Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, RSS feeds, podcasts and Flickr. These resources allow them to effectively manage and communicate with multiple constituent groups, a process that could be confusing and nightmarish to manage given that their constituents range from enlisted men to the media to worried mothers. Specific organizations have specific social media accounts, so if you need to find information about your friend in Amphibious Force Seventh Fleet, you can easily find the fleet’s feeds here.

Expert

Old Navy, who has been using mannequins as a central focus of their traditional media campaigns, started the Supermodelquin Search, which solicits a significant amount of interaction from users, both offline and online:

• Users take photos of themselves and upload them to a website
• The best pictures bubble to the top through user voting
• Users can share what they like through easy share buttons on each page
• The campaign has been neatly integrated with the existing Old Navy Facebook page
• 7 of their modelquins have Twitter accounts, where they share amusing information, push the contest, and promote the brand

So. Any good (or bad) examples that you can think of?

A few months ago, Room 214 worked with one of our clients (I’m not naming the company for competitive reasons but they are in the real estate industry) to create a series of promotional videos to be used on their website, blog, Facebook and Twitter accounts. Since we also manage a Google advertising campaign for this client, a logical place to utilize a small advertising surplus was with a one-month YouTube advertising “test” campaign. I call it a test because no one at Room 214 had ever tried a Promoted Video campaign on YouTube and, while we were optimistic that the campaign would work well given the visual nature of real estate, had no real benchmark in mind for what the results would be. It went well – we decided to allocate 20% of the monthly advertising budget moving forward to YouTube – and I walked away with a few learnings that may help you get your YouTube promoted video ad up-and-running.

First of all, I recommend that you consider a YouTube promoted video campaign if your company fits this description:

1) You already have a Google ad campaign (if you don’t have one, I recommend you make that your entree and consider YouTube as a supplement down the road)

2) Visual appeal has a direct impact on sales for your industry

3) You currently have or have plans to create a library of existing appealing video content (You probably don’t want to advertise the first video you put up on your YouTube channel – more on that in a sec)

If your company fits that description, keep reading. If not, you may want to look more closely at social media and search marketing.

·      A YouTube ad will, obviously, drive more views back to your YouTube channel so you’ll want to make sure that your channel’s up to par and that you have plenty of content/information available (re point 3 above). Create several videos and put them on your YouTube channel. Promote them via social networks, your website, blog, etc. Use audience feedback and YouTube insights to make an educated decision about which video resonates best with viewers and drives the most traffic back to your website and use that video for your ad.

·      The video you use should be entertaining and engaging. Don’t get too caught up with trying to make your video professional quality or overly marketed. You don’t need every line of the video to contain a keyword or marketing message – you need the video to be engaging and interesting so viewers will watch it and want to learn more. This is YouTube – some of the most successful viral videos have been amateur videos – this doesn’t need to be overly produced, shot on an expensive camera or cost a ton of money to show some ROI. If you’re not sure what I mean, check out Mashable’s list of the Top 20 YouTube and Video Memes of All Time.

·      When you create the ad, make a killer headline. The format of the ad is a still of your video, a 25 character headline and two 35 character lines of copy – so you need to make every word count.

·      Use keywords and linking in your video description, utilize tags and add annotations to point out what you want viewers to see/know during the video.

·      Create a Call to Action Overlay (they’re free with a promoted video campaign) so that, once you’ve driven potential customers to your video, they know what to do next and can become a customer.

·      Engage with viewers on your YouTube channel. You’ll see an increase in comments (ours increased about 300%), messages and ratings as well as views to the video – so be sure to interact with individuals who reach out to you.

·      Do a test run. I initially limited our campaign to one month and $3,000. Before you commit a large sum of your advertising budget to anything (in this economy?!) it’s a good idea to gauge if/how well promoted videos will work for you. During this limited-budget timeframe you can prioritize keywords, adjust bids and determine whether you want to allocate budget for it moving forward.

·      If you DO decide to move forward with a YouTube ad beyond the test-run phase – keep checking back with YouTube. This is a new ad platform for them so they’re making tweaks and updates that could potentially improve your campaign. Stay in the know and give it a shot!