Why is Video Important to Your Business

November 15, 2010 by Larry Kless

Excerpted from: Why Is Video Important To Your Business – What Can A Professional Say On Video? | Dr. Marc Kossmann and Charlie Seymour Jr PersonalSuccess Marketing

For many businesses, there’s that Shakespearean moment when it comes to marketing, and that is: “To use video, or not to use video, that is the question.”

It can be a daunting task to decide what to say and how to say it, when most people don’t really have the experience of producing a video. In this video, online video marketers Dr. Marc Kossmann and Charlie Seymour Jr share why video is so important. Video, at it’s core, is about communicating a message, and for businesses, it can be a way to answers questions about the products and services and present a brand message.

Video is everywhere, and if you are not using video to tell your story, if you aren’t producing quality videos that show who YOU are, your competition will beat you every time.

The Four E’s of Marketing from Jeff Hayzlett – Engage, Educate, Excite and they Become Evangelists

October 4, 2010 by Larry Kless

The title of this post is credited to: Twitter / Harry Klein: via @klessblog: The Four E …

@CustEngagement: via @klessblog: The Four E’s of marketing from Kodak CMO Jeff Hayzlett – engage, educate, excite and they become evangelists…

1:53 PM Aug 23rd via HootSuite

I caught up Jeffrey Hayzlett, two weeks before his departure as Eastman Kodak Company’s energetic and boisterous, celebrity CMO (Chief Marketing Officer), at Streaming Media East 2010, where gave an opening keynote address. He discussed Kodak’s innovation in video with it’s popular pocket cameras and why companies should engage in social media and video. In his role at Kodak, he helped Eastman Kodak Company get its mojo back by using streaming media, video technology and emotional technology to connect with its customers. Hayzlett had joined Kodak in 2006 and has ran all their marketing efforts since 2009. He launched a social media team with the roles of Chief Listener and Chief Blogger, and also landed the company a starring role on NBC’s Celebrity Apprentice.

Hayzlett says that in today’s media landscape, it’s vitally important to be where your customers are and that’s why Kodak has immersed itself in social media – to engage in a two-way conversation with customers. Kodak’s social media activity includes a Facebook page, four blogs, free podcasts on iTunes, videos on YouTube ad Kodak.com and very active participation on Twitter. The company turned to the wisdom of the crowd for a Twitter contest to help name their latest pocket video camera, the new PlaySport. Kodak has produced two guides with Social Media Tips and Mobile Marketing Tips to share their experiences of how social media helped grow their business, available for free at kodak.com/go/followus.

Hayzlett kicked off Streaming Media East a few weeks ago, with a spirited presentation on how social media has redefined Kodak’s tactics of product development and customer engagement, and built communities around their brand. It’s no longer just eyeballs and ears, but now it’s the hearts and minds.Hayzlett says:

“These conversation go on with you or without you. So you want to engage, educate, excite people and they become evangelists, or Kodak ambassadors is what we call them. That’s what we call the “4 E’s” So, it’s very important for businesses or individuals, but especially for businesses to get out there and engage with their communities.”

How do companies get started in social media?

In their Social Media Tips guide, Kodak advises that before you jump in think about some basic questions:

Why do I want to participate in social media?
How can social media improve my business?
How will social media be incorporated into my overall customer experience?

A checklist of social network profiles should include Facebook, Twitter, YouTube. Download TweetDeck and Seesmic to monitor your social media streams, listen and add value to the conversations that are going on. Kodak believes that on some some level all companies are publishers. “Content Creation, Distribution, Engagement, and Measures should be key areas of focus.”

Why Video?

According to Hayzlett:

“If I picture is worth a thousand words, then video is worth ten thousand words… People are very visual in terms of their activity, so they want to see things, and when they can see with their own eyes as they say, they believe it more. So we think video is a big important part of that.”

Coincidentally, this interview was recorded with a Kodak Zi8 pocket video camera that has a built-in microphone jack, which the idea as Hayzlett points out, also came from Twitter:

“For the older Zi6, which lacked a microphone jack, we saw a Tweet that said we should add it.We did add it and the product is outselling the competition 10:1, and the competitor’s newer product is lacking the microphone jack.”

Hayzlett says that capturing that rare “Kodak Moment” and “Keep it Forever” is as simple push of the button. It doesn’t have to be a Hollywood production either, as he emphasizes, you can make mistakes and start over. Nobody cares, just get the content out there, that’s the most important thing. Hayzlett says that you’ll see more and more technology shoved into the Kodak pocket cameras.

Two days after my interview with him at Streaming Media East, he announced his resignation as Kodak’s CMO, on May 14th 2010 , to pursue personal projects. His new book, “Mirror Test: Is Your Business Really Breathing,” is climbing the best seller list and is demanding more and more of his time along with a packed speaking event schedule. He’s working on a second book with “Mirror Test” co-author Tim Eber, and headed next to New York City, to start his next chapter.He had this to say about leaving Kodak:

“Everybody knows I’ve been on borrowed time. The average tenure of a CMO is 18 months. It’s because of my love of Kodak I’ve stayed as long as I have. We have our mojo back. We’ve certainly raised the profile of the company.”

Yesterday was his last day at Kodak, and he wrote this on Twitter:Ever had one of those days when you are sad but happy at the same time? Got one today. about 17 hours ago via txt@eeUS rt yes… leaving Kodak. My last day. Time to go to the big city and start a new chapter. about 16 hours ago via web in reply to eeUS

Look for him sometime soon on television, or join his army of Twitter followers at @JeffreyHayzlett or at http://hayzlett.com/Congratulations Jeffrey Hayzlett!Related:

Update 6/4/2010: See Jeffrey Hayzlett’s last on-camera interview before announcing his departure from Kodak at Streaming Media East – Marketers Are Like Farmers – ScribeMedia.org

This post originally appeared on: Larry Kless’ Weblog: Jeffrey Hayzlett, Kodak CMO at Streaming Media East 2010, “How Video and Social Media Helped Kodak Get Its Mojo Back”

Media Framework: Video Publishing Platforms – Streaming Media East 2010

June 27, 2010 by Larry Kless

This video is from a panel session I moderated at Streaming Media East 2010 on, Video Publishing Platforms, and lays the groundwork for what content owners to better understand what type of publishing platform they need and what they should expect to pay for managing content, the process and main features of publishing platforms and the viability of build vs. buy. Each presenter shared use cases that demonstrated how customers are using online video for business, along with new features available from their platforms.

A103: Media Framework: Video Publishing Platforms

Moderator: Larry Kless, Founder, President, OnlineVideoPublishing.com
Bismarck C Lepe, President, Products, Ooyala
Krish Melon, CTO, Synaptic Digital
Ron Yekutiel, Chairman, CEO, Kaltura
Jason Liebman, CEO, Co-Founder, Howcast

A number of vendors offer video publishing platforms, the features and functionality-not to mention cost-vary widely. Some vendors focus their solutions on content management and monetization, while others are geared towards enabling syndication and interactive advertising campaigns. Adding to the confusion is the fact that different platform vendors have different metrics for billing, and costs rise as content owners become more successful.

Quickly and Easily Master Online Video Promotions and Watch Your Sales Skyrocket – Eastbay LocalPreneurs Meetup, May 18, 2010

June 27, 2010 by Larry Kless

This post originally appeared on Larry Kless’ Weblog: Quickly and Easily Master Online Video Promotions and Watch Your Sales Skyrocket – Eastbay LocalPreneurs Meetup Group, May 18, 2010 on May 24, 2010.

On Tuesday, May 18th, 2010, I spoke at the Eastbay LocalPreneurs Meetup Group about how you can use low cost video tools and creative techniques to boost your business. The title of the session was, Quickly and Easily Master Online Video Promotions and Watch Your Sales Skyrocket, and covered the online video industry and trends, tips for producing online video for business, specific platform you can use to broadcast yourself and, some of my favorite online video resources. This Meetup group is organized by my friend and local entrepreneur, Jonathan Fleming, and was held at Tech Liminal in downtown Oakland. About 15 of us gathered in the friendly salon atmosphere of Tech Liminal, and the energy was high and the group really engaged on the topic of online video. Just about everyone who attended used video in some way either for personal or business use, and shared their tips and experiences.

We were also treated to an impromptu demo of a new online video editing tool called Minimash, from our local entrepreneurs Claudia Ward and Mark Gartland. Minimash is a self-funded startup ready to come out of stealth mode and looking for an angel investor. The software is really intuitive and fun to use and takes a similar approach to online video mashups like Animoto, but to all whole new level. Look for more on Minimash in the near future. Jonathan wrote a great summary of the event on the Meetup site which I’ve included below.

Quickly and Easily Master Online Video Promotions and Watch Your Sales Skyrocket

View more presentations from Online Video Publishing [dot] com.

Jonathan Fleming wrote:

“If you missed it, Larry Kless gave an awesome presentation on the many powerful uses of “Online Video” to help promote, make sales happen and brand your business!

For those that attended, you felt his passion, talent and skills towards helping you get started in online video! I know he has helped me to elevate my real estate business to the next level! He’s really a cool guy that loves helping people get their video marketing improved. You can read his blog at klessblog.blogspot.com or catch his informative posts on twitter.com/klessblog

Rodil San Mateo (Eastbayloantips.com) opened up discussing the various ways he uses video to help Realtors showcase properties better; improve their search engine rankings; and get sales results from their marketing. Rodil showcased some of the tools he uses daily to help run his mortgage business.To close it out, a very creative, innovative startup named Minimash.com dropped in to give an awesome presentation on their upcoming product which I think will be awesome! An Oakland based company at www.minimash.com for more info. It was very inspiring to meet the founders and I felt as if I was meeting an early stage superstar company!

Meetup is the world’s largest network of local groups. More than 2,000 groups get together in local communities each day, each one with the goal of improving themselves or their communities. If you’re in the Bay Area and a local entrepreneur, it’s crucial to understand how to make the right connections, get the tools and inspirational education in order to grow your business. Eastbay Localprenuers Meetup brings you fresh speakers, monthly training and networking to jump-start your projects and dreams. Join this Meetup group here or sign up using Facebook.

Many thanks to Jonathan for organizing for the event and to Anca Mosoiu for hosting it at Tech Liminal. Also thanks to Rodil for kicking it off and proving some context for how businesses can use video to engage customers. Most of all, my thanks to all who attended and contributed to the conversation. I look forward to seeing you at another upcoming Meetup.

Links:

How To: YouTube Formatting Tags

September 27, 2009 by larrykless

One of the frequent issues seen with online video is formatting problems in aspect ratio and display resolution. You see a lot of these problems appear on YouTube with video just not looking right. In some cases, widescreen 16:9 video is squished into a standard definition or 4:3 aspect ratio. Or you see 4:3 video stretched into a 16:9 aspect ratio. The standard practice of letterboxing transfers video shot in a widescreen aspect ratio to standard definition video format while preserving the film’s original aspect ratio. Pillarboxing (reversed letterboxing) adds vertical black bars on each side of the video when the player a 16:9 aspect ratio. Windowboxing occurs when the video appears centered in the video player surrounded by a black frame on all four sides of the image.

So how do you fix this problem with new videos or ones you’ve already uploaded to YouTube?

YouTube developed a series of specific tags you can add to your video that let you to alter the appearance and format of your video when played on YouTube or in an embedded player. You can add these tags before you upload your video file to the site, or you can also add the tags to edit an existing video that you’ve uploaded to your account in the past. The video’s altered appearance will display when the video plays on YouTube, and in embedded players.

To use them simply copy and paste the code of the hint tags below into the tags section of the video you want to fix:

yt:crop=16:9 (zooms in on the 16:9 area, removes windowboxing)
yt:stretch=16:9 (fixes anamorphic content by scaling to 16:9)
yt:stretch=4:3 (fixes 720×480 content that is the wrong aspect ratio by scaling to 4:3)
yt:quality=high (default to a high quality stream, depending on availability)

See the detailed instructions on The YouTube Help page Learn More: Formatting tags

Strategies, tips, how to's and best practices for online video publishers

Online Video Publishing [dot] com by Larry Kless

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