Continuing this week’s “web video focus” on the seven types of online video marketing…

1. Introductions

2. Presentations: Let’s face it. It can be difficult at best to try to explain a new product or service, especially if it’s totally new or really different than what people are used to. In addition, static web pages are not very effective at describing these things, and although adding photos and illustrations helps, it still takes a fair amount of a reader’s time and effort to absorb it all — which they are unlikely to do in today’s market of short attention spans!!

What can we do about that? Yup. Online video presentations.

Presentations of the video sort are very effective at quickly describing things that take too many words and pictures to make sense. They can be quite diverse too! Here are a few examples: Demonstrating your products, showing your team in action performing one of your services, explaining the importance of a particular feature or problem, training seminars… I could go on and on here, but I think you should be able to see some of the possibilities.

One of the things I try to encourage people to think about is the stuff they know about their particular field of expertise, and how they might re purpose that information to their audience as a helpful way to start a conversation. By turning your knowledge into short video clips, you showcase yourself as an expert, help others learn something new, and plant the seeds of new relationships (potential customers).

Presentations don’t have to be long or complicated to be effective, either. I have been working with Mike Sansone of ConverStations.com to get some of his great blogging tips on video. Here’s one on “blogging to the fringe” that only took a few minutes to shoot, and a few minutes to edit. It’s very simple, but effective!

Think about this. Online video presentations reach people 24 hours a day — while you work — and while you sleep. Can you think of a better way to connect with people, short of actually having a one-on-one in-person conversation? I can’t. So let’s all get started! The world is waiting to watch and learn!!

Next time: invitations

This week’s “web video focus” is on the seven types of online video marketing. I’m dishing them out, one per post, over the next week or so. Hopefully this will help you see the potential of video as an online marketing conversation tool.

1. Introductions: Online video introductions are a powerful tool to help you introduce yourself to your customers. People like to do business with people they know and trust… what better way to kick start a new relationship than to tell people who you are and show them what makes you special!

A video introduction should be short. I would recommend keeping it around one minute — two minutes max! People won’t commit to viewing too much at once, so keep it as short as you can while still being effective. (See snack-sized messages).

Some planning up front would be very beneficial! Think about what your customers want to know about you — what they need to know to be able to trust you, how do you do things differently that makes you better than your competition, where they can learn more… etc. It’s going to be a challenge to keep it short, so if it looks like it’s going to get too long than you should cut out the things that you can talk about later in follow-up videos. You may want to include some shots of your product, your services, the people you work with, or the activities in the “back room” that people don’t usually get to see.

Also, I cannot stress enough, your introduction video should represent you well. It’s bound to be the first video people see when they arrive at your site, so you need to make sure it’s polished. You may want to consider hiring a professional to help you. (I’ll avoid any shameless plugs. *wink*wink*) Seriously, you want your introduction to reflect very well on you and your business. If your image is professional, make sure your video reflects that. If your business is fun or edgy, you should try to capture that in your video as well

So, introduce yourself, show what makes you special, keep it short, and make sure it represents you well!!

Next time: presentations

With so many choices out there for video sharing sites, I was very pleased to stumble across this handy chart created by the folks at TechCrunch.

Hopefully you’ll find some video sites here you didn’t know about, and I’m sure you’ll find this information useful next time you want to upload and share video.

You might think your business, your service or your product is boring, mundane, and not something anybody would be interested in seeing. But, you might be surprised what your customers are interested in watching!

For example, there are a couple of great shows I enjoy watching that focus specifically on typical unglamorous jobs in America. One is Dirty Jobs, a fantastic show on The Discovery Channel hosted by Mike Rowe. Mike takes us right into some of the dirty, smelly jobs that countless Americans do everyday to make our lives better. The other is Made In America hosted by John Ratzenberger on The Travel Channel. John travels around the country visiting manufacturing facilities, and takes us on several engaging tours during each 30 minute episode.

What might otherwise be uninteresting, putting these jobs on video transforms them into fascinating journeys into the “hows” and “whys” of each individual job.

Here’s a great example. Ask anyone if they’d be interested to read about or listen to someone explain how a waste water treatment plant works, and you’re sure to be met with a few strange looks. But watch this video and you’ll find that waste water treatment is actually quite interesting. You get to see and hear what things are, how they work, and why they’re important.

My challenge to you: Show us what you do. Tell us why it’s important. I think you’ll be surprised how many people find it interesting once they see it! It may even lead to new business opportunities.

Without a doubt, video tells a much more compelling story than the way we’re used to getting information on the web. Whether it’s a product, a service, or an idea… you can accomplish more in less of your viewer’s time with web video. Text is great, a photo is nice, but video is “the real thing.”

I found this short clip that illustrates this point quite well. Nice job guys!