Here are 9 great video online programs to create the perfect marketing video for your website:

1. Prezi is a interesting take on the slide presentation as it allows you to create one giant and more easily connected idea and then use the tool to zoom, pan and fly all around the presentation to create a really dynamic feel.

2. YouTube is hosting and streaming your videos anyway, so why not use their editing software? You can also add annotations and transcripts to your videos making them more SEO friendly.

3. Camtasia software is the market leader in the screencapture video world. Screencast videos are a great way to demonstrate how something online works. The features allow you to add focus to areas on your screen as well as annotations and URLs.

4. Animoto automatically produces beautifully orchestrated, completely unique video pieces from your photos, video clips and music.

5. Stoome. Crowd-sourcing — Upload video clips from other users, working on your project alone or with others. Great for creating videos when you attend a big event or conference.

6. GoAnimate. This tool allows you to make full-featured animated movies using characters and sets of your choosing. Animation can be a really powerful way to tell your story in a unique manner.

7. Magistro. This tool takes your raw footage and goes through and picks out what it thinks is the best of the best to create a short video. The tool then lets you add music and titles.

8. Sellamations creates doodle videos where a hand draws out your story with a marker in highspeed capture.

9. Common Craft uses paper cutouts moved around or white boards to tell your story. This is probably one of the best ways to take a complex idea and really make it easy to understand.

www.dummies.com     

The post Video is the Future of Marketing – Part 3 appeared first on Websites by Robyn.

Video is a great way to tell your story, show the human side of your business and communicate highly complex ideas in an easy to digest manner.

But while video has the power to deeply engage, it also has the power to bore the viewer to tears—and creating compelling video is different than writing, say, a compelling blog post, according to John Jantsch.

Starting a camera and spouting out a thousand words of brilliant prose does not make a compelling video. There are proven techniques and tools that can help make your videos engage, hold attention and wow the viewer.

Although a badly done video may harm your business more than help it, still don’t feel that you have to hire a video production company to shoot your videos. There are online instructional websites and video production programs you can easily use. Some are free and, of course, the better ones you purchase.

These are the general steps to generate a compelling marketing video:

1. Choose your audience.
2. Pinpoint your message.
3. Create a compelling concept.
4. Finalize the budget.
5. Draft a detailed script and storyboard.
6. Brush up on your knowledge of any appropriate legal issues.
7. Get your cast and crew together.
8. Gather your gear.
9. Scout out locations.
10. Shoot the video.
11. Edit it.
12. Refine and polish it — Add music, titles, and graphics, for example.
13. Broadcast it — Distribute your video on the web.
14. Promote it.
15. Measure the response and then learn how to make your next video even more effective.

Do not neglect social media and be sure to promote across multiple channels. You must make it easy for users to find and share it.

The post Video is the Future of Marketing – Part 2 appeared first on Websites by Robyn.

If it were five years in the future, would you be reading this article or would you be watching it? Video is the future of content marketing.

If you feel online video is just another over hyped, passing fad, think again. In fact, online video is gaining strength as a source for content marketing. – Forbes

It is naturally engaging and, in an age of information overload, it’s important for small businesses to offer content that is easy to digest otherwise your audience will simply move on. Video does this very well. If a picture paints 1,000 words then one minute of video is worth 1.8 million, so say Forrester’s researchers. Axonn Research found 7 in 10 people view brands in a more positive light after watching interesting video content from them. Viewers will be engaged and will spend longer on your website and more time interacting with your brand. For your website social media and SEO, video is one of the best tools you can use.

By 2017, video will account for 69% of all consumer internet traffic, according to Cisco. With online video quickly becoming a key means for people to satisfy their information and entertainment needs, small businesses that fail to include it in their internet marketing strategies will lose more and more of their audience.

Nielsen claims 64% of marketers expect video to dominate their strategies in the near future. YouTube receives more than one billion unique visitors every month.

Susan Weinschenk, Ph.D. explains:

1 – There is an actual brain function that hard-wires us to use the human face for believability of information.

2 – The human voice easily converts information into meaningful content.

3 – The body language of emotions is appealing.

4 – Movement grabs attention.

The post Video is the Future of Marketing – Part I appeared first on Websites by Robyn.

I’m going to show you a bunch of free and low cost services that can make video creation really fun!

Creating Videos

There are a variety of tools to help you make YouTube videos that are unique, professional, and interesting. Rather than simply recording your own video using your video camera, you can use one of the following tools to create a more customized video.

1. Animoto.com Just upload your images, and Animoto creates video slideshows with music.
   2. Xtranormal.com   You can choose an animated actor or character and a background for your video. When you enter your video text, the actor lip-syncs the text in an animated video.
   3. Stupeflix.com   Upload images, text, maps, video clips, and audio. Once everything is uploaded, you can create a video that you can share on YouTube directly from your Stupeflix account.
   4. GoAnimate.com    Create animated videos by choosing a theme, dragging and dropping characters, and recording lines for the characters to say.
   5. WebsiteTalkingHeads.com    Need a video with a professional spokesperson to deliver the lines? It’s easy and affordable. 
   6. TechSmith.com/Camtasia  or CamStudio.com   Create screencast video content to publish on YouTube.
   7. eCamm.com   Want to conduct video interviews and upload them to your YouTube channel? It’s easy with Call Recorder for Skype. You can download a free demo and upgrade to a paid version when you’re ready.

Editing Videos

Once you’ve recorded a video, you need a tool to edit it. An unedited video looks cheap, and that’s probably not how you want people to view your brand and business. Check out the video editors below to cut and move content within your videos, and to add sound, transitions, images, text, and more.

8. iMovie: Unless you’re a video editing expert, you’ll probably be quite happy with the features offered in iMovie, which is the free video editing program that comes pre-installed on all Macs.
   9. Windows Movie Maker: For Windows users, the free Windows Movie Maker software that comes on new PCs is a great video editing choice.

Enhancing Videos

You can easily enhance your videos by adding music, images, and even video content published by other people. For example, to create a highly professional business video, you should have an introduction and closing clip with music, text, and an image that provides your business name, website URL, and other important brand identity information. The following services provide royalty-free music, images, and video that you can legally use in your video content.

10. RoyaltyFreeMusic.com Here you can find affordable music tracks and clips. Individual tracks can be licensed for under $10.
    11. Live.FreeplayMusic.com  This is another great option for finding affordable music for your videos. This service offers a wide variety of music at various price points and licensing options.
    12. Audacity.SourceForge.net   If you need to record and edit sounds for your videos, then this free open source audio editor and recorder is an excellent option.
    13. iStockPhoto.com   Here you can find affordable and professional images, photos, animated clips, illustrations, and video clips.

Converting Videos

What if your video is saved in a format that your video editing program or YouTube doesn’t accept? Fortunately, there are a variety of free and affordable video conversion tools that enable you to convert your video to the format you need in seconds.

14. iSkySoft.com This is affordable video conversion and video download software for Mac and Windows users.
    15. HandBrake.fr/downloads.php   For a free open source video conversion tool, try HandBrake for Mac or Windows.

The post Making YouTube Videos for your Business appeared first on Websites by Robyn.