How a Video Production Company Can Help with Your LinkedIn Ads
One of the most effective ways to attract, engage, and inform prospective customers is through a chic, trendy video. Written pieces with still photos will always play a big role in content marketing, but time-strapped consumers are increasingly looking to get the information they want and need about a company in video form –- which is where a video production company comes into to play. In many scenarios, it’s just easier to absorb video content. Try to read a brochure or whitepaper when you’re being bounced around on public transportation on your way to the office. But video? That works just about anytime, anywhere. Plus, when video content is done right, it can be both informative and entertaining. Bonus! Of course, nowadays it’s easier than ever to capture and edit video on your own. However, creating a finished piece that really engages your audience and keeps them watching from start to finish is a lot more challenging. Leveraging the expertise of an experienced video production company can be to your advantage in lots of ways. (And you’re looking for an advantage, right?) Quality video is an effective video One benefit of working with a video production company is that the end result will be a polished, professional piece that stands out from the crowd. And make no mistake… there is a crowd. Every marketing pro with a smartphone is a potential video producer/director/editor, but you want your material to adhere to the highest quality standards so it delivers the maximum competitive advantage. Efficient video production is cost-effective video production The more quickly and efficiently a LinkedIn sponsored video ad is produced, the more cost-effective it is. The trial-and-error approach is rarely efficient. Rather than asking your internal team to become video experts, it is typically a smarter choice to connect with a video production company that already has all the skills you need—and many you didn’t know you needed! Innovative video content is the most shared video Creating any kind of video ad for LinkedIn is a start. However, to truly succeed with your video content, you need the assistance of a video production company that can help you capture the attention of business decision makers and move them further along the buyer’s journey using an eye-catching video ad. Experienced video producers know what has and has not been done and what can be done to create a business-building buzz. The takeaway They say “the devil is in the details” and that couldn’t be more true with video production. Luckily, our video production team at BIGEYE absolutely loves being immersed in the details. From initial conception and storyboarding to editing and post-production, we thrive on the challenge of getting every last element right. How can passion for video production help your company get noticed using LinkedIn sponsored video ads? Get in touch with our production team today and let’s start developing a successful strategy for your brand.
Viral Videos: Creating Videos People Love & Will Share
Flu season is upon us and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) says the number of recorded cases this year has already reached epidemic proportions. The team at our Orlando advertising agency has received office-wide preventative vaccines so shoo flu, don’t bother us! We hardly take the potential severity of Influenza lightly, but we can’t help but compare the virus’s widespread impact to another virus; a promotional technique for which there is no known prophylactic: viral video marketing. The term stems from the idea that if an ad reaches a “susceptible” user, that user becomes “infected” (i.e. accepts the idea), shares what they’ve seen with others, others do the same and so on and so forth. Viral Videos—VV’s we’ll call them—are a relatively new phenomenon owing their exponentially increasing presence to YouTube’s 2005 launch. Not all VVs contain a marketing component, but for the purposes of this extremely well written and thought-out blog piece, we’re only interested in those that do. One of the first VV campaigns was released even before it had broadly reaching social platforms like YouTube and Reddit at its disposal. Recorded way back in 1995 A.D.—the same year O.J. was on trial and Alicia Silverstone played Cher in Clueless, the greatest cinematic masterpiece of the 20th century— Loronix Information Systems released an innovative ad promoting surveillance computers. THIS CLIP features a distraught, overweight cubicle worker with a case of misplaced rage. The clip played on one of the most important aspects of VV marketing. Just like the first rule of Fight Club, “You do not talk about Fight Club,” the first rule of VV marketing is making sure not to make transparent an intention to sell a product or service. For a video to even be considered “viral,” the litmus test is 100,000 views within a 24-hour span—anything less than that, and it falls into the much lesser “cough due to cold” category. In order to reach such lofty numbers without seeking “seeding help” from companies like Pimp My Views or View Tornado, a VV must first and foremost entertain. A recent Forbes article calls this approach “Candy with the Medicine,” a philosophy that recognizes a message is best received within entertainment. So, focusing first on the entertainment value (the candy) and then following with the message (the medicine) is the only way to ensure maximum results. From an application standpoint, which would you rather watch? THIS or THIS? The first is part of a series of Old Spice commercials developed by Oregon ad agency, Wieden and Kennedy. Titled “Believe in your Smelf” it’s a follow-up to “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” which received 40 million YouTube views in 12 months, leading to a Twitter following increase of 2700%, a Facebook interaction increase of 800% and an overall sales of Old Spice body wash 107% increase. The second clip is a more traditional, jingle reliant commercial. It also happens to be one of the most obnoxious, ear gratingly, jaw grindingly, amateur spectacles ever to come out of New York. It shoves the “message” down the consumer’s throat while casting the “entertainment” portion of the model to the wayside. In summation, the first example makes viewers laugh; the second doubtless forces them question the future prospects of the human race. Viral Videos: providing hope for humanity. Interested in ways to create viral video content that has the potential to spread your brand message to the masses? Contact our team of video production experts today!
The newest buzzwords & what they mean to your company
The marketing and advertising industries are notorious for making up their own buzzwords, in order to emphasize and, in some cases, glamorize trends and ideas as they come into the public space. (I once received an email from a media company encouraging me to “techcessorize” my iPad – how’s THAT for corny PR language?) Here are a few definitions intended to flush out fresh trends from Orlando advertising agencies, and what they could mean for you. Advocacy: A new phase in the traditional marketing cycle, where fans of a brand encourage active engagement by sharing, via their own social media platforms. Aggregator: An aggregator collects content from a number of sites around the web, and allows people to search the aggregated content to find links that they may find of interest. Popular aggregators include Reddit and Google Reader RSS Feeds. Agile Marketing: A marketing technique that involves the use of agile tactics, such as real-time response to marketing opportunities, brief stand-up meetings and investing resources in production and project execution (as opposed to planning). API: Application Programming Interface. Companies such as Facebook and Foursquare allow third-party applications to access their systems in order to create innovative uses for such platforms. App: Short for application. Though mostly associated with smartphones and iPads, browser-based applications may connect to Facebook or other social networks, such as Facebook games like The Sims Social or Words with Friends. Content Marketing: Based on the theory that good content creates reader and viewer interest and encourages engagement and social sharing, content marketing describes the consistent generation of branded content to create and sustain search engine traffic, and to keep people returning to a company’s website or social platforms. (Content marketing = keeping your blog up to date.) eCommerce: All commerce activities that occur on the internet. While people commonly think of companies such as eBay and Amazon, newer power players in the eCommece industry include companies such as Groupon and Fab. Engagement: The process by which readers and viewers interact with your content, generally by commenting, “liking,” up-voting, mentioning and sharing. Frictionless Design: The development of intuitive, painless digital interfaces that reduce bounce, increase conversion and increase user satisfaction. Gamification: This technological function makes digital behavior into a game. Though Foursquare didn’t create this type of tactic, which encourages repetitious behaviors that presumably lead to more points, the company made it popular by including “badges” in its platforms, allowing people to earn various badges (and therefore, social capital) for their check-ins. Hybrid: A hybrid delineates a person who has a broad skill set applicable to a number of technological disciplines, though that person typically also has one or two areas of true expertise. Infographic: A visual representation of a data set. Sometimes funny or downright hilarious. Meme: You know those funny cat pictures, or those sarcastic eCards that always pop up in your Facebook feed? As people share those photos and images, and continue to alter them in ways that are humorous and make sense within the context of the original content, they becomes Internet memes. (It’s pronounced like “theme.”) Native Speakers (of Technology): This term is used to describe a generation that is growing up with smartphones, tablets and computers as the norm. These children are learning through interactive games as opposed to books and notebook paper. Pivoting: When a company realizes it’s not meeting its goals, it may pivot to set a new trajectory. This may occur in a single marketing campaign, or may apply to an entire business strategy. SEM: Search engine marketing. SEM may involve paid search, search engine optimized content, or both. Social Capital: Many people believe that social capital is at the core of most individuals’ content creation and sharing behaviors. The theory is that people share content with the hope or idea that it will elevate or retain one’s status within their online community. Put simply, the idea is that people share content because it makes them “look cool.” Social Listening: Monitoring digital media to assess what’s being said about a company, brand, product, or person on the internet in real time. Listening provides opportunities for quick response to customers, get ahead of public relations issues, and trending topics. Social TV: This describes technologies and behaviors that combine television and social media content. For instance, when brand marketers encourage fans to live Tweet sporting events, this is a form of social TV. Trendjacking: Leveraging a trending topic to generate buzz around a brand. Like most marketing tactics – there are smart, creative ways to do this right, and also terrible, clunky attempts that get this all wrong. Viral Video: No one can create a viral video; rather, they can aim to create a video that “goes viral.” Though many viral videos have well over 1,000,000 views, a video can be said to have achieved some level of virality at views as low as 100,000. We sometimes throw these words around at our Orlando marketing agency, but we’ll never leave you in the dark about what they mean, and the implications for your company. (And we’ll never ask you to techcessorize ANYTHING.) Contact us and we’ll help fill you in on the fancy lingo.
