Video

Amani Channel Talks About the Power of Video Content on the Web

Desiree and Joe talk with an award winning video producer, Amani Channel on this week's episode of The Bella Buzz. The discussion centers around the use of video on web sites, things to consider when producing a video, as well as a little insight into Amani's background.

Amani has created a video podcast at My Urban Report.com spanning 170 episodes so far. He also serves in the role of host on Mediaconnection.TV (keep an eye out for Desiree's appearance in the coming week!). It all keeps him busy along with his position as social media evangelist at PBA.org where he is working on a project called Lens on Atlanta to be launched soon. We are glad to have him as a guest on the podcast.

Video is great for informing, educating and persuading an audience, so we all highly recommend the use of video for any web site. Bandwidth, computer graphics cards, compression algorthms, cameras and editing software have all converged to make producing a video a much more reasonable endeavor.

Right off the bat we get to the cost of producing video for small and medium sized businesses. As usual things depend upon the desired outcome, but as a rule of thumb in the video production world, a guideline in use has been $1000 per minute of finished video.

This budget number includes three phases of video production … Pre-production where the planning takes place including length, scripts, talent, music. The second phase is the production itself where crew is on location with lights, audio, extras on a scheduled day. The third and final stage is the post-production where editing takes place.

We have discussed during previous podcasts the use of a Flip camera and Amani has also found uses for this inexpensive yet versatile piece of equipment. He likes to use them on speaking engagements, how to videos or intimate interviews to capture an event and easily post to the web.

The challenge of monetizing content continues to exist for video on the web. Video intended to support the customer service or sales efforts of a small business are not going to face this challenge, but video sites for informational or entertainment purposes are going to need to determine the audience threshold for things such as pre & post roll or overlay ads if they intend to cover the costs of producing and hosting video.

We reiterate the fact that a good video on the web is 2 – 5 minutes long. Anything beyond that we run the risk of losing the interest of the audience. If there is enough content to produce something longer, analyze how it can be broken into multiple posts so that there is shorter videos and more posts to distribute.

Speaking of distribution, a service such as Tube Mogul will help to get that video placed onto website communities build around video and niche audiences.

Don't forget to consider the audio when you are creating a video. Terrible audio will destroy any great content that you have captured. Desiree recommends the Blue Tooth microphone for her Sony HD video camera. A Flip camera does not have an external mic or audio jack so be careful when using that device for capturing your message.

In the end, the key to any successful video is to concentrate on delivering the message as effectively as possible. High Definition footage, the best audio equipment possible, with the greatest talent will still have a hard time achieving the intended results if the message is not clearly defined. Know what you are trying to say and who you are saying it to, represent the brand … in the end the rest will start to follow.

Theme music for The Bella Buzz is Fallen by Digital Chemistry, available for download at the Podsafe Music Network.

You can subscribe to The Bella Buzz directly from ITunes by following this link, and we would be happy to receive listener feedback and ratings at The ITunes Store.

Filed Under: Video

The All-Powerful Share Button in Social Media

Download Share Button

Desiree Scales, CEO of Bella Web Design smoothly segues into our Bella Buzz podcast topic this week, using the Share button for distributing content. With co-host Joe Magennis, principal of Fluid Media in Atlanta, we chat about the mutually beneficial practice of sharing, re-tweeting and forwarding content on the web.

The greatest reward for content producers is to create something that readers, viewers or listeners find compelling enough to pass along to their social networks. As the momentum builds for the content, it continues to get shared with others on the strength of the message or entertainment value that it brings… the content becomes Viral.

It is an unrealistic expectation to intentionally design content to become viral or share-worthy. A small business owner should never embark on the process of creating content hoping that it will become the next "Chocolate Rain" video which has received over 38 million views! Content should be developed strictly with the intention of communicating a message to a target audience. If that audience deems the content to be worthy of sharing with others, they will pass it along in order to provide some value to the next recipient.

The share functionality has actually been with us on the internet well before the tools of Web 2.0. The simple act of forwarding an email was the first level of sharing that we encountered. Now that we are in the social era of internet services we have Re-Tweets on Twitter, we have numerous Share plugins for blog posts such as Share This used on both bellawebdesign.com and befluid.com and we even could consider a Trackback or a Link as a form of sharing content from someone else's blog.

Think about it for a second. How valuable is it to you as a content producer to have your audience share your content within their own circle of influence? Since we are much more likely to trust the content passed along from someone we know, we are much more likely to consume it. If you employ the old shampoo commercial axiom of "tell two friends, and they'll tell two friends", your message will be transmitted far beyond your own social graph and will start to carry serious significance in your niche.

As with all things social these days, we are also living in a very collaborative environment. A good practice is to contribute to the distribution of other people's content by using the share button yourself. Re-tweeting, Stumbling or Digging an article, linking to a blog post in Facebook or on your own blog will not go unnoticed and might lead to a reciprocal sharing of your content.

Don't forget to use the reporting functions from URL shorteners such as Bit.LY or the dashboard within Share This to determine if you are producing the right kind of content. Witnessing small share numbers might indicate that you need to refine your content so that it communicates more meaningful information to your audience. You can also use the Hootsuite service to review the success of your campaign ROI, shared items is another measure of effectiveness.

We are interested in finding out from you what you would like us to share, we would love to see in the comments any topics or ideas that we can address in the podcast. Thanks for Listening!

Theme music for The Bella Buzz is Fallen by Digital Chemistry, available for download at the Podsafe Music Network.

You can subscribe to The Bella Buzz directly from ITunes by following this link, and we would be happy to receive listener feedback and ratings at The ITunes Store.

Amani Channel Talks About the Power of Video Content on the Web

Subscribe to this Podcast via Email

Sponsors

Recent Podcasts

Recent Comments

Show Topics

Latest Tweets