We get most of our business through positive word-of-mouth from our customers,  but you still need a presence on the key industry sites. We just purchased a small advertisement space (about 1/8 page) in Streaming Media Sourcebook that most likely will be dwarfed in size by other advertisements. (For reference, here is an example. We are limited to 50 words.)

So what’s the best way to use this small space.  Here are three options we are considering. Your thoughts welcome!

WEBCAST SERVICE PROVIDER  - FIRST OPTION

Coreography Live and On-Demand Webcasts

Coreography delivers high-quality, trouble-free live and on-demand webcasts. Our clients include leading multi-nationals and SME’s in the United States and Europe.

Managed Enterprise Webcasting Solutions | HD Webcasts | Videoconference Broadcasts | Skype Interviews | Simulated Live Events | Prerecorded Video Insertion | PowerPoint Integration

Learn More
http://www.coreography.com/sm/blog.php

WEBCAST SERVICE PROVIDER - SECOND OPTION

Coreography Live and On-Demand Webcasts

Why such a small ad? We put our money into people and technology so we can offer high-quality, trouble-free webcasts and webinars at a reasonable price. Our clients include both multi-nationals and SME’s in the United States and Europe that see the value in our approach.

Learn More
http://www.coreography.com/sm/blog.php

WEBCAST SERVICE PROVIDER - THIRD OPTION

Coreography Live and On-Demand Webcasts

Coreography delivers high-quality, trouble-free live and on-demand webcasts and web seminars. Our clients include leading multi-nationals and SME’s in the United States and Europe. We offer Managed Enterprise Webcasting Solutions, HD Event Webcasts, Videoconference and Skype Broadcasts with PowerPoint, and more.

Learn More
http://www.coreography.com/sm/blog.php

Tags: Business.

A great article for those looking to increase exposure using social media from John Jantsch of  Duct Tape Marketing.  He shares these five tips for marketers who want to gain coverage and exposure through bloggers:

1) Don’t target the usual suspects
2) Listen before you speak
3) Hang out a bit
4) Gift wrap your idea
5) Amplify for them

Of course, we can’t think of a better way to ‘gift wrap your idea’ than by letting us create a video presentation featuring you!

Intrigued? Read the complete article  5 Tips for Getting More Exposure from Bloggers, Tweeters and Fans.

Tags: bloggers, Promotion, Social Media, tweeter.

The question “How much time do I need?”  comes up alot in the context of preparing for a webinar.  What tends to happen is the presenter has a slide deck in hand and they wait until the week before to really start considering the audience needs and reviewing the content.  It’s not until the webinar practice session a few days before the presentation that they see what others are presenting and get any feedback on their slides.  Due to time constraints, there is only time for slides corrections.  So how much time should you spend on presentation creation?

Presentation authority Nancy Duarte, author of the book Slideology and principal at Duarte Design (clients include Apple, Cisco, and Al Gore among many others),  puts it this way;

“The amount of time required to develop a presentation is directly proportional to how high the stakes are.”

Duarte goes on to provide this guidance:

• 6-20 Hours Research & collect input from the web, colleagues, and the industry
• 1 hour Build an audience-needs map
• 2 hours Generate ideas via sticky notes
• 1 hour Organize the ideas
• 1 hour Have colleagues critique or collaborate around the impact the ideas will have on the audience
• 2 hours Sketch a structure and/or a storyboard
• 20-60 hours Build the slides in a presentation application
• 3 hours Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse (in the shower, on the treadmill, or during your commute)

Total Time: 36-90 hours

At first glance this may sound like too much time, but when we started tracking our own content development time for new presentations we found this to be fairly accurate. When you already have a presentation, tailoring it for a specific audience will eliminate some of the up-front time, and in many cases you will be able to re-use slides/slide layout with only minor modifications.  Still, you will be looking at 30 hours to put together a quality presentation and be comfortable with its delivery.

Tags: create a presentation, create a webinar, effective presentations, LinkedIn, PowerPoint, practice, storytelling, time, web seminar, Webcasts, webinar, webinars.

Video’s pervasiveness online is impacting everyone with a web presence, even B2B companies.   First, remember that even business purchasers are consumers too and we bring our purchasing habits to the office. Then consider these recent surveys reported by eMarketer.

Online Activites of Internet Users Worldwide - 2008

Over 60% of adults using the web to research a product of service, then visit the company or product web-site for more information.  Over half of these folks have watched a video clip.  Now consider this: Over 40% of retailers are expected to add video to their web sites during this next year.  (This would be in addition to those that are already using video today to sell product.)

Planned Advanced Site Features and Functions

This will continue to increase the expectation that prospects expect to access product and service information in a multimedia format. We already see this trend.  Consider your own habits – when looking at products don’t you look for a video that really shows the product in use so you know what to expect? Now extend that expectation to a B2B purchasing decision;  Don’t you really want to hear how an existing customer implemented the solution and make your own conclusions as to their veracity? Wouldn’t it help if you could see the product/service demonstrated?

For B2B companies, this means not only providing a library of  web seminars, but delivering product tours, demonstrations,  case studies and testimonials in a video format, and promoting it on your own web site.

So the net-net here is that we as both consumers and business buyers are doing our research online and visiting your web site. We want to access video as part of the education and qualification process, and those companies that provide it first are going to be have a competitive advantage.

Tags: Marketing, screencasts, selling, Video.

Richard Mayer

We recently wrote a post on Richard Mayer’s ‘Ten Multimedia Design Principals‘  citing his book Multimedia Learning.

I wanted to share another point from Mayer’s research that Cliff Atkinson drives home in his book Beyond Bullet Points called the Redundancy Effect.

Mayer’s research shows that reading text displayed on the screen actually lowers retention.

Mayer conducted experiments using two multimedia presentations. The first was your typical PowerPoint presentation that used bulleted text and the second had all text on the screen removed.

The result; viewers of the second presentation retained 28% more information and were able to apply 79% more creative solutions using that information than viewers of the first presentation.

Bottom line: Stop putting bullet points on your slides! If they need that detail, create speaker notes for download after the event.

Tags: Cliff Atkinson, effective presentations, LinkedIn, PowerPoint, Richard Mayer.

So you have your webcast or webinar video archive recording ready, and you want to post it to YouTube, Vimeo, Viddler, Metacafe, Revver,  and more. Here is the quick way to get the widest distribution possible.

Upload your video once to TubeMogul and let it distribute it to all the major video sharing sites for you. An account is free – just remember that you need to have an existing account on your targeted video destination sites.

View the TubeMogul tutorial on uploading and distributing your video here.

One problem you may encounter – every site has a different supported video length, so you will need to consider that before posting.

Tags: archives, event recordings, event replays, Promotion, Social Media, tubemogul.

Want to get more registrants for your on-demand webinars and webcasts?  Try posting a video out-take to YouTube to improve its visibility and make it easy to share with partners.

First, you will want to reduce the length of your webinar by breaking it into chunks or by creating a highlight reel.  Look for statements that are controversial or compelling, and leave you wanting to learn more.

Editing your webinar length really is a requirement since you want this to be a teaser and fit into the viewing habits of visitors to these video sites.  During editing make sure you add a closing call to action that shows the URL for your landing page. Make that link short and simple since viewers will need to write it down and enter it into their browser.

Next you will want to give some thought to YouTube channel placement and tagging. I recommend that you check the tags your considering by searching for them before you publish – you want to make sure your placement is next to appropriate content for your audience.

Finally, use the embed code to place the video on your landing pages or other pages as a promotional teaser. Promote it with your partners for placement on their site, and use a source code in your registration link to track which partners are sending you registrants.

Bill

Tags: archives, event replays, Promotion, YouTube.

I just attended a live video show by HubSpot.  They are experimenting  with a  live show format on the web.  Although targeting a business audience using this approach is clearly bleeding-edge,  I think its a worthwhile experiment. I will have more observations on this effort, but wanted to share with you specifically what happened today.  Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: HubSpot, internet tv, Justin.TV, mogulus, Streaming, Streaming media, Ustream, Ustream.tv, Video.

The quote ‘Make it easy for people to talk about you’ says it all.

I had the opportunity last year to meet Andy Sernovitz when he spoke at the Silicon Valley AMA. (Coreography recorded this event for the SVAMA and you can view it online – jump to slide 78 in the index. Guy Kawasaki gives his typically entertaining presentation right after.)

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: event recordings, Marketing, Promotion, replays, word of mouth marketing.