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Tufts University Accepts YouTube Video as part of Application Process.

February 23, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Is this a publicity stunt or a simply a sign of the times?

The New York Times published an article today explaining how Tufts University is encouraged University applicants to include a 60 second supplemental video as part of the application process. According to Lee Coffin, dean of undergraduate admissions, 1,000 of the 15,000 applicants have already submitted a video. There are no video guidelines on style, format or content just the suggestion that video might be an engaging way to show the school who you are.

Is this a publicity stunt?  Coffin suggests, “maybe I was naïve, but it didn’t occur to me that these videos would be so public, and so followed.” Coffin goes on to explain that the idea came to him last year Spring  as he watched a YouTube video someone had sent him. “I thought, ‘If this kid applied to Tufts, I’d admit him in a minute, without anything else,’ ” Whether this is a well conceived marketing gimmick by the University or simply an admissions officer recognizing the power of a new medium I believe it represents something larger, something that the phenomenal growth of YouTube is just an early indication of – that video is changing how we communicate.

And why not? We all have different learning styles – visual, auditory or tactile, why shouldn’t we encourage different communication styles. Not everyone is a great writer but you know that there are a lot of people with really great projects, hobbies, accomplishments, and passions that might be better showcased with a well conceived video.

Is this the end of the written word? Of course not. Communication isn’t a zero sum game. Our brains aren’t quite full yet. Coffin defends his heretical idea (I imagine in order to protect his good standing with the English Department) by stating, “we will never abandon writing.” “No matter what, it’s important to be able to express yourself elegantly in writing.” He is, of course right, but it is also becoming more important to be able to communicate visually and aurally as well.

Filed Under: General, Video and Education, Video and Government, Video Marketing Tagged With: , , ,

5 Reasons You Should Post Your Marketing Video on YouTube

February 16, 2010 by 1 Comment

Happy Birthday YouTube.

The LA times just posted a recent article that highlights YouTube’s meteoric rise over the last five years.  Google’s $ 1.6 billion purchase of the site in 2006 is still being debated but few people are betting against Google eventually turning YouTube into yet another money making machine.

All hype and controversy aside, YouTube’s numbers are impressive:

85% online video market share in the US
#4 site globally in terms of overall traffic
#2 site globally for search
20 hours of video uploaded every minute
5 Billion video streams a month
#2 time suck behind network television
…etc.

The folks at ReelSEO posted a great article in the fall that compared the options of ‘Hosting’ your video versus ‘Posting’ (placing it on a free hosting site like YouTube) and considered nineteen variables that should influence your decision. Their conclusion: “Unless your business is dependent on monetization of content (you are Hulu), chances are that the odds will be in favour of posting video.”

The biggest complaint about YouTube is that it is a big messy sandbox where you can’t control how your video is being presented. That’s true, but it’s important to remember that YouTube is more than just a place to post your video for free – it’s also a marketing platform. Here are five reasons why you should place your marketing video on YouTube (regardless of whether you also host them on your own site):

1. Sharing
Yes, you do lose some control over how your video is presented on YouTube, that’s the down-side of social media – the single biggest issue for companies deciding if and how to engage the great social media experiment. The upside however is huge. YouTube was built for the express purpose of sharing. The reality is that your website isn’t as important as it used to be – it’s no longer the exclusive or final ‘destination’ for all things about your products and your brand. More than ever people are discovering content wherever they happen to be (physically or virtually). You need to create content that is intended to be shared and consumed in many different ways and YouTube is the world’s biggest content bizarre – open 24/7.

2. SEO
Google is prioritizing video in it’s universal search algorithm. Every SEO article I read tells me that Google is explicitly looking for video content. Does Google have a bias toward video on it’s own website? It’s hard to say but you know that Google is certainly aware of it’s own video and is reading the meta data that you have tagged on your YouTube channel. Ideally, if you have a video sitemap on your website with proper mRSS feed Google should be able to find and promote your video as well. Why not do both? As well, you benefit from metatagging your video content on YouTube and linking back to your own website to help improve your site’s pagerank.

3. Content marketing and getting noticed
Content marketing will have the greatest potential to influence your brand in the future. Traditional marketers will argue that it’s a waste of time to place their videos on YouTube because no one is looking for them and no one is going to find them. That’s true. No one is looking for your traditional marketing video because it talks about you and your products and no one cares much about you or your products. If instead, you post a really informative video that solves a specific problem that your customers are facing your video will not only get found, it will get shared. ‘Yes, but we can’t just give stuff away,” you might respond. If you don’t someone else is going to.

4. Reach.
The long tail gets longer every day. YouTube has the greatest reach in the world (thanks to Google). Your audience may be huge or it may be very, very small. It doesn’t matter. There is no more cost effective way to reach your potential audience than on YouTube. Sure, the person typing in “Lolcats” into YouTube is not your customer, but the person typing in “North East Bolivian Pitted Kumquat Ripple Delight” just may be. Your customer may not frequent YouTube but I would bet that someone who knows and is trusted by your customer does.

5. It’s free.
Chris Anderson explains in his new book ‘Free – The Future of a Radical Price’ (a great read btw) that free is the inevitable price for many things online – you just have to figure out something else to charge for. Free doesn’t necessarily mean cheap either. YouTube continues to upgrade it’s service every month with things like better support for HD video, interactivity, metrics, mobile integration (i.e. the only easy way to get video on an iPhone at the moment) etc.

Filed Under: Content Marketing, General, how-to video, The Effect of Video on Your Brand, The Future of Corporate Video, Video Marketing, video production, YouTube Video Tagged With: , ,

The iPad will do very well.

February 1, 2010 by 4 Comments

“It’s just an overgrown iPod Touch.”  That’s true, and that’s also a good thing.

There has been considerable debate over the most anticipated product release since… the iPhone. Critics dismiss the new iPad as nothing more than a big iPod Touch lacking new features and not even having the same functionality of a netbook. While much of the current criticism (multitasking, keyboard, etc) is valid I think it misses the point. The iPad is not a computer – it’s a portable media device. It is not meant to replace your computer – you’ll still use that device (laptop or desktop) to create content, do your taxes, write your novel, edit your movie, etc. It’s a portable device that allows you to conveniently consume content (movies, web, magazines, books, news live events, games, etc.) wherever you happen to be. And yes, some of these behaviors will be new.

First, some personal historical context:

- I remember witnessing the reaction of a colleague the first time he saw a Blackberry keypad. He burst out laughing declaring “who is ever going to use that ridiculous little keyboard?”.

- I remember having the argument years ago with a colleague trying to convince me that a cell phone and an electronic pocket organizer are two totally different devices and no one will ever want them combined into the same device.

- I remember (yep, I’m that old) having discussions with friends about the use of the Sony Walkman hearing  ‘who is every going to want to walk around everywhere with headphones on?”

New behaviors are not always obvious – which is the cause of one of the main criticisms of the new device:  “Who is going to want to carry around videos, and books and magazines and games on a tablet?” Everyone, is my guess.

It’s difficult for many to imagine watching TV on anything but your 125″ plasma or reading a paperback on anything but… paper, that’s how you’ve always done it. Why would that change? There are lots of reasons why this product should succeed:

1. It’ll get you off your couch. If I had a device that I could use to conveniently watch video/tv, play a game, get the news etc. outside, in the basement, on a bus wherever I happened to be, I would use it.  Yes, I can sort of do that with my laptop but it’s never simple. The app store is really, really simple. So is iTunes. Simple matters.

2. Human multi-tasking is a growing. Watch a 13 year old on the computer, talking on a mobile phone and watching TV, all at the same time. Mutli-tasking is what they do and this device will accelerate this activity. (I’ll leave it to armchair sociologists to determine if this will lead to the downfall of civilization.) I acknowledge that human multi-tasking will in some cases rely on computer based multitasking capabilities. Apple will sort this out in short order.

3. New gaming opportunities. The iPad will open up a huge opportunity for gamers to develop gesture-based games that take advantage of the touch screen interface. Combine that with a (future) video camera, accelerometer and geolocation and the possibilities are endless. (imagine Foursquare with a realtime 10 inch screen video and efficient gesture support…)

4. New marketing opportunities. Advertisers should love this device. It will be the next best thing to TV screens. Magazines, video, games…. even ads in books will be easily and effectively delivered in multiple ad formats.

5. Content Owners. Open source everything is great until you realize that everything in an open source environment tends toward free… then it’s a problem. Apples walled garden will appeal to many content owners who are looking for new audiences in a structured pay for play environment. In spite of the happy talk, all businesses exist to make a profit and the only way for content creators to make a living is for them to get paid.

6. Social media potential. This device will have video cameras next iteration and when it does that will launch a new wave in social media behaviors, tools and business models… assuming the telco’s pipes are up to the task.

7. It’s Apple. (Yep, I own an iPhone, but I also work on a PC).  Apple will deliver in the iPad three things it does really, really well: 1. A world class user interface, 2. A really smart ecosystem to support the device and 3. Cool.

Apple still has some things to work out – a video camera is one and not supporting Flash is another.  They can’t keep the walled garden up forever and I’m not sure how/if they will ever learn to play nice with Adobe – which is ironic since Adobe is the company that kept them alive in the early ’90’s (and then Microsoft) as the vast majority of Mac users used Apple computers to run their Adobe software. (I suppose business owners have short memories for a reason.)

This device will do very well.

Filed Under: General, Video Technology Tagged With: ,