Video has become one of the most powerful tools for social media marketing and blog writing. Did you know that YouTube attracts 1 billion unique visitors every month and reaches more American adults between the ages 18 to 34 than any cable network? YouTube is also the second largest search engine after Google. In addition to YouTube’s massive quantity of uploads each day, other sites offer a home for your videos, including Vimeo, Metacafe, and Veoh. With smartphones in hand, intrepid videographers are creating amateur and professional videos to share with their followers for fun or profit.
Cross Marketing
Not only can you upload a video to YouTube, you can post that same video to Facebook, pin it on Pinterest, or link to it in an email, then sit back and gather feedback from wherever it’s been posted. Whether you are sharing your favorite funny cat video or promoting your latest product, sharing gives the video the potential to go viral. Companies are learning that the same video can be posted in several places, earning new hits from avid fans of each site. Viewers can then pass the video link on via email, text, or within a site’s network.
Image Sites
Most image sites allow both still photos and videos to be uploaded or shared. Pinterest is one of them. While still images are the dominant share on Pinterest, videos can spice up a pin and make it more intriguing. Additionally, still photos can lead back to the videos they are generated from.
Smartphone Apps
As smartphones become more sophisticated, users are watching more videos via Wi-Fi. The majority of shared videos are short and sweet. However, smartphones and tablets have the ability to show full-length television shows and movies using an app such as Netflix. The true genius comes back to promotional videos that can be anything from a one-minute film of a child enjoying their new skateboard to a testimonial for a pharmaceutical company from a patient who used its products. Video channels on YouTube and other video sites allow followers to get in a virtual line for new videos when they come out.
When we introduced Vine, we wanted to make it easier for people to create, share and discover short, looping videos. – Richard Plom, Vine iOS Engineer
Video-Only Sites
A newer phenomenon are the video-only sharing sites, like Vine, which require users to use smartphones to record, upload, and share videos. Vine is owned by Twitter and allows users to post 6-second videos similar to Tweets. Smartphone users can share these videos to their followers on Vine and Twitter or upload the videos for sharing elsewhere.
Digital Video Camera
With smartphones and tablets, users are walking around with mobile cameras that record digital videos and are easy to share. This viral aspect is part of using a smartphone. The quality of the video captured by a smartphone is generally mediocre; however manufacturers are improving cameras in successive versions of smartphones.
Paula A has been a content writer online since 2008 and right now is trying to figure out how she got old enough to have a 21-year-old daughter.
