Making video work for you

There's a secret to making video work for a business -- and that's to put them up online little and often. Think of the "Does it Blend" campaign. There are well over 50 videos on YouTube now, that's more than one a month since the campaign started. It's also spawned a whole generation of "spoof" videos as well -- which actually work for the company just as effectively. Others are planning the same kind of "drip-drip" approach. There's a consultancy in Edinburgh which is planning to make 60 30-45 second clips to help them promote their unique business methods. In this online video world, quantity matters just as much as quality. You have to give people a reason for coming back either to your own website or to your YouTube Channel. If you put up a stream of useful, helpful videos, they begin to trust you. The older adage that "Givers get!" works in this market just as much as any other. Think of the people who post helpful comments on relevant forums, without trying to sell anything. They actually end up with more work because they're giving some of their expertise away. If you're an expert on something, talk about it, vlog about it and share your knowledge with the world. Follow the KISS principle and do it often.

An alternative to TubeMogul

I'm grateful to Eric Fontaine of HeySpread for pointing out that Tubemogul is not the only tool that lets you upload once and deliver to many video aggregation sites. I thought I'd take a look at what his company has to offer. Like Tubemogul, it's a subscription service but a low cost one. You buy so many “credits” up front (the minimum purchase is 200 credits which costs all of €10/c£9:40) which then allows you to upload your videos and distribute them. At the moment, there aren't quite as many sites to send the videos to. But HeySpread makes registering to those sites much easier than TubeMogul and all the key ones (YouTube, Metacafe, MySpace, Yahoo...etc) are there. There are even some I'd never heard of. The most important is TwitVid which lets you share videos on Twitter. It also includes some professional-looking video analytics and apparently exclusive features such as YouClone which lets the user copy/paste YouTube videos to any other platform automatically. I have bought credits and will use the system for our next video. I'll report on how we get on.

YouTube or host on the Home Page?

Organisations have differing views on how they want to use their videos. Some want to host them on their own web sites and only to display them there. Others, those with smaller bandwidth on their servers, prefer say the production company to host the videos remotely, but still to give the impression that they're still within their own domain. Yet others want to link a YouTube video to their own pages. There are reasons for all three approaches. Suppose for instance that you're an organisation with a large membership that wants to offer videos as part of the membership package. In those circumstances, you'll want to host the video on your own site, secure behind password protection. Legal, accountancy and other professional groups may fall within this category. By contrast, other organisations may want to limit the people who view the video to their own geographical area, a Chamber of Commerce for instance. They also tend to have limited resources and may prefer the production company to arrange the hosting. The largest group is made up of those who want to tell the world but also want to show what they're doing on their own website. They upload to YouTube and the other aggregation services but then “share” the videos by embedding the link either on their own pages or through a whole raft of social media sites. The choice is yours.

Self-help for Video Production

There's an excellent book for those people who want to make their own online videos. It's called "YouTube for Business" by the prolific author, Michael Miller. He's written this very much for the American market -- but everything he says applies worldwide. The book is written in a good clear style and contains loads of helpful information and quality case studies. He deals with everything from the kind of equipment needed to editing software, even how to monetise your YouTube videos (though this is a relatively short chapter). The great thing is that he stresses the importance of using the videos to support your online marketing strategy. At over 260 pages, it's not a book to read over one Sunday afternoon. But it is one to dip into regularly. It's not readily available in bookshops in the UK but Amazon and other online suppliers can deliver it very quickly.

By the way, he also practices what he preaches. He has a blog and an interesting YouTube channel www.youtube.com/user/trapperjohn2000

Not so much online video, more good practice

I use different computers for video editing, distribution etc and for everything else. I back up my editing PC almost on a daily basis -- I'm about to buy my THIRD terrabyte external hard drive. But to my shame, I forgot about the other machine. There are lots of housekeeping chores I do with it on a regular basis. I defrag. I run AdAware checks. I use CCleaner to cleanse the internet temp files and keep the Registry in good order. But somehow, I always put off backing up the main drive and exporting the Outlook and Explorer files. This weekend was salutory. I'd done all of the usual tasks on Friday, run out of time and thought "I'll do the back-up tomorrow" (having just downloaded loads of important, educational files). Saturday morning came and I tried to boot up the PC --- and it wouldn't!!! It wouldn't even boot up in "safe" mode. I tried just about everything. Nothing worked. So it was down to our local, excellent PC service depot (DATA in Portobello) on Monday. Thankfully, they found that some of the files in Windows had become corrupted; they were very easy to sort. Here I am, back online with the formerly sick PC. The documents files have been backup up. My Outlook files have as well, as have bookmarks. So for good practice, either employ a company do to it automatically for you or schedule a backup into your diary every week. You know it makes sense.

The Video News Release

The video news release (VNR) is a growing market. With cost cutting rife throughout the media, it can be hard to get a camera crew and reporter out to a remote location unless it involves crime, a serious road accident or something like that. Business stories very often don't make the cut. But the idea of course is to offer it in the hope that it gets picked up by the mainstream broadcast media. For this reason, they have to be made to the standards expected from the BBC, ITN, Sky News etc. When they're sent out to those organisations, they should offer a number of options for their producers. There should be the finished feature, shot, linked and cut professionally. But you also have to give the broadcaster the chance to put their own voice to the piece (it allows on of their own people to add the station sign-off), so you should include the same feature but without a commentary track. You should also offer interview clips which can be run by themselves, and extracts of location shots from the video – the idea here is at least to let the station have what are known as “wallpaper” shots when a brief summary is being read by a news anchor. But even when the story isn't used, there is still value to be gained. The VNR can be uploaded to YouTube and placed on your own website. This means that the potential audience is global and not just the area covered by (say) your local ITV company. In such cases, it can include your own web address and other contact information the broadcasters wouldn't use. And you have to make sure to put enough keywords into the boxes around the story so that Google and other search engines can find it.

The large number of video aggregation sites

The problem with online video is that, although YouTube's by far the market leader, there are lots of other video aggregation sites out there. There's Metacafe, Yahoo video, Daily Motion, Vimeo and others – over 20 of them. The simplest way of getting your video out to as many as you want (and there are some, Stupid Videos for instance, you should probably avoid) is by using Tube Mogul. This allows you to upload once and deliver many times. It will even convert your video into the most appropriate format for each site. Not only that, it also provides the analytic tools to let the user see where and how often their videos are watched, track what's working and measure the impact of marketing campaigns. The basic service is free but you get a lot more from by paying a relatively small fee. This includes how much of the video is actually watched. If you simply use YouTube, it tells you how many people have clicked on the individual feature but not for how long. Research suggests that many online viewers have a quite short attention span. Tube Mogul gives you that kind of detail.

More reasons to have online video

There are other reasons why you should consider online video as part of your PR strategy. You could for instance be wanting to drive traffic to your website. A growing number of online marketing specialists is already doing just that. They make a point of telling you “face to face” how good their new product is before directing you to their landing page. But it's also good to get other people to say how good the product is so that it's not just YOUR opinion – after all, you're biased! This leads to another good reason for making a video – increasing your sales. The two are closely linked but you need to use different measures to work out how effective they've been. If you're after increased traffic, you have to use analytical tools to work out where the traffic's come from, especially from YouTube. Google's own analytic tools can help here. Sales are much easier to measure. Just keep an eye on your bank account.

Why a business should be making online videos

Businesses should never make videos just for the sake of making one or seeing it as a “me too” thing to have. Just because your competitors have videos on their websites or on YouTube does not mean that you have to follow. You must have a reason for doing so. However, there are lots of reasons open to you. For example, all companies need to build their brand image. That's why they should have a public relations strategy, especially an online one. Third party endorsement is much more powerful than any advertisement. The videos need to support this. The production of video case studies is one way of doing this but there are others. The video news release is an option, not as an alternative to the traditional form but in addition to it. It doesn't have to be broadcast on the BBC, ITN or Sky to have an impact. The fact that it's on the web, both on your own website and on YouTube and the other aggregation sites can help boost your profile and your rankings on Google. But, just like PR, you also need to find some way of measuring the impact. The number of views actually doesn't mean very much since that doesn't tell you whether you're meeting your PR targets or not. It probably means doing some market research and finding out from customers where they say the information and the impact it had on them. But then, you're doing that anyway, aren't you?

A lesson learned

I've been using Pinnacle Studio (part of Avid) as my video editing software for about three years now. I originally bought it becase I had to transfer material in a hurry from old VHS tapes (remember them???) and that was the simplest solution. I got used to the layout etc and, although I tried other solutions, none of them seemed to work so easily. However, I downloaded the latest version yesterday morning. The layout was different but nothing too complex. There were aspects which were actually easier to use. But when I started to edit video shot for a client the day, I discovered that certain features had changed dramatically. The facility for adding captions for instance wasn't anything like the previous versions. And of course I'd downloaded the software so the manual was online rather than in my hand (sometimes a book is so much simpler to use than a screen). So the lesson is -- don't use a new version of a program when you've a project to complete in a hurry. It's not good for the blood pressure!

The proof that video brings business benefits

Final thought for this week. IT'S OFFICIAL!!! The McKinsey Quarterly’s “Global Survey”, a universally trusted organ I would hope, reports that, when it comes to the the benefits of using a range of the new “Web 2.0” tools, video comes close to the top. Having surveyed a host of companies, it found blogs to be the most useful – 51% of responding companies worldwide said they produced measurable benefits, followed by video-sharing and social networking, at 48%. More details can be found here Article on the McKinsey Report

Do you really want "corporate video" any longer?

Is there a difference between a traditional corporate video and one made with online in mind? The answer is almost certainly “yes” but how many organisations appreciate it? The traditional model is expensive; you probably need a minimum budget of £20,000+! It's also much longer than anything anyone would tolerate watching online – some are over 10 minutes long. With “made for online”, you are talking about having to spend hundreds rather than thousands of pounds. And the videos have to be short – no more than 3 minutes long at most. But how many organisations still think they can have a “one size fits all” video made for them. Should they really be thinking about using the same feature-length piece for the AGM, for a presentation to staff and for YouTube? Or should they be looking at buying “horses for courses” and tailoring their video to the audience they have in mind?

Networking does pay

This morning's session at 4Networking was really interesting. For those who haven't come across it, it's a business network with a difference. For a start, everyone gets the chance to make an “elevator pitch” to the room and, after breakfast, there are 10 minute one-to-one sessions with other members who want to find out more about you...or vice versa. What was fascinating was the number of smaller firms who are wanting to get a video presence on the Web, either for their own websites or through YouTube. Financial services, training, personal coaching – they're all moving rapidly to the decision that they need to adopt this new form of marketing. Why? Because they recognise that, if potential clients can see and hear them before a first meeting, they've a better chance of turning them into actual clients.

Some new questions...

What's the value in making an online video? Making one for its own sake seems a pretty pointless exercise. Simply putting it up on a company's own website also seems fairly ineffective. Can you get real commercial value from a video? Some companies have proved it can be done. The latest figures suggest that the Does It Blend? YouTube campaign has received something like 32m views and is claimed to have increased Blendtec sales by 500%.

So where does video fit in the corporate promotional mix in the UK? Does it sit as part of a firm's online PR strategy? Should it lie with marketing... or advertising? As mentioned before, the straight advertising approach doesn't really work as the online viewer doesn't seem to like the hard sell in any form. That tends to suggest that video should be seen as part of the PR or marketing budget and the producers should therefore be sitting alongside those teams, delivering the strategy. Do you agree?

Some final questions for this week...

Sticking with the property market, how well are property developers marketing, not necessarily the actual buildings, but the innovative technology they're now adopting? A company like Mactaggart & Mickel has some excellent videos – but at the moment, they're on DVD rather than online. That company is one of several now building most of a new house – or even block of flats – in their factory and then taking hours rather than days to put them up on site (Deeside Timberframe and Scotframe come to mind as well). Shouldn't they have videos up showing what they're doing, rather than have (as happened at a recent housing conference) the Housing Minister say we needed to import the technology from Scandinavia? Shouldn't the architects be telling the world about the novel ideas they're coming up with, knowing what local firms can do? The Scots companies are just as innovative, just as efficient – but almost invisible it seems. How can we change that?

More questions than answers

The property market should be an obvious one when it comes to using video. But why do so many firms in the market still use static photographs when they can walk potential clients through a house, an office or warehouse? Are any (many) of the Solicitors' Property Centres or estate agents using it? The housing market's been depressed for months, so what's the best way of encouraging potential bidders to view? Might the same be true of the home rental market? A lot of people rent when moving to a new area or when they're moved by their employer into a new city for a fixed time. Wouldn't it help them to make up their minds from a distance – at least in selecting the ones they want to view when they arrive? There's also a growing number of “workspaces” for small firms – one thinks of the Waterfront at Telford College or the Strathmore Business Centres (both in Edinburgh). Shouldn't they promote their services through a combination of video walk-through and case studies with satisfied customers?

Are Scots professionals using video?

How many professionals in Scotland are using online video? Research from the US (OK, it's a different market but what they do today, we may do tomorrow) suggests that having video on a website greatly speeds up the consumers' decision when choosing a lawyer. Has anyone on this side of the Atlantic found the same? Have they even tried yet? Very often, the American attorneys are not making a direct pitch – they're using video to educate people about their area of expertise. Have many (any) solicitors or advocates (or even solicitor-advocates) thought about doing the same? One US legal marketing expert (Larry Bodine) claimed video was “…a great opportunity to present how you look, how you talk, what you’re like, and make yourself more attractive to clients. It’s a great business-getting technique.” Is this a universal truth – or just one for the US legal market?

Some more thoughts on music

When it comes to music for a production, I used to use commercial CDs and then clear the rights with the Performing Rights Society (the organisation that makes sure that composers get paid!). As a performer, I have great sympathy with the artists...but it can be both complicated and expensive. In some cases where the video is either to be used online on a company's intranet or for training in seminars, the PRS wanted to know how many people would view the feature and how long it would be used for – and set the rates accordingly. The trouble is, you can't always estimate either very accurately and that could potentially land you with problems. However, a growing number of online organisations are offering “copyright free” and “royalty free” tracks from as little as £10. You buy the track and use it in your video as often as you want, with the production viewed by as many people as you like without any further paperwork needed. A good example in the UK is AKM music (http://www.akmmusic.co.uk/) whose tracks have a quality feel to them.

Some thoughts on the use of music

I've found myself watching a number of online videos recently which have used music all the way through. Personally, I found it incredibly distracting, especially in the longer ones. However, music can be very powerful in a video – as in film and TV, it helps set the atmosphere. But as in film and TV, you want it to open, punctuate and close the video. It also needs to be suitable and appropriate. I'm working on a short video right now about the upgrading of a Georgian house. I am using carefully chosen music in the piece – music from the period when the house was built. It only runs for about twenty seconds at the start and then fades under an interview with the owner, explaining what work was to be carried out and why she wanted it done. After that, we just use the natural sound of the workmen as they go about their business, with interviews with them about what they're doing etc. The music only comes back at the end when we see the final result. Contrast that with videos where the producer seems to have picked a piece of music almost at random from the production music catalogues. There's sometimes a discontinuity which can actually turn the viewer off the product – and that's not the object of the exercise.

The Pro-am video mix

I'm indebted to the eBook guru Tiffany Dow for pointing me in this direction. She found a producer called Chris Willow who's making superb video intro's. They're beautifully constructed, well crafted and with atmospheric music to go along with them. He calls them "Killer Sales Videos" http://www.tiffanydow.com/KillerSalesVideo.html. Have a look and see what I mean. But that then raises a BIG question. What expectation does that set up the in viewers' minds about what it to follow? Can you really use a blockbuster intro without a blockbuster video behind it? It might work with some of the videos we make for clients because they're insisting on broadcast standards -- they look like video news releases or short documentaries. The look, the sound, the "feel" are all right. But what if your video is simply a screen-capture tutorial...or worse, a to-camera comment recorded either on a webcam or an iPhone? The viewer will rightly be disappointed, especially if you're in shot wearing a Skype headset with every breath hitting the microphone! There are professional tools out there which really can help companies sell their products. This is one of them -- but only if used in the right way.

The power of video

Online Video, like film and TV, is a very powerful medium. They reach deeper into the hearts and minds of those watching than any other forms of media. I loved building word pictures on radio – but ask anyone later in the day what they'd heard and the chances are they'd already forgotten. The same is true of presentations. You can talk all you like – but you've a much better chance of being remembered if you give moving pictures as well. There's also a growing (I hate to use the word) laziness out there. How many people are willing to put in the effort to read a book when they can get the same information from a good quality webinar – especially one where the presenter is in vision? Why read an instruction manual when you can get someone to explain what you have to do on screen? If you can also stop the video, re-wind and check the information over and over again, you actually end up with a much better level of understanding.

Online Video -- Reaching the Younger Generation

OK -- so a lot of middle-aged people aren't that hot with computers. They use them because they have to, not because they want to. The Silver Surfers come to love them as it lets them keep in touch with their families. But what of the younger generation? You might they were easy because they'd been more or less force-fed IT from birth. But to them, the traditional internet and email are sooooooo uncool!!! They have adopted mobile technology in a big way. They may not be able to afford an iPhone or one of the new Walkman 995s but even a relatively simple Nokia can browse the web or record video and stills, which they can send to another mobile and (of course) text either with SMS or MMS. So if you want to reach that market, that's the technology you need to use. Bear in mind that if you want to trade with parts of Africa, India and South America, this is the technology you'll need as well since those parts of the world are by-passing fibre and landline broadband and going straight to mobile.

GRAMPies or those not to ignore

When thinking about online video, the target market may not be as obvious as you might think. Many members of the 35-60 age group has serious issues with IT. But when people get past 60-65, you suddenly find them joining the Silver Surfers or GRAMPies (those who're part of the Growing Retired Affluent Mobile Population). These are the people who didn't use computers until they retired. Their families live on the other side of the country or even the other side of the world. The only way they can get to see their grandchildren is if they master new technology, including Skype and Webcams. They have the time and the inclination to learn. Many of them are also (even allowing for the credit crunch) really quite well off. They have a lot more money to spend than any teenager today – and almost certainly more than couples with young families. Ignore them at your peril.

Who's watching online video

A few days ago, I was asked about the different age groups and whether they were watching online video. I suppose another ways of putting it is who's your target market and what's the best way of reaching them? It's almost embarrassing to find that my own generation is probably the least computer literate – people from about 35 to 60! When we were working with one client in Edinburgh, the CEO admitted that he was a technophobe. He had to use it but hated the idea. With this generation, the only solution is to use the KISS principle. If you want them to watch a video, you have to send an email with the link embedded in the text. All they have to do is point and click. Don't ask them to find your video on YouTube – they won't even try. Tell them about the wonderful new technology on your website and they'll go blank. In this case, KISS means “Keep It Simple, they're Scared!!!” Tomorrow, the "Silver Surfers"

Final thoughts on DIY Video

There's no doubt in my mind that people and firms should be encouraged to make their own videos -- where appropriate. And that's the key point. There are times where it is definitely not appropriate to do it yourself. Think of what your clients or customers would think if they agreed to let you make a feature on them as a case study -- and you turn up with a handycam palmcorder!!! Think of what might be involved in making a video news release! That kind of material is increasingly going to be needed as the media, especially ITV in the UK, keeping cutting back. And while the head of an SME is likely to be happy being videod by another member of the team (it keeps the cost down), will the same be true of a Footsie 100 or Fortune 500 company? It's all a question of horses for courses and chosing your runner carefully.

Making a DIY Video 2

Making your own video is easy if all you want to do is get your message across straight to the webcam. But what if you want to do something a little more difficult. Here's a video about how to make an online screen-based tutorial. By the way, the "ScreenToaster" software I mention is free. It works online and saves your video into a cloud instead of to your hard-drive.

Making a DIY Video

This video was made in response to questions asked of me several times recently. Should we make videos ourselves to post on our own websites or on YouTube? That set me wondering what tools you would actually need...and came to the conclusion that just about everyone who owns a computer actually already has them. So don't expect this short piece to look as though it meets broadcast standards. That's not the object of the exercise. It's here to show what can be done with the simplest tools available -- and maybe to answer that question at the same time.

Video on Facebook

Until a few days ago, I've tended to upload video to YouTube and then point to them from my Facebook page. There were restrictions on Facebook over file size and length -- you couldn't post anything longer than 2 minutes, for instance. But over the weekend, I decided up upload a short piece about the dozens of sparrows that live in our garden...well, feed here anyway. And lo and behold, the rules have changed. They're now even more flexible than YouTube. The file size is limited to just over 1Gb and each video can be no longer than 20 minutes long. IMHO, anyone who uploads a video that long is either being self-indulgent or lacks any editing skills. No-one apart from very close family is going to watch it. But it does offer much greater flexibility which could also make Facebook just as much a "video for business" tool as YouTube. Now that's certainly worth discussing in greater depth.

Isn't Technology Wonderful

I'm afraid this is going to be something of a rant...but why is it that so much "plug and play" just doesn't? It's expecially frustrating when you put a lot of time and effort into a presentation, turn up at the venue where you're assured that "everything will work fine -- we're doing these all the time!!!" only to find that PC connection at the main stage is knackered and the only other one (at the back of the hall which means someone else has to hit the buttons) won't let you play any sound...and since all of my presentations have to do with online video, sound is kind of important! The IT person clucks his or her tongue and says something like "it should be fine" (or something like that) but doesn't actually have the knowledge to solve it. I can see I'm just going to have to buy all the kit and turn up with a completely self-contained package. However, it just should not be necessary. Rant over.
Now here are links to a couple of entertaining videos. The first's been seen about 2m times on various outlets: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SmgLtg1Izw
The second has just made it into the Guardian's Viral Video Charts. Looks like about 750k views in about two weeks. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndYxBQXhNjI&feature=PlayList&p=613F6D2953609BFC&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=2
That's all for the moment

Inform, Educate and Entertain

What kind of videos should you think of making? Lord Reith, the first Director General of the BBC, had a maxim – that everything the BBC made had to inform, educate or entertain. That's what you need to do with online videos as well. So should you make them yourselves? The answer to that is “it depends”. I know of companies that have been tempted to make their own with mixed success, the ones in the US adopting the technology much more successfully than their UK counterparts. One of the early success stories was a simple campaign that didn't even start out as a campaign. Blendtec makes blenders for the commercial market in the US. They wanted to increase their sales. This is what they did http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg1ckCkm8YI That's an example of how a simple idea “Does it Blend?” – the first video hardly cost them anything to make – turned into a something viral.

The value of YouTube

Is YouTube a good business tool? OK there are lots of ways to waste time there but many of the companies who're out there making their own videos at the moment are finding it very useful indeed. But why YouTube when there are other video sharing sites available. It's simple. Look at the figures. Put YouTube and Google Video together and their market share is over 60% (you put the two together because they both part of the same company). A long way back, there's the BBC iPlayer with something like 30% – but then you can't post your own videos there. Yahoo video and MSN video have about 3% each. There are over 20 other video sharing sites. That means that companies like Daily Motion, Metacafe and the rest are fighting over the remaining 3-4%. QED!!!

Slightly worrying that the Scottish Government may be considering a tax on cycling. Look at pg 53 http://ping.fm/wuZk2

And there's more of them http://ping.fm/iuqZa

Interesting to see how many people look at this http://ping.fm/xlxE2

Dramatic Online Changes

There's been massive change in the way we work since the turn of the century. Back in 2000, I was still using a dial-up modem at 56kbs – didn't get broadband until 2003! We did have Google and some other search engines (Alta Vista was probably the best known at the time); but we didn't have so many useful tools. LinkedIn appeared in 2003. Facebook was launched in 2004 and YouTube in 2005. Is it any wonder that so many people in business are still unsure of these services? But they need to get a grasp of them if they're going to exploit their potential. And the best way of exploiting online video is not just to put your videos on your own websites – who's going to find them there. You have to load them up to a service like YouTube and then use the social networks to tell people where to look.

I'm speaking about online video to the Power Lunch Club in Glasgow on Thursday. Details here http://ping.fm/mVdWE

I've been quietly working on a blog for some time which now needs to go public. So here goes. http://ping.fm/xehDK

Video Content

When making online video, companies need to hold in their minds the advice given by Lord Reith for the BBC when he founded it in the 1920s. He thought that everything should be "informative, educational or entertaining." That's more or less been the BBC's maxin ever since. And that's exactly what companies need to do when the put their own videos up either on their own websites or on YouTube. Forget about straight advertising. No-one will look at it!

New Facebook and LinkedIn Group

Who'd have thought it? Until now, no-one seems to have had the bright idea of creating many "Scottish" groups on Facebook or LinkedIn. All I was able to find were "Scottish Politics" and "Scottish Journalism", neither of which had seen any activity in quite a while -- the political one didn't even seem to have attracted any attention during recent by-elections which seems a little odd.

Be that as it may, I've now created one called "Scottish Business" and I'm going to start working on cascading them out to see what happens.

Excellent show on Inchcolm this afternoon. Thank goodness I spoke enough Italian to follow the plot.

Why re-invent the wheel?

The more I think about it, why do I need my own webpage any longer? I have this blog which is linked to other social media. I have my pages on LinkedIN and Facebook. I have just created three new groups on Facebook -- Scottish Business, Scottish Property and Scottish Sport Except Football. I was surprised no-one had thought if these before. Let's see where we go with them.

The Scottish Diaspora

Could there possibly be a market for an online video/social site for the millions of people who either are Scots, claim Scottish descent or have a particular affinity for the country. A lot of them like the haggis and bagpipes type of Scotland -- others come for the golf and the general ambience -- yet more like the food and drink (the Scotch Malt Whisky Society's a great advert for the country).

But can we turn it into a successful business?

This is quite old...but it's a reminder of what people were hoping for earlier this year.

Public Speaking

I've just been on one of the best public speaking courses ever. It's run by a fascinating guy called Erick Rainey and his company is called Rainworks. He's a global prize-winning speaker in his own right and he has the ability to improve your self confidence no end.
I now have to follow his mantra:
I am a mountain
I will follow my goals
I have set my inner compass
I will persist until I succeed...
in whatever field I chose -- and at the moment, there are four, interconnected fields:
online video, communication skills training, public speaking and ebooks.
Let's say I have plenty of opportunity.
Til next time

Communication Skills

One of the interesting things about working in TV is that you get to see how well -- or badly -- the great and the good (and the not so good) handle themselves in front of a camera. Lots of them have had some kind of media training. But all too many never get enough opportunity to put what they learn into practice. Two weeks, two months down the line after a training session, how much remains in their memory? Have they put the tools learned into everyday practice -- or have they just put them to one side?

Should online TV therefore give folk the chance to learn by doing? Isn't that a better way of applying those lessons?

Just a thought for today

Goodness, it's been a while

I hadn't realised that it had been quite such a long time since that last post -- but not a lot's been happening...until now.
Alan Downie and David Calder have new company in place -- The News Biz -- which has just won its first contract, with TIE (the company putting the Edinburgh Tram Network in place). It's not a huge contract but certainly worth having. And it should be great to help them get their messages across as the network grows.
We're also bidding for Midlothian Council -- but the wheels of local government grind extremely slow so it will be several weeks before we hear how that's progressed.
That's it for now. More soon
D

BT

What is it about British Telecom that makes it look so unprofessional?

My wife's been a BT customer (with two lines) for about 20 years. What do they manage to do - cut her off without warning. They cancel her phone line. They cancel her broadband. They cancel her email. For a business that depends heavily on the Internet, this is a disaster.

Whose fault is it? BT's!!! When my wife paid her account, they managed to put all of the money into one of the two lines. But did they advise her that there was a problem? NO. They just cut her off without a by-your-leave.

And when she called up to complain, they made her wait for reconnection. That's just of the basic phone line. It was going to take DAYS to set up the broadband again.

She's fizzing.

Creating an eBook

I've been asked to speak at an event run by the Power Lunch Club in Edinburgh next month. That seems like the incentive I need to start writing the eBook I've been thinking about -- on the subject of making good video for business. It's made me look at the stats -- and they're even better than I'd been telling everyone. People in the UK view over 3 BILLION videos a month. All I have to do now it make sure they look at those made by www.bitweb.tv and we're laughing.

Interesting Discovery

This isn't something I'd have thought of doing before -- but I've just linked my camera up to the laptop by firewire and recorded material direct on to the computer. This could prove a major time saving device for our various clients.

Hey Ho

Things have been very busy of late. The SFHA's www.housingscotland.tv has kept us very active. There was one day where they had lined up interview after interview at a conference so that we had loads of material "in the bag" for use later. This included an interview with the Scottish Housing Minister, Stewart Maxwell, and a host of others on their main topic = lead developer and investment reform.

Then they sent us off down to Ayrshire to make a feature in anticipation of their launching a major campaign on housing. This is The Year of the Home Coming in Scotland (more at http://homecomingscotland2009.com) and also the 250th anniversary of Robert Burns, our national poet. You can see the results of both the feature and the news conference to launch the campaign at the housing scotland website (above).

I'm also finding that the amount of media and communication skills training I'm being asked to do has suddenly increased. Looks like being about six half-days between now and the end of February.

So...hey ho and off we go!

Interesting

Tonight, I had a very good session with a friend called Ian Burgess. Now Ian's a self-confessed geek who REALLY understands the online world. He advised me that BITWeb.tv had to "take control of the channels" when promoting our video production. So we need to get the SFHA's videos up on to OUR website (www.bitweb.tv) as well as theirs and also marketing our services direct to their commercial clients.

His view is that by convincing the commercial clients that we can provide them with a service (probably in the form of case studies) then the money will follow and we can then offer the video to www.housingscotland.tv for free. The point is that they would have a useful tool for their own websites. We could offer to write up the information into written case studies as well and (as Ian put it) make sure the video was "aggregated" on to the various online video sites such as YouTube and Google Video etc.

As I say, Interesting and a lot of food for thought.

Networking

Today's been an interesting day -- and not because I've been doing very much for BITWeb.

There's a really excellent networking service in Edinburgh called Altanta. It's run by one of the most enthusiastic South African ladies called Nicky du Preez and her daughter Surit Freed. But she's a serial networker -- she just can't help it. She's also the most optimistic person I know -- even in these troubled times, she sees only opportunities and no threats!!!

So she brought a group of people together to hear a short seminar on sales from the local guru,
Mike Kean of Ask Training. Very taught and concise and very informative -- and then on to the Scotch Malt Whisky Society for lunch.

Ended up sitting beside a guy from Towry Law who may just be willing to pick up with some TV and run with it...but that's for the future. Delightful guy who's worth knowing anyway.

Strategic Thinking

Having spent a positive couple of hours trying to get BITWeb's strategy better planned, we at least have an idea of where we might be going. The Chamber of Commerce TV News Service http://www.bitweb.tv/edcham/winter_0809/ looks as though it will get a new lease of life with LloydsTSB willing to put some money into the pot.

More important, the SFHA seem willing to re-think how they use www.housingscotland.tv to incoporate it more into their other online publications. I now have to write a strategy paper for them which we can discuss on Friday.

We've also agree that our own website www.bitweb.tv should be upgraded with loads of material that I will probably have to write.

Hey ho

Some observations

One of the side effects of being under the weather is that you can take a look at what the competition are doing...and some of it stinks!!!

Defamation laws mean this had better involve "no names, no pack drill"...but I've noticed one video company that claims to have made productions for a range of what should be excellent clients. The trouble is: when you look at those clients' websites, there's no sign of said videos. Why?

To take one example...it involves a large firm of accountants and business advisers in the UK. There appears to be no coherent storyline. Instead, the Chief Executive appears, outside an office which doesn't seem to have any obvious link with the business, in shirt sleeves and without a tie. Now, the people who own http://www.bitweb.tv/ have run media and communication skills courses for many years and would never have allowed such a senior executive to appear in such a sloppy fashion. Chief Executives have to LOOK like Chief Executives at all times -- the company's reputation and their reputation depend on it.

To make matters worse, he was READING from cue cards somewhere to the right of the camera which meant that (a) he looked uncomfortable and (b) he sounded stilted. Not only that, he went on and on and on...for FAR TOO LONG. Anyone watching would have clicked on to something more interesting after the first couple of minutes. His message was completely lost.

Finally, for some reason I still don't understand, there was irrelevent "production music" running under the whole piece. (Production Music's usually pretty dire but can sometimes add a little ambience to a piece; it's written without a specific project in mind but is designed to suit particular generic themes such as "news", "travel", "drama", "children"...etc). In this case, it was very distracting and again would have meant the company's message was lost.

In another video, some of the statements to camera (they'd have been better as interviews) went from colour to black and white and back again for no reason. Not only that, the camera angles were truly bizarre! Again, the feature was spoiled by the irrelevant use of production music.

Come to BITweb for your online news channels, for your corporate video and any other online television in Scotland. We know how to tell a story and we know how to make sure you look the part.

What a bug can do for your business health

Being confined to bed isn't something I like doing -- does anyone? But sometimes, it's nature's way of getting you to slow down and start thinking about what you're doing. So I've been reflecting on where www.bitweb.tv is actually going and how we can make online video work better for us and our clients.

So I've posed about 30 questions for us to mull over. They fall into various categories -- what we want to do staregically, practical issues, loads on marketing and quite a few on how we make better use of the website.

I reckon that, once we've got the "what we want the company ACTUALLY to be" out of the way, the marketing issues are going to be the most important in driving things forward. We have to use the Internet tools to drive traffic to the various sites and that's going to be the challenge over the next few weeks.

We have our strategy meeting tomorrow -- so let's get going.

Having fun

This being a quiet time of year, I've been playing with my camera, trying out what Sony calls its "remote commander" -- which simply means a device clamped to the handle of the tripod which controls the zoom and focus. I've also been experimenting with some of the setting in the camera itself, in particular the Shot Transition feature. This allows you to set the start and end point for a move -- hit the "execute" button and the camera takes over and achieves the result very smoothly -- great for pull-focus shots which on the A1E are quite hard to manage by hand.

It should all make www.bitweb.tv better come the new season which starts in a few days time.

D

New Year's Day

A time for reflection about where www.bitweb.tv is going.

I think that the company needs to be a little more hard headed about future contracts as we move into 2009. There's probably going to be little money around this year so we have to provide a quality service at a reasonable price.

We're having a strategy meeting next week and tough decisions will have to be made, especially in connection with the Chamber. The SFHA is a good deal -- but we need more like it.

So we have to identify good targets and go after them aggressively.

Should we also be looking at creating magazines? I love the idea of one devoted to food from Scotland but do I really want to turn a hobby into a job?

Hey ho -- It's a lovely night and I really shouldn't be working ;->

D