Posts Tagged ‘video production’

Using a Presenter in Your Corporate Video

Monday, May 23rd, 2011

If you are blessed with articulate, charismatic executives then consider yourself lucky. If you are like most companies (large or small) however, you may want to consider hiring professional presenters to represent your company in your corporate videos.

Television Commercials. Most companies (of all sizes) use actors for their commercials, for good reason. Stephen Jobs is arguably one of the best presenters on the planet but Apple doesn’t use him in their ads. Justin Long ( the “I’m a Mac” guy ) is a much better embodiment of the Apple attitude, style and demographic than Jobs. Linking your brand to the CEO is not always a good strategy (especially if he/she leaves the company).  Unless you have a compelling, articulate leader – one that your target audience identifies positively with, you are better off to use a Video Presenter or actor for you TVC.

Product Demonstrations. This category is much more complicated because there are many types of product demonstrations and many different audiences. Your Corporate Video, might benefit from using the product manager in the video but then again, his nerves lack of presentation skills etc might end up distracting the audience enough to not take note of the key points in your Product Video.

Corporate Overviews. This is one of the broadest and most common Online Corporate Video Categories – usually the first point of entry for companies using online video to market themselves. Corporate Overviews are the best place to show off the executives or employees because the business purpose of the corporate overview is to highlight the company (not necessarily the benefits of the products or services that you produce). In this case authenticity is very important. The challenge however comes when your owner/CEO/ executive is just not that compelling. Some video production companies will claim they can make anyone look good on camera, but the truth is that not everyone does well on camera. Feel free to chat to us locally or visit our offices on the Gold Coast and Brisbane to get an honest opinion We are here to make your video production work well for its purpose.

The desired format and structure of the video should determine the need for a Autocue. If you are looking for a personal, unscripted style then it might make sense to give the executive some talking points, roll film and cross your fingers. If however, you have a very specific, detailed or structured message you should consider using a teleprompter with either a company spokesperson or an external presenter.

Give us a call to discuss your video production needs and we can help you out with all the advice you need to make an informed decision on whether to use an employee or an actor for your next video.

Share

Blue Shadow Group Expands

Monday, May 16th, 2011

Blue Shadow Group are Proud to announce the opening of an additional office in Loganholme

This move is designed to better improve our services and offerings across the Queensland coast, Included in the new office is a fully decked out green screen studio with Teleprompter (autocue) facilities, A second warehouse for delivery of our Audio Visual equipment to Brisbane and Logan venues and a second Edit Suite to offer more high end compositing facitilies for our Video Production department.

Feel free to drop by or give us a call to find a solution that suits your needs

Share

Ways to use Video to communicate to your employees

Monday, May 16th, 2011

Video is a powerful and engaging way to communicate within your organization. Some examples:

1.    Local Heroes. Highlight the people that move the company forward, who make a difference and who add character and vitality to your organization. (Not just the executives.)

2.    Internal Case Studies. Video is a great way to model behaviour and show (rather than just tell) how and why business practices help make everyone’s job easier.

3.    Employee orientation. Either professionally produced by  video production company or employee generated – video is a great way to get people to listen and to understand.

4.    Tell your story.  If you are blessed with great communicators at the helm then you are well ahead of the game. If not, video is an excellent vehicle to remind your employees of your core values, your business objectives, your commitment to the community and the environment and most importantly, why your employees should be excited about their future with your company.

5.    Events/Conferences and Trade shows. Events and conferences are a great opportunity to capture what is going on in your company and in your industry and to communicate this knowledge with your employees.

6.    Customer Testimonials. Of course customer testimonials and video case studies have huge value as external marketing tools but don’t forget to communicate these valuable stories to your employees.

7.    Training Videos. Sales training, process and best-practices training, corporate governance and compliance , and Health and Safety are all areas that benefit from the use of video communications tools.

Video is a great way to tell your story and to engage employees.

Share

Taking your Next Conference online

Monday, April 18th, 2011

Are you looking at a new way to generate revenue online from your next conference – Why not consider webcasting your event to a online audience that would otherwise not be able to be at the venue due to other commitments or travel restraints?

Online streaming or webcasting of your conference is easy and afforadable. We can stream the video of your speakers including thier visual aids – ie Powerpoint live or on demand to the web where users can view and navigate in an eas to use interface

Check it out on our webcasting page and contact us and have a chat about how we can increase your revenue and take your conference to the next level.

Share

New Audio Visual Technology

Tuesday, March 29th, 2011

Blue Shadow Group has had many enquires about what the best technology to use in various environments. We consider ourselves at Blue Shadow Group specialists when it comes to screen technology, but like any profession we need to stay on top of all the latest technology coming into the marketplace, especially when we hire so many different types of screens, from projection screens, to LCD’s and Plasmas.

We have 36mtr screens at our disposal that can do what is called Blend pro, this is the art of blending a number of projectors together to make one large image. This is fabulous technology, but still does not come cheap.

Other options include water screen technology, this is getting used in special situations where it is more about looking impressive in a dark zone area, and typically for special events and theme parks. It is not something you would use to watch a movie all night long because the clarity is not as good as a proper screen surface but does the job for logos and short advertising video campaigns or even a kids short cartoon.

The greatest technology now being used in function facilities as entrance features and in exhibition environment is the LCD screen brick technology.

You have to live with the brick effect of the panels, but looking past that you have a wonderful HD image on a very large scale, the detail is absolutely amazing to the eye.

Also for TV shows this is becoming more and more the norm as the backdrops they use now, looks great when you see this on TV aswell, crystal clear.

The other technology that is becoming better by the day is LED pixel screens, now it is not as good as the LCD as just mentioned by the improvements on the 6mm pixel separation is becoming better and has a wide range of applications including being used as outdoor screens for golf tournaments, other sporting events. They make these screens as all weather options and a cheaper version that can be used indoors as back drops for stage at events and billboards in the exhibition centre.

Samsung have just brought out some really exciting new technology aswell.

The new 65inch LCD billboard touch screens are fantastic. Great for use in shopping centres and anywhere you want an active display board these are great. Obviously you don’t need a keyboard and mouse you just touch or tap the screen away and get the information you need, literally at your fingertips.

They provide great clarity in environments that are in direct sunlight, a true winner, especially for the price, which is about a fifth of the price they originally were for a less suitable product.

Share

Mobile Video

Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011

We all know that video content is big on the Internet and that is no different for mobile content. Cell phone companies cannot move fast enough making sure that video is viewable on their devices with larger screens, super high resolution, and the space to allow for clean, clear, and even streaming viewing of video. The creation of apps to allow mobile users to view various kinds of content are being created every day.

If your blog or website is engaged with education of your market, and your target market uses mobile devices, video content is a great way to educate your potential clients. Creating short video lessons, two to three minutes long, are the perfect mobile content for your potential and clients to view while they wait on line at the doctor or grocery store.

Mobile technology is here to stay, so why not make the most of it with mobile video content which enables your visitors to quickly view your content, take in your lessons. Hopefully your viewers will make the choice to purchase your product since you went so far out of the way to make sure they can get your information and content even while at the grocery store.

Mobile video content can help you connect and engage your site visitors in a brand new way that you couldn’t do just a couple of years ago, it’s the best that mobile content has to offer. There are over 5 billion mobile users globally and people are buying mobile devices at a much faster rate than they are even buying computers. Knowing this, mobile content should be one more bullet point in your over all content marketing strategy.

Share

6 Advantages of using video in your marketing campaign.

Saturday, March 19th, 2011

Statistics provided by YouTube reveal that 67% of internet usage is based on videos and 70% of online users are interested only in watching videos. Online video production is one of the best avenues to drive huge traffic to your website. Videos enable you to convey your message through various methods, such as via action, gestures, visual images, visual text, music, animation and speech.

Advantages of Online Video Production

Online video production offers numerous benefits to businesses looking to increase their brand recognition and gain a competitive edge. Let us have a look at these benefits:

1. Sense of belonging: Through videos, people come into contact with the real person instead of text and pictures. This creates a sense of belonging between the company and its clients, and it is an opportunity to enhance customer loyalty.

2. More appealing: There is a famous adage, “Seeing is believing”. When people hear something said by a person, they tend to believe it faster than they do after reading information.

3. Wide audience: YouTube states that people view 2 billion videos regularly. You can also reach a huge audience with the help of videos and create your brand awareness.

4. Interesting: Some people find videos more interesting than text. Even if the video is little longer, people may view it patiently.

5. Video sharing: If people like the video, they tend to share it with their friends through social media sites, such as Facebook and MySpace. This creates the opportunity to spread your business without any serious effort on your part.

6. Client feedback: By putting your video on YouTube or other media website, you can actually involve viewers. They can put their comments, which will help you to adapt your offerings according to your customers’ preferences.

Online video production can result in growing sales and building the reputation of your business. Video marketing is a powerful way of gaining online visibility because it is cost effective and appealing to customers. If you have an online business, it is favorable to adopt this strategy along with other marketing strategies.

Share

Why adding video to your site can decrease your website bounce rate

Thursday, March 17th, 2011

Online videos have rocketed in popularity over the past five years, mainly due to the impact of YouTube and the fact that it is now so easy to shoot a video for your business or product. Some of the latest webcams are so good that you simply do not need to buy really expensive equipment, you can simply plug in and off you go, but using a flip cam or small camcorder does produce the best results for businesses when using videos on their site.

Many webmasters, business owners and website managers wonder why they should be using videos on their website, worrying that replacing text with videos would be detrimental to SEO and would also increase the strain on their servers. Both of these worries are totally unfounded and in fact, websites that are selling products or services simply must have videos as it will lead to increased sales and enquiries, as long as the videos are of good quality.

The Internet has changed the way we find information. Over the past few years people would rather watch someone telling them how to do something than read a three hundred word article about it. For example, if you wrote an article about SEO and then also recorded yourself reading the article, the chances are that the video would be more popular, even though it’s the same information on offer. Internet users just seem to prefer videos to text in the modern day, as they believe it is more concise, personal and sometimes more informative.

Adding videos onto your website will increase the length of the visitor per user, simply because you have more chance of people watching your videos than reading all of your text. It is easier to watch a video on a site than sit and read through three or four pages of text when they can get the same information from a short and concise clip.

The reason YouTube, DailyMotion and other video sharing websites are so popular is really simple – they offer quick videos for all niches, meaning that half an hour spent on YouTube can often be the equivalent to sitting down for 3 hours finding and reading through tons of articles and content on websites.

Along the same lines as online games, videos offer interactivity for your website, with Web 2.0 really being about interactivity and trying to engage with the user on a much more personal basis. By having a couple of videos on your site advertising you and your services or products allows the user to see everything they need to know about what they might be buying or see the person behind the service on offer.

As the long as the videos are nicely shot, of decent quality and are informative, you can rest assured that having these videos on your site will lead to increased visitor lengths, as when users feel engaged and interested, they will stick around to find other videos and more information about you and your products or services that your website is promoting.

Share

Get more Youtube Views Now!

Wednesday, March 16th, 2011

If you want to get more views then you need to make it easier to find your videos. The best way to do that is to optimize your videos and channel, and leverage the SEO benefits. In this article I will give you a five step process on how to optimize your videos that will make it easier to be found in YouTube and Google thus increasing your views.

1. Give Your Channel a Theme

Many channels I evaluate don’t have a theme. Even professionals that have a brick and mortar business have videos of their family barbeque and other random video that has nothing to do with their business. There is nothing wrong with showing off the big fish you caught, but people look at YouTube channels to find out more about the author. Don’t confuse people with videos that have nothing to do with your business. Make sure you have video playlists of your videos set up that direct viewers through your sales process, and leave the family videos on a personal channel.

2. Optimize Your Videos

YouTube videos follow the same exact rules as other webpages. That’s because a YouTube video page IS a webpage. Don’t assume that your unique title will be eye catching. It’s not. Use keyword research to help you decide what the best title is for your videos. You want keyword rich titles so YouTube’s search engine can find your video and know how to catalog it. Do the same with your tags, and your description. The video helps people determine the quality of your content, and the text that describes your content helps YouTube and Google determine where to put your video.

3. Put Your FULL YouTube URL in Your Description

That’s it. Put your full YouTube URL in your description. Make it the first thing you put in your description. Remember this is http://www.youtube.com/yourtubechannelname. If you don’t have the http:// it won’t be a real link, and you miss out on the SEO juice it offers. If you want to direct people to your site you can also put your website URL in there instead of your YouTube channel.

4. Put a Watermark in Your Video

Having a watermark in your video works wonders. Either a logo for branding, the URL of your YouTube channel, or your website URL not only makes it almost impossible for people to steal your video and claim it as their own, but also drives a lot of traffic back to your YouTube channel.

5. Make a Good Call to Action

Not many people really have a call to action in their videos, and they wonder why they don’t get many views. You need to gently urge people to comment, subscribe, and watch other videos. If not you will just keep making videos and hoping they will get found and watched.

By following these 5 simple steps you will be found easier by not just the search engines, but also people looking for information.

Share

Why Use Youtube to Market your Business?

Thursday, March 10th, 2011

As the second most used search engine in the world, and as the top video sharing site, YouTube is perhaps one of the most important marketing tools you have at your disposal. If you do not have a YouTube channel set up for your business to promote your products and services, you are missing out on potentially millions of people who will never see your message. If you are yet unconvinced by the effectiveness of this website in your marketing campaigns, consider these statistics:

  • Every day, two billions videos are viewed by people all over the world.
  • Every minute, an average of 24 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube.
  • In just two months, more video is uploaded to YouTube in terms of hours than was broadcast on CBS, NBC, and ABC combined in the last 60 years!

Now, while these numbers may impress you, you may ask yourself, “How can one of my videos compete against other clips that are destined to go viral?” There are several free tricks you can use to gain traffic for your videos and in turn drive traffic to your point of sale. You can embed videos on your website or blog, and create links from social networks like Facebook and Twitter to raise awareness of your campaigns.

Share