Gearing Up To Go Viral with Video
Tuesday, July 15th, 2008
By: Lisa Manyon www.lisamanyon.com
I? am the first to admit that I’m a bit technologically challenged. In fact, I like to say I know just enough to be dangerous. Luckily I have fabulous friends, colleagues and team members who are techno geeks (and I say this most affectionately).
Recently I traveled to Minnesota to visit Digital Buddha Studios live and in person. Digital Buddha Studios is the brainchild of my friend and colleague Viki Viertel. She specializes in digital movies to promote your business online. Anyway, the purpose of the trip was three-fold.
- I really wanted to see the corporate headquarters of Digital Buddha Studios since I’m one of the script writing team~
- I scheduled sound stage time to capture footage for my upcoming viral drip campaign~
- I’d never been to Minnesota and I really wanted to connect with savvy, like-minded women who were heading that way too~
Plus, viral video is HOT. It’s one of the quickest ways to connect emotionally online (if you’ve got a good script that is…).
Subscribers to my ezine love the video blast from Simple Truths that I send from time to time. In fact, I get more response from those blasts than anything else– even free stuff.
With those results in mind, I knew it was time to record and produce a viral video campaign of my own. My suspicions were confirmed as I was on the plane catching up on my reading.
I was thumbing through the special video and broadcast issue of O’Dwyer’s PR Report. Several points in the issue were really sticky and supported what I already suspected.
- It’s become cliche’ not to overproduce web video but you don’t want to underproduce it either. This really hit home because cheesy, poorly recorded videos are a pet peeve of mine. They simply don’t represent businesses in a manner I deem acceptable –at least not for MY business.
- It’s not necessary to spend $30K on animation or effects but it is important to work with an expert storyteller when creating your script.
- Viral video campaigns are not limited to blogs or You Tube. There are actually many other avenues to distribute your planned viral drip campaign.
- It’s relatively easy to measure views of viral campaigns to help track return on investment.
Websites with video generate increased stickiness. We all want to be sticky, don’t we? - There is significant documented evidence that click-thrus and calls to action increase with video.
After devouring the entire issue of O’Dwyer’s PR Report I’m even more confident than before about video and the effectiveness of integrating online video into the marketing mix.
Stay tuned for updates and you’ll see me in cyberspace soon. Are you using video to market your business? If so, what are you up to? How’s it working for you? Feel free to post your thoughts. ? I’d love to hear from? you.
[tags] Viki Viertel, Digital Buddha Studios, Video, viral marketing, movies, scripts, script writing, Lisa Manyon, www.lisamanyon.com, www.writeoncreative.com, Write On ~ Creative Writing Services, LLC., O’Dwyer’s PR Report, Simple Truths [/tags]








