A 2010 Super Bowl commercial re-ignited Betty White's career. See how the rules of game day advertising can be applied to your online video marketing.

This afternoon, Super Bowl 46 will be held in Indianapolis between the New England Patriots and New York Giants, re-igniting a fierce rivalry between the two teams. And while many people tune in to catch the touchdowns or the half-time show, a highlight of the game every year for many is the commercials. Thousands of people tune in to see what creative and interesting ways companies will promote themselves in 30 second slots throughout the game. The best and most memorable commercials will stay in the media conscious for weeks to come, and be talked about around water coolers across the nation. A Super Bowl commercial even revived the acting career of Golden Girl Betty White, who starred in an advertisement for Snickers and has since appeared in movies, hosted SNL, and even has her own television show.

Buying a Super Bowl ad isn’t cheap; it costs 3.5 million dollars for a 30 second time slot during the big game. This means that companies have to make the most of their airtime, and so a method has been perfected to create the most effective commercials. Many of the tools used by these big corporations can be applied to your business, especially in online video marketing. Here are a few things Super Bowl commercials do that you should consider in social video marketing for your company:

Keep it Short: 30 seconds doesn’t seem like a lot of time, but a good commercial tells a complete story and gives the audience an understanding of the product in only half a minute. An online video doesn’t need to be quite this short, but somewhere between one and a half and two minutes is recommended. This gives you enough time to introduce your business to prospective customers, but is short enough to ensure that they watch the video until the end.

Be Selective With Your Information: The purpose of an online video, like a commercial, is to provide enough information about your company or product so that a viewer is interested in learning more. But avoid too many fine details, long winded speeches, or an overwhelming amount of text, as it can be off putting to a viewer.

Make it Engaging: No matter how wonderful your product is, if people forget your advertisement, you’ve wasted your time and money. And with $3.5 million on the line, the marketing experts behind Super Bowl commercials know how important it is to make it engaging. For your social video marketing, the keys to keeping it interesting include a high level of technical skill, quality video production, and showcasing your product or services in a unique way. Many viewers are drawn to humor if it’s done well, but this isn’t the answer for every business video.

Use the Internet to its Full Extent- This year, every Super Bowl commercial is linked to a Facebook page, Youtube account, or Twitter feed. Even with a viewing audience of 111 million, companies know there are still millions more that can be reached online. This dedication to getting their brand out there is exactly what your company needs to be thinking about. Having video on one website isn’t enough; think about linking it to your Facebook, Google +, website homepage, or Youtube account to get the most of your social video marketing.

So whoever wins the big game today, watch the commercials. Pay attention to how this year’s commercials adhere to tools and suggestions in this post, and see if you can use any of their creative solutions for your business needs.

Big things:

When I took the internship I wanted to make a marketing video for SVG that was more ambitious and cinematic than their previous videos. I brought my skills as a set designer, contacts with actors, and access to cinematographers and wardrobe stylists together for the Old Timey Marketing project. I’m quite proud of what I did, and it is helping us find new clients. I think it shows that SVG can make movie-like videomercials for clients that want to stand out.

I had the privilege of attending a Muslim Ramadan service in Chelsea when SVG shot a fundraising video for a community center. I’m not a religious person, but it was still a powerful, moving experience. And we shot some amazing footage. I doubt I’ll ever have another opportunity to go. You can read all about it here.

Social Media does work for SEO. Our page rank has risen, which is good. Getting people to follow you and comment is tricky, no matter how good the content is. I looped in a few new subscribers and I think it’s paying off. Read all my posts here.

Small things:

Managing a multi-platform social media campaign is not that difficult. A few hours a week. More businesses should do it.

I discovered many interesting social media and viral video campaigns and got to blog my analysis of why they work. Some interesting and inspiring ideas.

Anchor links, micro sites, pingbacks, landing pages, etc.

I got a much needed brush-up on Final Cut Pro and Soundtrack.

I hadn’t used a Lowell lighting kit since college, so I got a valuable refresher course on lighting from Andrew, our usual Videographer.

Now that I’ve attended client meetings I can add actual “agency experience” to my resumé.

Until you ask, the answer is always “No.” Most people are really happy to help you out with locations, props, wardrobe, camera, etc.

I’m excited that I’ve got these new skills that will propel me into new career choices. Thanks SVG!

Is TwitVid worth the time to add to your social media portfolio?

Twitter is cool, right? Celebrities, businesses, non-profits and average-joes all use Twitter to spread their message 140 characters at a time. Web video is cool too. You can use it to advertise your products, ask for money, rant about politics, and show cute kittens.

What if you could combine the two? That would be internet coolness squared! Or would it?

TwitVid combines the two social media applications nicely. TwitVid has some interesting SEO tools, time saving integration features, mobile apps, and general buzz. TwitVid makes it easy to share videos with your followers and generate discussion amongst your friends, partners, clients, and customers. It has stuck around longer than most other Twitter video services and received a lot of capital investments. TwitVid has some impressive business and celebrity users and partners.

Building a service around Twitter seems a little opportunistic: take something popular and add video to it. That’s bound to be a success. The trouble is there are many other services doing the same thing and it won’t be long until Twitter makes its own video service. Maybe that’s the founder’s plan: get bought by Twitter. It also lacks Twitter’s original communication gimmick that made it so popular: restrict messages to 140 characters.

We’ve been sharing our videos and clients videos through links on Twitter for a few years without this added application. You can post advertisements, marketing videos, video blog, and all other business video tools to Youtube, Vimeo, Facebook, etc. and link them on Twitter. SVG embraces social media and marketing trends in our work everyday, but TwitVid leaves us feeling a little underwhelmed. With so many other social media options you have to manage your outlets carefully. It may, however, be the greatest web video service of all time.

We’re going to try it ourselves for some of our projects and see what you think. Follow us on Twitter for updates on TwitVid.

We can move you from the blue into the orange.

I could start by talking about why you need to embrace Social Media at your business, but someone else already did that here. If you already do, good for you; call us for a video sometime. If not, it’s probably because you think you don’t have the time.

Is it really that hard to do social media?

If you look at lists like this and don’t know where to start (or stop), it can be. As your company expands its social media web to more sites it can be difficult to maintain all of them. Luckily most websites offer automatic integration. With integration one Tweet or blog post or video is reposted automatically to all your accounts. One click will update five websites.

Even better, though, is to figure out which sites best suit your company rather than try to use every one. Are you a non-profit?  Perhaps Kickstarter will connect you to other fundraisers, donors, and young idealists. Want to reach the college crowd? Try Facebook. If you are an artist you could use tumblr to host your daily portfolio additions. Want to converse with celebrities and try to get them to endorse you (good luck)? Try Twitter. Is your company involved in current events, news, and the law? You could you could host relevant articles and columns with your commentary on del.icio.us. LinkedIn is practically a requirement for B2B organizations looking to find new clients and partners.

The trick to making social media easy is finding your audience on the web and setting aside a little time for conversations with them. You can do as little or as much as you’d like, but you need to do something. Soon. This is what we do everyday at SVG: help companies and organizations communicate.

It can’t be harder than this, right?

Social Media acts like an international word-of-mouth campaign. People from everywhere can follow your company’s work through blog posts, yelp reviews, and so forth and pass word on to their friends. It’s about shares, not clicks. If you can get followers on Twitter, fans on Facebook, and linkers on LinkedIn you can get customers and partners. If you just have a website or just have a video you are missing out on some huge Social Media benefits:

1) Most importantly, a Social Media campaign it improves your company website’s SEO. Every page link, share, and repost will move your company up in search rankings, along with all the text and crosslinking your social media campaign already creates for itself. When you frequently use keywords in your Social Media updates that also raises your page rank. So when someone searches for “Massachusetts Custom Cheese Danish Fabrication” on Google or Yahoo your company will appear ahead of all others.

2) It engages your customers, partners, and prospects. Active Social Media transforms your company image from simply a website or banner ad, into a voice. It’s like when the owner of the restaurant greets you at your table, asks about your service, talks about the impending first day of school, and so on. He is forging a relationship beyond customer and company to encourage your return. Social Media creates a forum or comunity where your audience can interact with each other and with you. The audience becomes the content itself, not just consumers.

3) Visitors to your website will see that your company is active and invested in modern technology. If you don’t have a frequently updated blog or lack a Facebook landing page, they will assume your company is dated.

We believe that Social Media is key to marketing your company, not just for promoting your SVG-produced videos, but also for the reasons above. We set our clients up with a Social Media campaign that will promote their company, boost SEO, and encourages client retention. We can help shape your content, choose your SEO keywords, and find new Social Media services that cater to you and your clients. It’s so easy that there is no excuse for avoiding it especially when other companies and organizations have been using Social Media for several years.

This is why Skillman Video Group provides Social Media services to our clients. It is key to a successful marketing campaign. When combined with SVG-produced videos and web design your company gets a complete marketing package.

First, who would post such a humiliating video of themselves? Second why was this the first video posted on this account? Third, is the only other video in the account which was posted just after this one an attempt to make the account appear older? Is this just a joke? I think it might be a cleverly disguised social marketing video posted by eHarmony.

I used some of Skillman Video’s usual SEO analytics to investigate the resuls of the video on eHarmony’s visitors. As of this posting, Alexa rankings show a small increase in visitors to eHarmony following the video’s posting. Google trends also shows a spike in searches for the website. How many of the 8 million viewers navigated to the website after seeing this video? Enough to justify a video that cost nothing to make.

You might be familiar Boxxy, a mysterious vlogger who created an infuriating vlog of herself that sparked virulent debate about whether she was earnest of trolling. Entire communities of Boxxy haters and supporters waged cyber wars for weeks as the video went viral. Whereas Boxxy merely intended to satirize the typically vapid, adolescent vlogs on YouTube, eHarmony might be capitalizing on the same social video formula. If this isn’t already a deliberate social marketing scheme, then it should be.

Simple social videos like this are so easy, fast, and cheap to make, but they can have great ROI. You can’t force your video to go viral. You might not even want to, especially if you are interested in attracting B2B clients —   a more directed, professional target. But you can drive some traffic to your website by entertaining your audience with a little satire.

Building on the ideas he discussed in his books and briefs, Barnett founded a B2B enterprise, Enterra Solutions, to provide support and consultation to NGO’s operating in developing countries, especially Afganistan and Iraq. Then he opened a social media outlet, WikiStrat, that borrowed from the wiki model of disaggregated, open source content. At Wikistrat armchair geopolitical strategists (students, enterprises, authors) can discuss issues of development, military, and economics. He has provided his fans and clients (businesses and academia) a forum to discuss and debate their opinions. This translates into not only return readers but also better SEO through crosslinking and buzz.

Barnett releases a biweekly video discussing current issues. The videos aren’t pretty — Skillman Video Group could could offer him some pointers on making nicer looking video. But they are effective at generating discussion among his followers and clients. The success of this effort shows that social media (blogs, wikis, etc.) works best when integrated with video content and vice-versa.

Barnett has been a master of employing a multimedia approach to marketing his company and spreading his ideas for global peace through economic integration and military reform while attracting customers to his enterprises. He knows how to leverage all types of media: print, radio, television, blogging, twitter, and social video. He should serve as a model for other B2B focused enterprises and agencies. This is the kind of integrated marketing solution that Skillman could provide to our clients.

Sites like Google Trends offer a basic overview of the most popular search words being entered on any given date.  With a little creativity, you may be able to incorporate some of these words into your web content.  A blog is a great choice for exploring the use of trending search words because each post offers an opportunity to discuss different topics.  Finding a way to reference a popular search word in your blog, and even linking to another site that discusses that word in more detail can lead to increased traffic and more business for your company.  Skillman Video Group can also optimize your web video using keywords which have particular effectiveness on social media websites like Youtube and Facebook.  And don’t forget, video is compatible on all major social media sites and really adds another dimension to your Internet Marketing strategy.  Call today at 1-800-784-0140 to learn more!

One of the most basic ways to determine the success of a internet video is to measure the amount of visitors to the site both before and after the inclusion of the video.  A webpage with a video may influence the amount of time a visitor actually spends on the website, which will potentially lead to more visitors purchasing the product or service.  These two statistics are also measured to analyze the influence that the video has on the website, and any conclusions draw can be used to further optimize video placement.

As one of the principle goals of Social Video Marketing (SVM) is increasing traffic to the website, Skillman Video Group also monitors the amount of traffic a video is driving to the site.  Video content is becoming increasingly more visible in search engine results, and by utilizing optimized encoding and relevant keywords more potential clients will reach your website.  Contact Skillman Video Group today to learn how SVM can work for you!

Social Video Marketing is one of the most cost effective marketing strategies available, and clients can expect an exposure to cost ratio much greater than could be obtained through more traditional strategies like print or television advertising.  The content delivery service Limelight Networks recently revealed that for the first time, over fifty percent of internet bandwith usage is from videos.  Optimized video content can tap into this trend using social media networks like Youtube and Facebook, sites that receive millions of hits per day and do not charge hosting fees.  Skillman Video Group can specifically tailor a high quality video to keep your business at the forefront of the growing internet video phenomenon.