That’s a Wrap!

For the past four months I have been fortunate to hold an internship at Skillman Video Group. I came here after working as a professional in film, television, and commercial production for a number of years. I’m working on a career shift and SVG was the perfect place to combine my production experience with my social media hobby. What happened with me and SVG over the summer?

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!

Social Video @Kickstarter

Ever wonder how to build a company around an invention without fabulously wealthy Venture Capitalist friends?  Kickstarter leverages the power of web 2.0, social-media, and video to crowd source startup capital. Artists, designers, entrepreneurs, activists, and storytellers appeal to the world-wide-web for funding and launch their ideas from the collective small donations of many. In the past few years I’ve been watching Kickstarter quickly become the place for DIY creative startups. They host every kind of project including technology, theater, food, comic books, and so on. Non-profit and for-profit are both welcome. It’s a bold, new model for business and art.

Kickstarter is also an unlikely host to a wide variety of marketing video examples. Each and every Kickstarter project must have a video pitch. They place videos above all other content. Kickstarter recognizes that video is essential to marketing your ideas. According to Kickstarter (and SVG), everything can be marketed with video even electronic prototype kits and mead and whatever your company offers. Designers and entrepreneurss profiled in a New York Times article talk about how important videos are for getting funding because the Kickstarter crowd is tech-saavy netizens. Anyone who finds you on the web expects video, and if you don’t have it you are behind the curve.

The site hosts every genre from documentary style to movie trailers to humble webcam-style. Some just use flashy imagery. Most are very simple. The trick is to match up the style and content with the brand and message and connect with your audience– things SVG is really good at. We’ve made videos in nearly every one of these styles for a wide variety of clients and worked in fundraising videos.

Marketing videos may be the most important  part of Kickstarter’s success and that of their users. It follows that it will be essential to your company or organization as well — not just for making an appeal to customers and clients, but also for SEO and brand. We’ve talked about this many, many times on our blog. If you don’t have video, you might be dismissed or ignored.

If you don’t know where to start with marketing your company, follow Kickstarter’s lead, check out a few examples there, and call Skillman Video Group.

Marketing Videos for Mediators

Yesterday Skillman Video group shot a legal marketing video for Massachusttes Dispute Resolution Services in Salem, MA. This is a mediation firm that arbitrates disputes between parties outside a courtroom. We redesigned the firm’s website this summer and founder Brian Jerome. wanted to create a video that would let his potential clients get to know him and his firm a little better.

This legal marketing video was unique because it was directed soley at attorneys seeking mediation, not the general public. The average joe has no real need for a mediator, but other firms use them extensively. This meant that Mr. Jerome spoke in a more business-like manner free to use terms of art. Direct, professional, and approachable was the best way to convey the message that his organization is unbiased, fair, experienced, and trustworthy. He didn’t have to be flashy or inviting or cute because he didn’t need to appeal to the masses.

MDRS reminded me most of our B2B clients: They have a small target audience, in this case only other attorneys, and are free to speak in depth without fear of alienating laymen. In B2B videos professionalism speaks for itself.

We went in and made a quick, attractive set in an otherwise dull conference room using what was available on location. One of SVG’s talents is making fast sets from nothing. For some of our best set design check out our social video on youtube.

Now that we’ve done web design and video for Massachusttes Dispute Resolution Services, they are considering doing a series of videomercials or social videos with us about more in depth, specific topics. What might you want to learn from a series of legal marketing videos? Check out some of our other work for law firms here.

FutureM and SVG: Video at the Speed of Twitter

What is FutureM?

A looking glass into the future of marketing.

Who’s at Future M?

Skilllman Video Group.

Shopximity invited SVG to tape their presentation at Future M, a marketing conference held in Boston focusing on the impact of technology on marketing. They asked us to shoot, edit, and upload a video of their presentation in 24 hours. They wanted to get the video up while the conference was still going on. It’s like a well-produced video tweet from Shopximity. For us it felt like a 24 hour race made possible by technology and our experience in fast production.

The SVG produced video should be up today. The idea of video at the speed of twitter is especially interesting to us. Instant video production might be perfect for clients who want to post while traveling or at events or any situation where time is crucial. With the world becoming more instantaneous, more 24/7, getting the word out about your company or event with near-instant professional video from anywhere will be expected. And it has to look better than the usual talk-into-the-webcam stuff you see on YouTube.

We’re going to stay ahead of this trend and keep providing fast, high-quality content.

This conference was the perfect event for us to tape. SVG believes strongly in pushing the boundaries of marketing. That’s why we embrace an integrated approach to video, social media, SEO, web design, and so on. Shopximity presented ideas about mobile technology as the new frontier of marketing. They have plans for integrating video content and interactive shopping on mobile devices. We’ll have to keep an eye on where this interactive mobile video marketing goes too.

Stay tuned to SVG’s blog for more insights into the future of video marketing.

UPDATE: Watch the video on our channel.

Make ‘Em Laugh: Social Video Marketing Services

This summer on our blog I have written about social videos that use entertainment alongside information to market a company or organization. You can read about two of my favorites: Inspiration Studios and YouTube Show and Tell. I wanted to show how to use entertaining marketing videos to attract potential customers, B2B clients, job candidates, donors, and so on.

To demonstrate how this approach might work for your company Skillman Video Group made a 2-minute social video. The idea was to create something cinematic and entertaining while advertising our social media and marketing services to a target audience, namely organizations and companies that lack modern interactive marketing campaigns. The project was out of the scope of our usual documentary style marketing videos which usually employ a single camera angle, b-roll, graphics, and interviews. Our new Videomercial utilizes actors, set design, location shooting, wardrobe, cinematography, and multiple camera angles to tell a story. It takes careful consideration of our brand and tone and balances everything with available resources.

Check the video out. What do you think?

This is a new type of service Skillman Video Group wants to offer to certain clients who would benefit from a more lighthearted, mass-appeal approach. We’d love to collaborate with clients to produce more videos of this style.

This kind of entertaining video casts a wide net and attracts a large audience. That audience then visits the company’s website for more in-depth content and marketing videos geared at turning visitors into clients. Your social media campaign (blog, twitter, email, facebook, youtube, etc.) would spread the video to both your current and potential clients. See how all the pieces fit together? That’s why SVG offers those complete, interlocking marketing services.

Imagine you are a law firm looking for the young, ambitious, future associates. You could really distinguish your firm from all the others with a short, entertaining, well-shot videomercial. Your competitors would look dull by comparison and you would see immediate ROI with more job applications. One of our clients already does something like this with SVG. The same method should work for finding B2B partners, customers, and donors, if you are looking for a younger, more casual demographic.

If you are looking to impress people with a cinematic marketing videomercial, give SVG a call.

If you want to read more about the production of this video check out our behind-the-scenes blog and pictures.

SVG Videomercial

Welcome the the premier of our newest social video!

We are excited to show you our new videomercial service. Typically SVG produces mostly marketing videos in a non-fiction, documentary style with interviews, talking heads, b-roll, graphics, and all the other marks of a typical marketing video. Now we also make more cinematic, fictional-type marketing videos. These videomercials are perfect for companies and organizations that want to utilize a more entertaining approach in their marketing. This can be the kind of video that hooks new prospects, B2B partners, clients, customers, job candidates, and so on while a more straightforward marketing video and web content reels them in.

I’ll talk more about this later this week, but for now check out the video on Youtube, vimeo, facebook, or even linkedin.

Read the behind the scenes blog posts too.

Fundraising Video Production Made Easy

Last week Skillman Video Group had the unique opportunity to videotape two Ramadan services for the Al Huda Society in Chelsea, MA. Al Huda hired SVG to create a marketing video to help the Islamic community organization raise the funds to complete their community center.

Al Huda is in the process of creating a permanent home for themselves, but they are short funds to complete the project. They struggled to make a fundraising video by themselves to attract donations, but the organization had difficulty scripting and planning their video and lacked the equipment, skills, and experience to execute their plans. With all the activities and services Al Huda conducts, they had no time to complete the project. Making a fundraising video was not as quick and easy as they thought. Al Huda focuses, after all, on community, education, and faith, not marketing videos.

Frustrated, they called SVG.

Fundraising videos are one of our specialities. In a matter of days we collaborated with Al Huda on content, shot two services, and delivered an attractive, thoughtful marketing video. We make the process quick and easy. Check it out. This is one of my favorite projects at SVG. Standing amidst any religious service is always an moving and energetic experience, but I may never get to witness another Muslim service delivered in entirely in Arabic. Check out the photos on our Facebook page. The finished video looks great and is unique in our portfolio. Adam Guzewicz was our lead photographer and shot the footage using a Canon 5D.  The end result was breathtaking footage! The people were welcoming, open, and genuinely appreciated our work. Al Huda tells us that the fundraising video will be key in achieving their vision for the organization.

If your organization wants to use video to supplement your outreach and development efforts, but lacks the time and expertise to make your own, give us a call. We’ll make it easy.

Social Video: Inspiration Studios

While I was writing my last piece about DSLRs I was reminded of a popular B2B social video campaign for a camera rental house in Australia. Inspiration Studios produces a marketing video series discussing new technology available for rent. Sometimes they are on the road at industry events like NAB demonstrating/mocking new camera tech and sometimes just doing satire. To anyone familiar with camera tech, videos like this and this are hilarious.

The videos get a few thousand hits which doesn’t seem like much, but everyone in Melbourne’s production industry watches them. And that is what is important. The videos and humor are directed at camera geeks and producers, not the general public. Strictly B2B. They are far more entertaining than the usual boring, tedious, clichéd technology videos. The series has made them stand out as the ”cool” place to rent camera gear in Australia.

I talked about this a bit here, but I really want to emphasize it again. If you want to attract B2B clients you can make a targeted video that is not just informative, but also entertaining. It doesn’t have to be funny, just interesting to watch.

Inspiration Studios combines video, a blog, website, and Facebook page essential to a successful social media campaign. This is the perfect example of the kind of integrated social video campaign SVG can do for our B2B clients.

Check out their Vimeo channel for more.

Social Video: YouTube Car

I wanted to share another example of B2B social video I found this week starring a car, a yeti, and the viewer. Back when YouTube was still seen as a place for funny cat videos and 80′s music videos they wanted to attract marketing creatives to the YouTube platform. YouTube developed “YouTube Show and Tell” to showcase creative marketing videos hoping to attract a community of agency creatives.

To promote YTS&T they hired Devilfish, a collection of Boston artists to create videos depicting the interactive adventures of a miniature car named, appropriately, “Car.” With some clever eye-catching visuals “Car” demonstrates how to leverage annotation, cross-linking, comments, and other features of YouTube. This video seems to use them all. The videos are fun to watch and fun to play with whilst showing how to use youtube’s many interactive social video tools.

The videos are aimed at a strictly B2B audience: YouTube to Agency. They also supported the growth of a community of agency creatives and art directors on YouTube. Now, of course, YouTube is THE place to upload your social marketing videos. The “Car” videos were instrumental in attracting a young, artistic following.

This is another example of how merging social media with some high-quality video content can kickstart a marketing campaign. Skillman Video is experienced at working with companies of all shapes and sizes on more B2B social video campaigns.  Call today to learn more!

James Brady and Associates

Last week we shot a short marketing video for James Brady & Associates, a Walpole law firm. Skillman Video Group is carving out a nice list of legal clients.

One of the challenges of shooting legal marketing videos is avoiding the typical, clichéd lawyer voice you hear in commercials. James Brady wanted to present a friendlier, more approachable face and avoid the histrionic, pushy approach seen in those  scary black-and-white commercials on daytime TV. Mr. Brady is naturally a friendly guy, so we didn’t have to coach him. We only needed a few takes and a couple hours to set up, shoot, and wrap out.

While shooting we discovered that there was a lot James wanted to talk about, but it didn’t fit into a short 1-minute marketing video. This videos might be the perfect opportunity for Skillman Video Group to produce a series of longer legal marketing videos I talked about here.

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