Engaging Your Audience With Online Video

Richard Creighton and Cindy Stevens highlight the importance of using video content online

Richard Creighton, principal of The Magazine Group, continues the social media discussion with a presentation on using video. To kick off his session, Creighton offered up this statistic: In 2003, 21 million people were looking at online video; this year that number will reach 110 million. If you want to ramp up your social media participation, engage your audience with online video.

What can online video do for you?

• Heighten leadership position
• Increase site traffic
• Create opportunity for you to create a video library
• Make your president or CEO an industry star
• Give advertisers the opportunity to advertise online, too; pitch people with an integrated package that offers their brand to your members in a number of different media

How can you deliver online video?

• Video portals on your website
• E-newsletters
• Social networking through Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Technorati, Del.icio.us, etc.
• News releases
• Syndication
• Video bloggers
• RSS feeds

In what format should you put videos?

• Interview--Interview your CEO about an event, the story behind it and why it's important for members to attend to surround members with different mediums.
• Talking head--Position your CEO as a strong leader and an expert in the industry.
• Event--Promote events with viral marketing videos. Put event videos in front of members and customers to establish your presence and generate interest in events.
• User-Generated--Allow members to engage in the conversation by creating their own videos.

Cindy Stevens, senior director of publications, Consumer Electronics Association, presented her association's video success story: By creating six videos to help brand the CEA flagship publication, CEVision, Stevens and her team promoted the magazine, highlighted members and staff, emphasized the association's position and generated additional revenue opportunities. Stevens also highlighted challenges you can expect when working with video: Budget, limited staff and time constraints.