Great article over on the MarketingM8 blog by Peter Masters on the benefits of using video in your social media marketing…
The key points to note:
The beauty of video is that it’s quick to install on a blog or a website and it’s very, very effective. Why?
Because people like to watch and share videos – it’s easy! Why else would YouTube have over 2,000,000,000 downloads per day!
Yes, that’s 2 BILLION!
That’s all well and good, but how can your company and your business benefit from this Social Media marketing phenomenon?  It might not cost much to produce, but what are the real benefits to you?
Here are some of Peter’s (good) reasons… ( and if you want a few more, come and have a look over at Saucy Horse Video!)

  1. Communication adds value. Don’t just send your customers another boring email explaining how great your company’s services or products are!  Millions and millions of emails are deleted without being read every single day – how many do you delete every day without even opening them?  They might be cheap to send, but what a waste of everyone’s time and effort.  Show your potential customers how much better you are than your competition, show them exactly what you can do and exactly how well you can do it, in a video.  This will also position you as forward thinking and innovative.  You would simply send your customers & prospects a link to your latest video hosted on  your blog, on Youtube or on Vimeo for instance. Which method of communication do you think has the most impact?
  2. Direct mail. Let’s face it, we ALL know that direct mail can be very expensive. Designing, printing and posting or delivering glossy brochures, that generally get thrown straight into the recycling bin, is a good way to waste a lot of time and money. Direct mail can be effective, if you can afford the expense and if you are 100% sure the recipient is likely to be interested.  Typically, direct mail will show a 3-4% positive return and that’s NOT always cost effective.
  3. Sharing video or going viral. How many people were so impressed and excited by your last direct mail campaign that they copied it and send it out to hundreds of their friends, who in turn sent it on to hundreds of their friends, who in turn… you get the picture.  All this distribution of your company name and details of your services has got to be good for your branding too, right?  Viral video is a phenomenon that companies have just got to love – your customers feel compelled to do your marketing for you! Of course this doesn’t always happen, not every video is compelling enough to go viral, but the difference is that this can NEVER happen with direct mail!!

  4. Blendtec Product Marketing with viral video

  5. The CEO of American blender company Blendtec, Mr. Tom Dickinson, wanted a cheap, yet effective advertising campaign, but wasn’t sure about the best way to approach it.  He chose Social Media marketing via YouTube video and he’s glad he did.  The results were amazing! It should also be mentioned, that based on the success of his ‘viral’ videos, Tom Dickinson’s company also has 61,158 people that have LIKED the Blendtec company page on Facebook and thousands of ‘followers’ on Twitter.  Many of these people are probably customers or will be customers or have friends that are potentially customers.  All that advertising and word of mouth from a video that cost less to produce than some of their blenders!This video was NOT expensive to make, but it ‘went viral’ and nearly 6,000,000 people around the world have watched it.  That’s quite an audience!(Blendtec also carried out other product tests on video and the results were equally good: Diamonds = 4,000,000 + views, magnets = almost 3,000,000 views and glow sticks = 7,000,000 views. Phenomenal!)

  6. You might not be selling blenders, and you might be operating with a totally different business model, but that’s not the issue here is it?  How could you use this in your business?
    You can read Peter’s article in full over on the Construction Social Media blog