It was when I was reading a Comscore report on how many online videos that the US consumer was viewing each month that I came to a realization that “being found online” was not just about “textual content” anymore but that video was the new ”teeming hotspot”. The latest generation don’t so much as read but “watch videos”  

I was raised  in the era of books, reading and offline content.. because the Internet was not even on the horizon whenI was growing up .. in fact colour TV was simply “amazing”. .. man had just landed on the moon… Ugg boots were “cool” and “Flares” were still the rage.  The  “Yellow Pages” were the place to be and fax broadcasting was the new frontier of marketing.

So if you want to be found you need to be not only using “Google” but  also “YouTube” as it is the second largest search engine after Google.

So after that completely “non-influential introduction”  Do you think online video is an important strategy in getting found Online? Yes or No

Marketing is going through a lot of changes due to the rise of the Web and the latest technologies, including Social Media where you can easily and efficiently publish and promote your content and get your message out to your customers and potential clients.

The old marketing paradigm consisted of cold calling, mass media (radio, TV and newspaper), fax broadcasting, direct mail and all the other traditional marketing mediums. The ability of these channels to produce effective cost efficient results is waning as new technology such as caller ID, email spamming filters, as well as government regulations being put in place such as do not call registers.This is what you could also call “Push Marketing” or “Interruption Marketing”.

The “New Rules Of Marketing”  is about getting customers to engage with you when it suits them and to start having conversations with them.via blogs, forums, and other types of Social Media” that eventually leads to them being pulled to you as they provide email or RSS subscriptions to your unique and valuable content and information that helps them find solutions to their business problems or “pain points”.

In this video I look at what are the Top 5 Social Media channels and the some of the interesting facts and figures that will give you some insight in to how these platforms can assist you in pulling customers to you by gaining their permission. 

This is the first in a series of videos. In the upcoming videos I will look in more detail about how to apply the “New Rules of Marketing”  to your business to generate more leads and sales as well as to reduce the costs associated in acquiring New customers.

So what “Social Media” Channels are you currently using?

I have recently started to take a closer look at the  increasing impact of   Social Media “Online Video and its importance to getting found online because of the facts and figures emerging that can’t  be  ignored… in fact its hard to get your head around them. Comscore announced in August 2009 that over 25.4 Billion video views ocurred in the USA alone (Yes…. Billions not millions). This is up from 14.3 Billion In December 2008. This is a 78% increase in just 8 months. Google’s sites such as YouTube  had a 39% market share with the closest competitor being Microsoft sites with 2.2%. (Google owns YouTube by the way).

In a Video interview by  ”Reel SEO” with of Ogilvy’s Marketing Director Interactive  Robert Davis,  Robert tells Andy Plesser of Beet.tv that they have seen a tremendous rise in traffic to video content coming from search engines, especially over the past 6 months.

He makes 3 Key insights about the role that online video is having on search and building content on Social Media and websites.

1.Video and Search have really started to gel. … the traffic that we can drive of off search now in some cases is enough for a campaign where they don’t have to have a paid component with it ”There is  tremendous search value from video now”…You can use video content almost as much as you can use a banner or paid search as a drive-to mechanism to your site.” 

2. We know that search “drives traffic” and since the introduction of universal search (you may have noticed that you can search universally as well determine the different types of content when you do a Google search), we know that search can work well for driving traffic to sites with video content.   “What we are focusing on is more of a content strategy with search.  As long as you have good metadata strategies and you are applying the same kinds of search strategies that you would apply to text content, the search engines are out there and waiting.”

3. ”Information Focused video content for B2B lend themselves well to search” and address the “questions” that potential clients would ask. For b2b clients, rather than doing the age old testimonial… it’s the kind of content that answers a search for a “pain point“… not a search for a brand….  Answer the question of the consumer with your video content.”

One phrase that struck me was “pain point” which is an interesting “re-terming” take on a “business problem”. If you can provide content in a video format that answers and provides a solution and removes pain for a person or business your content then is very relevant and valuable.

So are you using  online video on your blog or website ..is it increasing your traffic and helping you get found online?