Below are some hints and tips for using video to market on mobile devices.

• Attention spans for viewing video on mobile devices are shorter than on traditional devices. Aim for 60 seconds or less.
• Be clear on the message, you want people to share the message but they won’t if they dont understand themselves.
• Get the message accross in the first 10 seconds. If it’s not clear by them, most people switch off.
• Stats today suggest that 28% of smartphone users use an Android with 26% using and iPhone and 14% using a blackberry. So using flash needs to be considered very carefully or a quater of your audience will be lost. Remember Apple doesn’t support Flash.
• People want entertainment or information. As long as your video is one of these it will be on interest.
• Viral films – A difficult win. They happen ‘by accident’ you cant plan them. Think of the ‘charlie bit my finger’ YouTube phenomenon. Look it up if this passed you by.
• Information – ‘How to’ films or ‘top tip’ films are an easy win.,e.g. ‘top 5 tips for interview success.’ ‘How to fix a leaking tap’.
• Every video needs a call to action. Tell people what you want them to do at the end of the video.
• Remember a mobile device often has a tiny screen. Make sure you film with this in mind. Lots of close ups and talking heads.

It’s suggested that 1 in 8 purchase decisions (product or service) involves someone having viewed an online video….

Pretty much all internet users have watched a video online, many through Youtube, embedding a video onto your website has become quite a simple process and one that you should consider exploring.  Way back when, using video on a website would take so long to load that they were impractical to use and most people would give up and leave the website before the video had even loaded.

Today it’s a very different process, by uploading a video to something like Youtube you don’t even have to host the video on your website, you can simply embed it thus having no impact on your download speeds.  The reason download speeds are important is not only for user experience but also to help your search engine rankings.

We all have different ways of learning, some prefer to read and others are much more visual, so by introducing video to your website you are able to engage with those that would get bored of reading your web copy in the space of a couple of minutes.  One of the other benefits of using video is that you can get a lot more information across in a much shorter space of time.

Video is a great way of demonstrating the personality of a business too, you can really get this across more than you can with a static web page, these tend to be quite cold.  Some of the best ways to use video are to:

• Present your business services
• Demonstrate how to use a product/service using video
• Tutorials and how-to videos offering advice
• Present your latest blog

One of the things to bear in mind is that you need to produce a video that gives your potential audience the information they are looking for.  If you are presenting a product you need to be talking about how it can help them solve a problem and not just barking on about how fantastic it is.  Try not to make your video more than a few minutes, most people won’t stick around for any longer than this and you can end up diluting your message.

If you are a little nervous about putting together your first video, don’t be, you know your business better than anybody and so don’t worry about feeling silly, we all do on the first attempt.  Oh and lastly don’t just make one for the sake of it, it has to actually be about something that people are interested in.