29 Dec

Creative Use of Video Using LoopLogic: Create a Video Resume

The goal of a resume is to set yourself apart from the crowd, adding some unique hook that your competition did not provide and hopefully land your dream job. In today’s job market, no extra effort can be too much. Video resumes are a great way to show off your personality and your experience at the same time, and it shows the potential employer that you’re willing to put in more effort than is being asked. NextSlide offers an easy way to integrate video into your resume for a greater impact.
Bonus: NextSlide analytics help you see which employers open the resume, how long they view it, and where they drop off. That way you know whom and how to follow up.

Here are a few how-tos to make your video resume great:

• Mix your video over slides with your resume points, talking to each experience and skill set. Don’t read what’s on your resume, the employer can do that. Instead, tell the story of those past jobs and your successes with them.

• Don’t be an actor. The video is about you and your skills, so be professional but also be yourself. Avoid trying to put on a show – think of this as the actual interview. Edit your video as many times as needed to ensure a smooth, professional delivery.

• Consider embedding a link to your LoopLogic video resume within the cover letter instead of just sending the link with an intro. This can help keep it from getting caught in spam filters.

• Keep it short and to the point. Add just enough personality to keep the viewer engaged without straying away from the main objective – getting the job.

• Include a boring resume document with it, just in case the employer does want something to print out and review later, or share with other team members.

• You may need to do a little redecorating. It should go without saying, but make sure that you remove all distracting background objects. Finding out whether you are team Edward or Jacob can be discovered at a later time.

• Critique your video with a judgmental eye. Keep an eye out for distracting quirks such as saying “um” or “like.” Try to limit other conversation tendencies you may have such as talking with your hands or bouncing your knee. These types of things can be overlooked in an in-person interview, but can be glaring on a video.

• Consider how to end your video. Leave the viewer with a call to action. Instead of ending it with the usual “Thank you for your consideration,” try “I look forward to hearing from you to set up an in-person interview.”
Keep in mind that once you have created and delivered your resume there is still work to do. Follow up is essential and take advantage of the extensive NextSlide analytics. By evaluating the analytics reports you can determine specific points where people are losing interest and adjust your video resume accordingly. Bottom line: be creative, show them something they haven’t seen yet, and learn from your results.

16 Dec

My Letter to Santa

Dear Santa,

I know it’s been a while since I have written. I have a new found faith that you may be able to help me with a few things on my Christmas list this year. In my opinion, aside from a few small incidents, I have been pretty good in 2011. Because of this, I would like to see a little ROI on some of my good deeds. It’s no secret that your approval numbers are not what they used to be. I have been hearing a lot of buzz about people doubting that you can deliver on your advertised services. I have a proposition for you. Let me help you. If you are able to meet the needs of my list below, you will also see a return for your efforts. You see, I have a killer social media team. They can help develop a campaign around your success in 2011! I really believe that if we work together you will see a huge shift of positive opinion towards your brand. Below is my wish list for this holiday season. I look forward to working with you. By the way, I will include the milk and cookies at no additional cost or commitment.

  1. Guaranteed 100 percent conversions from at least one campaign for every client
  2. Create a great Google+ business page for me, and a month’s worth of content for the page would be a nice add-in
  3. Free inflight Wi-Fi on every flight I take this year
  4. A years-worth of one-shot coffees for my Kurig
  5. Peace on Earth

I think this is a reasonable list as I have left off several other requests. I would also like to mention that I have a good working relationship with the Easter Bunny, so if this is not doable for you we would be happy to take our proposal to him.

What is on your list this year?

 

 

6 Dec

Analytics: Making it More than Just a Buzz Word

It seems as if the word “analytics” is getting a lot of play these days. Chances are if you have a website or social media sites, you have access to some type of analytics to help measure your traffic. YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook Insights all offer analytics to help understand how popular – or not – your site is. Are those analytics doing anything more than informing you and making you analyze more?  The key to analytics is to make them actionable, not turn them into a tool to make yourself nuts (you know they’re making you nuts).

There is plenty of valuable, proof-in-the-numbers type data in analytics that can help you to understand and improve your page and content performance. What is the first step? Hopefully the tools you are using to share content offer “tutorials.” Tutorials are great resources for you to find out exactly the types of features you have at your fingertips and how to use them.

At LoopLogic, we offer analytics to help understand exactly what your visitor is doing the entire time they are viewing your content. With advanced analytics such as these, you can take a video or any other content that you have added to a website, social network or a mass email and get an insider’s view into user engagement. Statistics that offer insight into who actually viewed your content, the time spent on viewing, how many downloads or who is sharing content are just a few examples of how analytics can give you great insight into what content is working and what is not.

Now what? Using analytics to road test your content is very powerful. Gone are the days that a marketer puts out an online advertisement and has to wait until the sale is made to measure success. You can now see what your viewers are doing almost in real time. How long are they staying on the site? What is preceding the drop off point of a video? What is the average time spent on a key landing page? Prioritize what is important and be sure that you understand your results – then act on them.

For example, if you are finding that people stop watching your video after 15 seconds, you know that your opening content needs work. If no one is sharing your content, it’s not as viral as you thought. You may find that when you incorporate a link to a white paper in with a deck, people open it. That’s a clue not only that you should do that more often, but that your intended buyers want to see thought leadership. This insight can help you adjust your entire strategy.

Any way you look at it, analytics are worth your time so long as you’re using them to do something.

 

23 Nov

Thank You Technology!

I don’t know about you, but this holiday season has pretty much snuck up on me. In true Thanksgiving spirit, we would like to give a big shout out to some of the technologies we are thankful for. How many are on your list?

  1. Free WiFi (Thank you Starbucks for getting in the game)
  2. Mobile GPS apps
  3. Online flight check in
  4. Pandora radio
  5. Coffee – Okay, it’s not a technology, but it keeps us all going.
  6. Skype international calling
  7. Keyless entry
  8. Fast forward buttons
  9. Rear defrosters
  10. Microwaves – yes, still
  11. Charlie Sheen – Tiger blood infusion has to be a technology
  12. Calendar invites – preferably sent by someone else
  13. eBooks
  14. Facebook
  15. Listerine strips – Possibly the most technologically advanced breakthrough
  16. Massage chairs

The above lists just a few things that have come to mind. I have no doubt that I will use ten more on the way home today. We live in a fast paced world and I am thankful for the innovators of this day and age that have made our lives easier with their technologies. Have a great Thanksgiving everyone!

18 Nov

Google+ — Are You Socially Ready?

Believe it for not (and chances are you may not) Google+ is gaining popularity. A recent press release announced that Google+ reached 40 million users in October. Now with Google+ branded pages in the mix, business owners are rushing to their laptops to create their company profiles. And so is the way with businesses and social media.

Over the past few years we have seen a clear definition of how to leverage Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter appropriately and separately for a business. Just because Google+ is available, do we need to rush to participate? The biggest risk of Google+ comes with its biggest benefit. The fact that Google+ is integrated with Google search and could potentially gain visibility to your business more quickly than other platforms is impressive. However, it could also be a downfall. If you create a page and manage it poorly, you could risk hurting your brand. With Facebook, you can create a business page and be slow to add content with less fear of exposure until you are ready to promote your page. The higher visibility brings greater risk if you don’t have meaningful content to share.

Some companies such as Macy’s started their page by posting a “stay tuned” message to their customers for a promise of future content and coupons. Others like Pepsi started in full swing with a plethora of content, already having 19,169 people add them into their circle in just a few short weeks.

So what is the correct strategy? The best strategy is the one that fits your business the most. Do you have someone to manage your content? Do you have a plan for engagement? What are the benefits to your customers following you on Google+? What type of time commitment are you willing to spend?

If you are intrigued by Google+ and want to get started here are our suggestions:

  1. Have a strategy for great content – decide how many pieces of content you can add, what kinds, and how often
  2. Have the time to manage your page or dedicate one or two people on your team to that task
  3. Take advantage of not having an already predetermined standard for your page – using platforms like LoopLogic will add           credibility to your content by incorporating video and will help your business stand out from the rest
  4. Be patient when looking for a return – it can take time to build a follower base and from there, engagement

11 Nov

Keep Focused, Be Prepared – Making Webinars Work for You

If you’re like me, you belong to numerous newsletters and associations hoping to some day find the time to read everything they send you and take advantage of the resources they provide. Good luck. As my inbox fills up, I’m noticing more invites to webinars and I’m left pondering the question: where do webinars fit into my marketing strategy? The truth is that webinars are quickly becoming a must have in any marketing plan. I recently sat through a webinar that was part of a virtual conference. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed not having to spend the travel dollars and take time away from my family, but do I feel that I was impacted the same as if I was sitting in a conference hall? The truthful answer is no. Therein lies the challenge! How do we ensure that we can be a part of the growing demand of webinar adoption while making certain we are impacting our audience? The answer is in the content we share and the preparation we put behind what we create.

I’ve heard many a marketer say that they hate creating slide presentations (the backbone of a webinar) and that they would rather engage their audience in other ways, often relying on in-person charm. In today’s online world, this isn’t always possible. We’ve decided to lay out some simple rules to follow to help improve your webinar success.

  1. Consider for fit. We can’t go into the dos and don’ts without pointing out that webinars are not for everyone or for every company. They should be used as a tool to inform your customers or audience and in turn generate leads for sales and build your brand. Can you see your customers taking part in a webinar? When pondering whether to host a webinar, keep this simple statement in mind: just because something is on YouTube doesn’t mean people will watch it.
  2. Make it easy. Will the webinar technology you’ve chosen take away from your message? Do your homework – there are hundreds of platforms for webinar hosting. Be sure to choose an easy to use option that will work for participants of all technology levels. If it is too difficult to log in or navigate through, your attendees will simply log out.
  3.  Choose your topic and title carefully. Stay away from new offering topics or soap-box titles. Really evaluate what would be a benefit to your audience and run with it.
  4.  Don’t be stingy about punctuality. Sure, you have to set a schedule for your webinar, but one of the reasons why webinars can be so successful is the convenience factor. Not every potential attendee will be able to attend your exact time. Allow for your viewers to access and share your webinar easily and at their convenience.
  5.  Present like a pro. With LoopLogic, you can pre-record your webinar before you share it live. This ensures a smooth, professional presentation and allows you to edit and tweak as you see fit. The best part is that the audience will not know it is pre-recorded. You will be online at the right time, ready to address the Q&A session but not having to do the entire webinar live.
  6.  Obtain and learn from your results. The success of a webinar goes well beyond the number of attendees registered. Choosing a platform that can track your webinar’s analytics is key to evaluating how your webinar was received. For example, if you find that a large percentage of viewers have logged off after a certain number of slides, you know that you may need to adjust the length of the webinar and re-evaluate the content leading up to the drop off point. Adding engagement tools like polls and interactive questions within a webinar is another good way to boost engagement.

4 Nov

Video Conferencing Right Now? Maybe Later, Please.

One of the greatest features of the iPhone 4 was the introduction of the FaceTime option. Most of us have gotten used to skype calls with video, teleconferencing live with video, and now we can do right on our phone. Nifty. This is a great thing when you want to see your kids on the fly from a business trip. Not such a great thing when you haven’t showered or shaved yet and your clients want to discuss something urgent. But we seem to be choosing video over straight phone calls more and more. Maybe we just miss seeing each other.

I saw this neat video last week on Entrepreneur.com about video conferencing etiquette. It made me think that presenting or conversing over video can come across differently than in person but it’s still considerably more personal and it’s definitely a preference for many businesses. In fact, 75% of businesses will use video conferencing by 2013.

There may be times when you can reap the benefits of a video conference without actually taking those calls live. Let’s say you’re planning a meeting to present a client with a new strategy. You’re busy and the client’s busy and neither of you can make it to the other’s office in person. You can barely make it onto each other’s calendar for that matter, or worse, you have to coordinate with four other people for the one meeting. Sometimes that works. Sometimes that doesn’t. Instead of postponing the meeting for possibly weeks when everyone’s schedule synchs up, why not create a short video that they can watch as each person has time? It’s more personal than an email and sometimes easier to get through than a huge document.

There’s something to be said about delivering your speil via video with the luxury of editing it first. Didn’t know you told bad jokes? Cut them out. Yawning every 10 minutes from over working? Start over. You now have more control over the message.

The best thing is video recording and editing isn’t a timely, costly, difficult task anymore. Most laptops come with the capability built in and LoopLogic has a tool bench to help you make minor edits and mix the video with other content. Better yet, if you don’t like the way you look, you can just as easily record audio over something else (as was done in the Entrepreneur.com video).

This is a very simple and cool way to keep things moving when “live” isn’t an option. And in some cases may even be preferable. How many times have you finished up with a meeting and the client has asked you to book a meeting with someone else to repeat what was just discussed? A video is easy and faster to share than a live person. Plus you can guarantee that each person is receiving the same message so there’s little rom for a communication breakdown meeting to meeting.

Bonus: LoopLogic analytics help you see if the intended recipients actually viewed your video, when, and how much of it was seen. So you can follow up appropriately.

 

28 Oct

How Much is Too Much?

It’s so easy to spam your customers. Especially when you’re hearing constantly how much more content you should be disseminating and how many different kinds of content to boot. I can see how a marketer might feel they need to put out a certain amount of video, articles, presentations, white papers, tweets, Facebook posts, blogs, questions, comments, and links to all of the above.

You can choose to make yourself crazy trying to play this game or you can choose to take control of it.

The Content Marketing Institute put a great article this week on simplifying how content is disseminated. You can check it out here. The gist of it is to embrace simplification and it actually breaks down the content creation, management, and execution process in a very tangible way. The whole article is insightful, but I think this sentence about sums it up: “No. 1 way to simplify? Start small, see how it goes (track it), and then add on when necessary.”

Even the best guidelines, however, can still leave some of your customers and prospects feeling a little spammy. In that case, just ask them what they want! Here’s a great article from Ramon Ray of SmallBizTechnology on how to give your customers choices when it comes to how much content they receive from you.

21 Oct

Trend Spotting

What’s the value of an On-Demand Content Sharing Platform? If you’re IDG, Around $40K. IDG Enterprise, the prominent publisher of business-to-business technology media such as Network World and major events owner, has caught on. The company announced earlier this month a new platform that allows their clients to deliver content – videos, case studies, white papers, decks, etc. – in one, easy to manage and totally on-demand system. It’s called Knowledge Vault. It’s a shift from the traditional webcast the company, as well as many others, relied on as a lead generation tool for clients.

The platform was created when IDG realized that the traditional live webcast was no longer efficient. According to reviews of the platform, Knowledge Vault was created as a tool for customers to group meaningful content in one place, provide an on-demand interface, and have analytics build in to measure the effectiveness and reach.

We call this validation.

IDG is an incredible brand and their enterprise customers, such as Dell, have shared that they like using such a platform and it’s generating leads.  We, of course, think this is brilliant. And if you don’t have $35,000 to $52,000 lying around, you could take advantage of NextSlide’s free platform.

Here are three ideas for getting started on a similar program using NextSlide. Testing the meaningfulness of your content is a lot less stressful when there’s no price tag.

1)   In the spirit of Halloween, resurrect content you thought was dead. Most businesses have pieces of content stashed away that they didn’t do anything with, or only saw the light of day once. Those decks, white papers, videos and microsites might have legs after all. Take a look at what’s in your stash and choose two or three to update. Then upload the refreshed content to your NextSlide channel.

2)   Record video or audio over the pieces of content. Pretend you’re giving a live webinar using the zombie content as your visual material.

3)   Post one link to your social sites, email another with a short explanation of the video, and embed the third to your website. Then measure.

You can play with where you place each piece of content, measure the viewership and engagement of each placement, and then make decisions on how you’d like to tweak that piece or develop your next piece.

14 Oct

Turn it up: Strategic ways to amplify and monetize events through social platforms

 

Event planners can benefit from leaning on multiple social platforms that amplify their content and increase visibility before and after any event they are planning. With such social strategies in place, such marketers are poised to increase the value of and identify new ways to monetize their content.

Here are some examples of unique and highly strategic ways such organizers can increase the success of events with the use of some well-known social platforms:

Goal: Make Events Viral in Real Time

  • Twitter: Hashtags  (You know, those funny looking keywords with the pound sign in front of ‘em?) can help attendees find one another and increase sharing of event-related information. Not your event and there isn’t a well-documented hashtag being used? Create your own. This is the beauty of social media: The power lies in the user.
  •  Facebook: With all the constant changes Facebook is making, it is easy to feel left behind in the dust. But there is one rule that stays a constant with Facebook: rich media is valuable content. Ever feel like you’re only seeing posts from a select few people? This is because, like search, Facebook has its own algorithm for its newsfeed. In order for your posts to show up on follower’s newsfeeds, it is important to utilize rich media, like photographs, to cut through the clutter. For event marketers, creating an in-depth album of an event is a no-brainer. But what many don’t know is that these albums will increase the viral nature of an event because it is much more likely to be prominently displayed on real-time tickers and newsfeeds.
  •  Presentation platforms: Many times these platforms get overlooked as ways for speakers to increase thought leadership. But speakers and presentations are an important part of a conference or tradeshow experience, so including these items in a well-packaged presentation makes perfect sense.                                                                                                                                                                        LoopLogic, for example, allows you to splice audio/video and slides to offer greater context of an event- as opposed to sharing a simple slide deck from presentations and a few photos on Facebook. Potential future sponsors, clients and attendees can enjoy a rich media experience, on-demand viewing and easy share ability.

Goal: Opportunities for Follow-Up and Monetize Post-Event 

  •  Twitter: Hashtags aren’t just for real-time trends. They can help event marketers keep conversations going on around post-event by utilizing the hashtag post-event for relevant and timely discussions. One of the best ways to capture the buzz is to create a Twitter list of those attending, those utilizing the hashtag in conversations and event influencers. This will allow you, as an organizer, to listen closely to these groups, know needs and expectations, and build relationships with those that will likely be attending your events in the future and can make it increasingly beneficial for both parties.
  •  Facebook: If an event is gaining momentum, it is important to use the platforms, like Facebook, to create a sense of connectiveness — to help past and future attendees feel a part of something. Potential sponsors and clients will take note. Creating and overseeing a Facebook page to carry the message behind the event on and use the collective intelligence for future improvements and planning. And not to mention, showing up in someone’s newsfeed is a much less intrusive reminder of upcoming events and way to stay top-of-mind.
  •  Presentation platforms: Tradeshow and event coordinators are always looking for the best way to share event presentations after the event has passed. NextSlide gives coordinators the ability to invite select people to view a live event, if not able to attend, or view a presentation after attending. With such walls comes the ability to monetize events online with the option of paid viewing.