Seven Deadly Sins of Video for Business

Posted 02/25/10

While online video becomes the medium of choice for many marketers, it is important to identify what makes a video effective. We have seen so many atrocious videos that fail to reach company objectives. For this reason, we created our seven deadly sins of online video that your business should avoid. Let us know what you think. What other critical mistakes you do think beginners need to avoid?

Whatever you do, don’t ...

1) Peak Too Soon

It’s a marathon not a sprint. Work up to success. Develop your skills. Communicate these goals internally, even externally to your customers and seek feedback.

Don’t just make one video - plan a series. Six short videos are better than one long one. There are many reasons why this is the case. One of them being, consumers need different kinds of information from a company at different stages of the buying cycle. Some may have just heard about you and want to see what you do, while others are evaluating different companies product and service offerings.

Keep your videos short. This way, viewers can sample your video content and easily find the clips that they are interested in watching. It’s more effective and you won’t get lost, and neither will your best work.

2) Feed the Jargon Monster

Your company might have a lot of things to say to an audience and it may be tempting to tell them your life story.  Keep in mind that viewers normally tune out after 90 seconds. With linear video, you have to watch the video until it reaches the spot that you were waiting for. With 1:1 video, there are a series of clips that are accessible with buttons inside the video, which puts the viewer in control of their path by selecting clips that interest them.

Don’t be too concise either. You need to know the key information your audience seeks and be able to provide enough for them to understand what your company can do for them.

3) Forget the Bandwidth

With greater access to broadband, more internet users are watching video and in HD. Although internet connection speeds are increasing, it’s important to choose a reliable online video hosting service.

You could be losing many potential viewers if your video continually buffers, which can ruin the viewer experience. TubeMogul conducted a recent study and found that more than 81 percent of viewers exit a video if it buffers more than once.

4) Preach

Online marketing isn’t about having a mass media message. It’s about speaking the language of your buyer’s personas and engaging in conversation. Know your audience and tell them what they need to hear.

Also clearly explain what you do and don’t make your video sound like an elevator pitch.  If you sound confident and convey a clear message, viewers will be more likely to connect with your company on a more personal level.

5) Work Alone

Set your benchmarks (decide who’s’ doing it well - in your space or not). Talk to them. Ask them for advice. Find out what they used (tools/companies/services), what they spent and what it did for them. Tell them what a great job they have done and they love to talk to you.

Don’t make it a one man show - show multiple faces from your company - let the talent shine. You will have a star in your ranks. Find them. Who works on camera and who doesn’t is just a matter of trial and error. Natural wins every time.

Use your real social network for feedback - suppliers, customer etc. Feature them in the video if that makes sense. Involve them. They have a perspective. Share it.

6) Control the Source

Set it free. If you have a video that you made, flaunt it! Put it on your home page, put it up on a site where your target audience is and promote it. Make it easy to share. Don’t expect it to go viral but try to make it easier for your target audience to find.

Embed your video in many places including your home page. Don’t just post it. Use social media - Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and other marketing channels.

7) Ignore Style

Don’t over produce, unless that’s what your audience expects. Don’t under produce either. When traveling you don’t always fly economy or business. Learn when it matters. Find your level. It has a direct effect on how people will perceive your business.  Understand that viewers prefer to watch a person that acts natural, not staged and obviously reading off a teleprompter. There are many different ways to make the same video - visual style, camera angles, content. What’s your style - get help in exploring the science of video. Remember that the style should also be unified with your company’s brand. It should have a similar and familiar look and feel.

Have you seen any online video’s that commit any of these seven sins? Please share them!

Posted by Tai Kolenko

Video is only as effective as the planning that goes along with it

Posted 02/25/10

In a recent article by Allan Gardyne called If you don’t do video, will you fail? Allan comments on the big demand trend of video in the sales process among marketers.

We all agree that video is an effective way to help communicate your brand and boost sales. However, based on the perceptions of millions of viewers including comments from people who read the article there is definitely a large disconnect between the people who do video and the people that do it right, just like with social media.

Consumers are very sceptical about what they see and hear online. For this reason, you can’t just put together a video for your site and expect large conversions without doing some groundwork first. If you don’t plan and learn from those who failed at video chances are you won’t get the results you were looking for.


Not only do you need to plan what approach you will take with video, it’s important to ensure that video viewership will be measured with some sort of analytics tool. Some online video solutions offer metrics but the most important thing to measure is engagement.

Typically viewers abandon a video within the first 10 seconds and the second drop off rate is at 90 seconds. It’s important to know where people are disengaging by analysing viewer behavior. There could be many reasons why which can be determined by conducting a focus group. That way, you can get valuable feedback from individuals that think outside of the box that can spot apects of your video that weren’t effective.


We will soon have some tips on how video for your business can be ineffective so stay tuned.

Posted by Tai Kolenko

New Features for HuStream Conversational Video Player

Posted 02/11/10

Today we’re excited to announce some new features that will optimize the 1:1 conversational video experience for our clients and viewers.

Our new features include:

- Enhanced player bar
- Countdown timer
- Animated buttons
- Improved player engine
- Many more powerful back-end enhancements

You can check out these features in action by viewing our featured work. Stay tuned for more new and exciting developments at HuStream.

Posted by Tai Kolenko

Keith Ferrazzi and the 4R’s of Listening

Posted 01/29/10

In a recent blog post by Keith Ferrazzi called “Are Your Poor Listening Skills Hurting Your Career?” It features an assessment of four different categories for how we listen. Either we are removed, reactive, responsible, or receptive.  He makes reference to ones career but we feel poor listening hurts you in more ways that just career progression.  Assessing how companies listen to their current and future customers is another important issue.

In the digital age, companies don’t always listen to what their audience wants to see and hear; many push messages through various mediums to their target audiences while customers are guilty of removed listening where they are engaged in various devices such as mobile phones, PDA’s, and laptops while the television is on and reactively listening to other individuals through social media.  This disconnect has made it very challenging for companies to sell their brand by engaging their audience.

Companies need to listen receptively to their customers to help build relationships by being empathetic to their needs and understand their behaviors. This will help to understand how to engage their existing and future audiences.

Conversational Video uses human psychology to deliver a compelling message while taking the user on a personal adventure. In real life let’s face it; you’d never talk straight to someone without asking questions. Good communication includes body language, voice and tone, and words. Conversational Video empowers the consumer to see and listen to the information they want to learn more about. It also encourages the individual to respond to questions and share feedback; the premise behind good conversations – responsible listening.

Posted by Tai Kolenko

Negative Feedback Can Actually Be a Good Thing

Posted 01/21/10

In the era of social media, brands need to be very conscientious about what is being said about them. Whether it’s the public commenting on advertisements that they dislike, unhappy customers tweeting about negative experiences with a company, employees posting inappropriate video clips, or customers posting product video reviews, the brands reputation is at stake and openly listening and responding to customers is crucial. Not only does it give you some valuable marketing research, but it helps personify your brand, build trust, and prevent lost customers.

With continued growth of YouTube, over the past few years more companies have had their brand reputation damaged due to employees posting videos on YouTube. Dominos, Cathay Pacific, and KFC are only to name a few.

Dominos Pizza, a 50 year old company had to tackle its brand’s reputation after videos of two dim-witted employees tampering with customers’ food became viral in a matter of days. Millions of people watched the video through different social media platforms and the company struggled to react. Domino’s opened a Twitter account to converse with customers and later posted an apology video.

Later, Dominos launched a “Pizza Turnaround” campaign based on re-inventing their product: pizza. It created a lot of controversy because they openly shared criticism from their customers and admitted that they have made a bad product for the past 5 decades. A very risky move for a company but at least they are listening to their customers.

Whether your company is receiving feedback or not, you need to listen to what people are saying about you and be prepared to connect with your customers.

Believe it or not, bad reviews can actually increase sales if you welcome feedback from your customers. Think about it, 90% of products are researched online before making a purchase because there is a lot of information available online and consumers lower their level of perceived risk by hearing what others say about a brand.

A continuing trend on the web is users posting and watching video product reviews. Many users are adding product reviews on YouTube. Last September, YouTube created a feature where many video reviews are added to Google Product Search. ProductVid and Expotv are other destinations where people can upload and view product video clips and share them across various social media platforms.

The main lesson is every company must accept the fact that technology has opened Pandora’s Box to the notion of buyer power where feedback can spread immensely across social media platforms. It’s important to listen and have a conversation with pleased or dissatisfied customers to build stronger connections with them.

Posted by Tai Kolenko