Remember that song, “Video Killed the Radio Star?” Well, video is reaching equal status on the web. If you don’t use video – you might be dead - or at least risk becoming less relevant to your audience. Good news, though - there are lots of ways to add videos to your site, ranging from free to very expensive.
As further evidence to the video trend, a recent article on CNET news showed that online video viewing has jumped 34 percent from a year ago. From the article:
“The data also showed that 77 percent of all U.S. Internet users had viewed online videos in 2008, and that the average online video viewer watched 273 minutes of video.”
Clearly video is something that your site visitors are looking for. How will you add video (or increase your use of video) in 2009?
The majority of your site visitors are likely coming from outside your community. They usually are looking for visitor, recreation or relocation information. Why not engage them with videos and then steer them to your members in appropriate categories? You may already have visitor, relocation or business videos that you can convert to digital and upload. If not, contact members in the video production industry to have them convert your existing videos or produce new ones.
Google Video and YouTube are two of the most popular free services. These services are a great way to experiment with video on your site. They will usually let you upload a video to their site and then embed the video on yours. There are many chambers that are using Google and YouTube to host their videos – most of them are probably embedding the videos somewhere on their own sites, too. Do a Google Video search for “chamber of commerce” to find some.
Other ideas for video: Record your events and post at least a portion of them for members to view. Create spoofs of popular videos or commercials to promote your programs and events. Have a contest among members to see who can create the best testimonial video. Adding a bit of humor to your video can make them more memorable and more likely to be shared with others.
And if you don’t have one already, go buy a Flip Video camera. They make it VERY EASY to record short videos and testimonials from events or around your office and save them to your computer, email them or upload them to the web for use on your blog or main site. (You are blogging, too, aren’t you?)
You may be able to generate non-dues revenue by adding video to your site as well. Members could pay to be a “featured video” or have a video case study on your site. Also, remember that there are many different visitors to your site. Be sure to add a mix of videos for the different audiences. Members are likely to look for videos from you talking about business issues or recaps from events, but these videos may “turn off” visitors looking for visitor information.
If you start using video extensively, you’ll probably want the additional options and robust services you’ll get from a paid video hosting provider such as VideoHost or MultiCast’s Vidego service. See how the Greenville (SC) Chamber of Commerce and the Lodi (CA) Chamber of Commerce use video on their sites.
Are you already using video on your site? Or do you know of a chamber of commerce that’s getting good results with web videos? If so, please let me know in the comments below and include the URLs of the page(s) on those sites.
And if you don’t have one already, go buy a Flip Video camera. They make it VERY EASY to record short videos and testimonials from events or around your office and save them to your computer, email them or upload them to the web for use on your blog or main site. (You are blogging, too, aren’t you?)
You may be able to generate non-dues revenue by adding video to your site as well. Members could pay to be a “featured video” or have a video case study on your site. Also, remember that there are many different visitors to your site. Be sure to add a mix of videos for the different audiences. Members are likely to look for videos from you talking about business issues or recaps from events, but these videos may “turn off” visitors looking for visitor information.
If you start using video extensively, you’ll probably want the additional options and robust services you’ll get from a paid video hosting provider such as VideoHost or MultiCast’s Vidego service. See how the Greenville (SC) Chamber of Commerce and the Lodi (CA) Chamber of Commerce use video on their sites.
Are you already using video on your site? Or do you know of a chamber of commerce that’s getting good results with web videos? If so, please let me know in the comments below and include the URLs of the page(s) on those sites.
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Posted by: Beth Bridges, Clovis Chamber, CA on Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Hi Curt, We've started using video a little bit, just enough to see that it's not that hard to do. The tools (camera, computer, editing software) are readily available and there is certainly enough subject matter. The hard part? Deciding who's going to be on camera! And doing the takes until they sound natural! I did some video testimonials from Chamber members and had a hard time getting enough people who were willing. You can tell that many of them were very nervous, even though they were just talking to me holding the camera. We haven't made a regular, concerted effort to incorporate them into the site yet (just launched it a couple months ago and still learning to update). But we have used links to other videos in emails, in our Facebook group, and by linking to them on YouTube. A search for Clovis Chamber should bring up our variety of videos so you can see what we've tried so far. Regards, Beth P.S. My 12 year old niece got a FlipVideo for Christmas and had produced a movie for us that afternoon...so if any of us can't make the technology work, find a 12 year old, ha ha.
Posted by: Curt Moss on Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Thanks, Beth. I'm seen some of your videos...keep up the good work. Yes, getting past the "nervous" part is a big thing. This is one reason why I really like the short, spontaneous videos recorded with the Flip Video cameras (or similar cameras). They are very spur-of-the-moment and genuine....any stumbles are expected and add to the reality of the video. Maybe chamber execs will start bringing all their teenagers in to shoot/edit/post videos for them! ;-)
Posted by: Ben VanCamp on Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Just wanted to say thanks for posting this. I have been trying to get some video projects off the ground here and my coworkers have been dragging there feet. This got some of the motivated. Our first project will be video updates on Asheville's economic outlook in addition to our tradition e-newsletter. Thanks again, Ben