Ok, so I might have had an ulterior motive for choosing this title for today’s blog post. You see, I’m very, very keen for us here to make our own promotional video, showcasing beautifully and visually all the amazing work that we do here, and what we could be doing for your business too.

Now, I don’t actually have to convince you that making a promotional video to improve brand awareness is a good idea, but we are indeed so incredibly busy with old clients, new clients and enquiries that it’s simply having to take a back seat for a moment or two (after all, we are writers first and foremost).

So, in the meantime – and mostly for the sake of keeping me quiet about it for an hour – the ETO has approved that I use today’s blog to write about videos, and why companies (like ours!!) should be using them to raise awareness of their brands on the internet.

Presence
Social media marketing has great reach and great power. Ask any marketer and they’ll most certainly agree that in today’s connected world, it is the internet that companies should turn to try and increase their brand awareness. This is simply down to the numbers. With over 1.25 billion users on Facebook, 284 million active Tweeters, another 300 million on Google+, 332 million on LinkedIn, and 70 million on Pinterest, there is a captive market out there ready to do business with.

In order to reach a significant proportion of all of these users, then your brand needs to be present on all social platforms, and indeed do everything you can to get noticed by as many people as possible.



Essential
Video has undoubtedly become an essential part of any business’s content marketing strategy. There was once a time when producing a video that would be of high enough quality to warrant being used would have priced a lot of SMEs out of the game.

But not any more.

If you’ve got a smartphone with a camera, then, by simply downloading a video editing app, such as Splice for instance, then you have all the equipment that you could possibly need to create a perfectly acceptable promotional video for your company, which you will then be able to share far and wide around your social networks.

Alternatively, if (like me) you think that the video would work a lot better utilising animation, then, as mentioned above, you can turn to the truly democratising creation that is Moovly and create animated videos like a pro for free.

Only Limited By Your Creativity
Just doing a one off video and sharing once a week for the next couple of months, however, will not be enough. To really try and raise the awareness of your brand, then you need to start thinking in terms of a viral video series.

These are the sorts of videos that get shared forever more, on platforms like Facebook, and become in themselves something of a cult. The ‘Will It Blend?’ video series is a good case in point here. The marketing team at Blendtec, a company that producers kitchen blenders, came up with the idea of sacrificing a few of their stock in order to illustrate the sheer motor power of their creations. One video at a time, they filmed and then shared the blenders making mincemeat of various solid objects – everything from Frozen figures to pool cues.

True, the videos don’t actually illustrate all that well just how you might use them in a normal kitchen scenario, but they were just silly and fun enough to grab a lot of attention. And so they went viral, and now everyone’s heard of the amazing power of Blendtec blenders (you see, no one seems to really care that blenders only have to be powerful enough to whizz up some garlic, a few herbs and maybe an onion every once in a while – if they can destroy a tape measure then they must be the best!).

What’s Your Idea?
So, apart from the Moovly animated video that I am using this blog to try and help along a bit, I suppose the next thing for us – and for your business – to do is try and think of a series of relevant videos that have the potential to go viral, but of course promote your brand at the same time. Hmm – how about typing using different vegetables? Tomorrow I will only use two carrots to write everything on my schedule. Then look out for potato Friday and marrow Monday. Success is guaranteed, right? Right?