Earlier this month, eMarketer released an article that examines the demographics of online video viewership, and the results are a little surprising. The article covers two different studies, one by Nielsen and the other by comScore, and it outlines the differences in viewership among different genders and age groups. According to the Nielsen study, viewership for online video is skewed slightly toward women, with 55% of online video viewers being female and 45% being male. These numbers are consistent with TV viewership numbers (54% female, 46% male), but are opposite of mobile video viewership (54% male, 46% female). These numbers are telling but expected, the real surprises for us are the age demographic numbers.
It is a common belief that the majority of online video viewers are young people, but according to the Nielsen study, 60% of online video viewers are over the age of 35. Furthermore, the age group that makes up the biggest piece of the online video viewership pie is the 45 to 54 year old group. This group alone makes up 20% of all online video viewers. These results are a slap in the face to those who think that online video is only for bored teenagers watching videos on YouTube. Only 24% of online video viewers are under 25. The implications of this are very important to anyone attempting to use the internet to promote or sell a product or service. Your target customers are online and watching video. Are they watching your video?
You can read the original article here.
PS: Happy holidays from the VideoBloom team. See you next year!
On Wednesday of this week Gartner, an information technology research and advising company, announced that image and video management software is the fastest growing segment of the content management market. They conducted a survey of 800 organizations in July and found that 44% of the survey participants had this type of software, and an additional 22% plan on installing it in 2009. In the same release they also report that 73% of internet users, or nearly 90 million users, view at least one video online every month.
The implications of this are huge. Internet users are becoming increasingly accustomed to digesting their internet content through video, which puts those who have yet to incorporate online video as part of their online presence and marketing strategies, at a significant disadvantage. In a few years websites without video will be obsolete.
To read the original article click here.
You’ve created your online video. You’ve uploaded it with VideoBloom’s super-simple technology. And now you need to know - is anyone actually watching it?
Well, we’re happy to report, there’s now an easy way to find out. We’ve just released our Video Tracking Statistics Module, a handy set of graphs, charts and maps that will tell you where people are watching your video, how much time they are spending doing it, and where their views are coming from.
We’ve broken up your stats into three easy-to-understand sections:
- A video player URL chart. Find out how many video views are coming from each the URL locations you have your video embedded on. This info will let you better evaluate your distribution channels by telling you which locations are generating the most (or least) video views.
- Viewer location map. See where people who are watching your Web videos are geographically located, displayed as points on a map. Using this information you can better understand whom your online videos appeal to, see if you’re hitting your target demographic, and identify geographic regions that might be interested in your product or service.
- Video Usage Details. The big daddy of your Tracking Statistics, this module tells you how many hits and views your online video gets and users’ average viewing time. More specifically, it breaks video usage into:
-Page hits or the number of visitors that loaded the page where your video player is embedded.
-Video views, which is different than page hits. This number tells you how many people actually started watching your Web video versus just loaded the page. If you find there is a big discrepancy between these two numbers, you might want to think about changing your display thumbnail to something more dynamic.
-Number of completed views highlights how many viewers watched your entire video.
-View to completion rate takes those completed views and compares them to your total number of views to give you the percentage of people that are watching all the way through.
If you have low completion rates, you might need to spice up your video a bit…
-Average viewing time cites the average time in the video that viewers stop watching. The percentage of this metric gives you the average viewing time as a percentage of the total video time, or on average what percent of your video is watched. Again, a great way to help you tailor your videos for increased engagement.
On Thursday, VideoBloom reached another important milestone with the release of our DIY (do it yourself) Video Montage Creator. This handy, new tool allows you to take image and sound files and transform them into engaging videos.
Video Montage Creator Features:
- Accepts .jpg, .gif, and .png photo files
- Accepts .mp3 and .wma audio files
- Users can bulk upload up to 10 assets at a time
- Users can save edits and come back to them later
To use this free tool, all you have to do is upload your photo and sound assets onto our platform where you can then arrange them on a timeline in our easy to use interface. Once you have a video montage you are satisfied with, you can either save your edit or publish it to the ‘my videos’ section of your account, where you can resize, grab the embed code, or do any of the other functions you can perform on any regular video. The Video Montage Creator is great for all businesses who are trying to create appealing video commercials but don’t have the time or budget to film their own content. Below is an example that we put together in less than 15 minutes using the Video Montage Creator.
Online advertisers have been working hard to find a balance between not annoying consumers with intrusive online ads while still fetching high ad video prices - and they may have the solution. Advertisers are citing success with bugs (the logos that appear on videos or right next to them) and tickers (the horizontal bars that run at the bottom of Internet videos), which both allow them to market without interrupting video clips.
Break.com, a humorous video site aimed at males, has found great success with their bug advertising, claiming they have almost sold out of their bug space. Their CEO Keith Rickman says bugs have been “the most effective ad unit attracting advertisers and users.” And perhaps even better, says that, “Users who frequently complain that they don’t like things haven’t complained at all.”
Think ad bugs might be a good way to speak to your target market? Let VideoBloom help you! We have a team of experienced professionals that can take your ad bug from conception to implementation.
In a continuous effort to improve VideoBloom’s platform functionality, we released several important upgrades last week:
*Multi-video upload*
Users are now able to upload more than one video at a time. Our flexible new UI allows you to upload multiple videos at a time.
*Player / Playlist skins*
Both the single-title player and the multi-title player got an updated look. The ‘powered by VideoBloom’ overlay message has been removed.
*Tags module updated*
A new Tag cloud feature on the ‘My Videos’ page will make it much easier to sort through a large number of videos.
*Auto-play feature*
The ability to set a video to play automatically when the page loads has been added to the platform. You can now have your videos playing to your customers without them even clicking a button.
*General*
Along with improvements in functionality, the platform has also been given some general usability improvements such as an increased speed for creating new account and better information, warning and error messages.
On Sunday, some of VideoBloom’s services were unavailable due to an outage from 10am to 4:00pm. Some of the VideoBloom hosted videos were unavailable during that period. We apologize for the inconvenience this might have caused, and we want you to know that we are constantly working to ensure the highest reliability for our customers.
In the same way that TV advertisers have taken to maximizing every potential inch of ad space on your TV screen (think of a typical CNN broadcast), video advertisers are starting to do the same with online video. You’ve probably already been hit with preroll, midroll and postroll ads (the ads that appear before, during and after a video) but marketers are just starting to heavily use skin ads, bugs and tickers.
Skins Ads are about to get a mainstream boost though. CBS will use skins as their primary ad format on “The Burly Sports Show,” which will be produced by Heavy.com and featured on CBSSports.com. The skin format, which features a Web video playing in a window surrounded by a graphic, has been steadily gaining in popularity. Marketers like them because they can easily switch out ads to match target markets, as well as feature multiple skins during one video; viewers like them because they are less intrusive than preroll spots.
While the advertising industry is still figuring out how to price and track the effectiveness of ad skins, Heavy.com is already reporting success. They say their click-through rate on skins is 1% - 2%, a high number in an industry that typically sees less than a fraction of a percent with other types of online ads.
Check out some skin examples at Heavy.com. Or have you seen effective ad skin at work? We’d love to see your examples.
There’s nothing worse than showing up in jeans when everyone else has on a tie. So, when our CEO recently went to the Where 2.0 conference in San Francisco, he wanted to make sure he knew the dress code. Fortunately, the organizers had posted Web videos of last year’s event so he was able to check out what the attendees wore on the trade show floor and in meetings.
Not only did online video answer our CEO’s question quickly and easily, the organizers saved themselves the time and energy they would have spent answering a phone call or an email. Because attendees could see the dress code in action rather than simply read about it, their additional questions disappeared. As did our CEO’s tie once he saw the very casual West Coast attire…
What are ways your business can use online videos to answer commonly asked questions? We’d love to hear your ideas!
We live in an older house with lots of wood floors so when we needed a new vacuum cleaner I assumed I’d be fine with a light handheld to spot-clean the rugs. Okay, and I’ll admit it. I was swayed by the fact it was bright colored and everyone in the commercials looked very happy dancing with it. Unfortunately, our cordless stick vac didn’t bring us much joy; rather it brought enough complaining that we finally decided to break down and buy another vacuum. This time though I wasn’t going to make the same mistake – I wanted hard evidence that our new vacuum was going to work.
So, I turned to one of the best-known brands in the testing business, Consumer Reports. Known initially for their magazine, ConsumerReports.org features product testing and ratings on everything from the best house paints to GPS systems. Online videos show testers actually testing the products so consumers can see how Consumer Reports arrived at their ratings. In one Web video, an easy-to-assemble bathroom vanity is assembled on-screen in less than two minutes. In another, viewers tour the “Dishwasher Lab” where testers paint plates with egg yolks before loading up dozens of dishwashers. Other videos target specific consumer problems, such as why white wine is a worse spill than red wine and questions to ask when buying a new TV.
In each case, Consumer Reports’ online videos provide useful, interesting information that consistently brings viewers back. What sets them apart though from the traditional how-to and what-to-buy Web videos is they also use Internet video to show the depth and breadth of their research and findings. Consumers can see that their confidence in Consumer Reports is justified, while Consumer Reports further solidifies their brand as the go-to experts in the product-testing field.
It’s not necessary though to have expensive labs, or even lab coats for that matter, to strengthen your branding. Part of the beauty of Web video is that businesses can show, rather than simply tell, what they do well. Kicks4all.com, a family-friendly Martial Arts studio, uses Internet video to show a full range of students, from young kids to adults, confidently performing martial arts in groups and alone. The Broadmoor Hotel, a five-star luxury hotel, takes potential guests on a tour of their amenities, highlighting newly expanded spa treatment rooms and renovated gardens. And Oakwood Homes, a home building company, offers a taste of the design options available to potential buyers. In each case, online video reinforces the businesses’ brand by simply showing the business doing what they say they will do. And honestly, what is more powerful than that?
Which is why when it came down to it, we ended up buying a boring black vacuum cleaner that actually vacuums up dirt and crumbs. After I watched it perform in an online video, of course.
Have an example of a company using online video to strengthen their brand? We’d love to hear about it! Tell us about it in the comments section…