As I prep the final video installment in video week here on the blog I wanted to share some shining examples of video at its best. The following should serve as examples of what to consider when you look at the power of video and what it brings to the table from an informational, branding and education point of view. Enjoy.

Gary Vaynerchuk - Wine Library TV
If Gary doesn't make you want to get up and create video content then you may be hopeless. His enthusiasm is off the charts, his knowledge of wine is incredible and the content follows suit. He has created an empire in the wine industry, his posts average 200-300 comments and people love him. His honesty and authenticity should serve as role models for us all.

Ask a Ninja
Yes this is more comedic, but these guys have created a character, a loyal following and a merchandise business to back up the demand.

BlendTec - Will It Blend
Will It Blend is one of the best examples of a company realizing the potential of the video space, choosing to fully engage in a valuable way and letting the conversation happen organically. BlendTec makes a line of high-end, powerful blenders. They're so powerful that you can blend everything from a leaf rake to a crowbar to an iPhone. They stay extremely relevant by looking at trends in social media and creating content around it. When Weezer's "Pork and Beans" video took off on YouTube, BlendTec created a video.

BMW - BMW Films
This is from a few years ago, but BMW's creation of webisodes to promote their cars in the format of short films took the Web by storm. This video featuring thier M5 sedan and Madonna was the most popular. It's engaging, showcases the product and is absolutely memorable.

BMW - GINA concept car
Not to harp on BMW, but they absolutely grasp the power of video. While most companies hide their innovations and forward thinking, BMW uses video to position themselves as thought leaders and true innovators. Check out this video featuring their new concept car, GINA. Do you hide your innovations or showcase them?

These are just a few examples, but I hope they bring you inspiration in your thinking about video as a viable, powerful medium.

What companies are doing video that you enjoy or get value from? Let me know!

If you missed the first videos in the series you can find them here:

• Distribution
  
• Editing
  
• How I create my video tutorials
  
• Hardware and software options
  

podcast-logo1.gif
If you use another podcatcher you can grab my podcast RSS feed here.

Technorati Tags:
conversations, marketing, Matt Dickman, Techno//Marketer, video, tips

Distribution of content is one of the most potentially overwhelming areas of video creation. Many people talk about content overload in today's information economy, but information distribution is an equal challenge. Putting content in front of the largest potential audience takes time and energy.

Picture 16.png
Fortunately for us, services like TubeMogul exist to help ease the burden. TubeMogul allows you to upload one file, one title, one description and one set of tags and feed them out to 12+ different video sites with one click. This process used to take me hours to complete, going to each video site, uploading the file and entering the information.

855FB664-CE29-434D-AEFC-1D661EB49595.jpg
When you're creating video content, alternate distribution points should be on your mind. I use a podcast file hosting service called Libsyn to host my video files and create the podcast RSS feed that I use with my iTunes podcast (feel free to subscribe).

Finally, I upload the video into Facebook. This hits my friends and peers that use the service to keep track of what I have going on. More and more commentary has been coming back through Facebook over the past couple of months.

Other video hosting opportunities abound in different niche sites out there. Everyone is looking for quality content and you should be looking for quality editors.

Previous topics:

• Monday: equipment and software
  
• Tuesday: video tutorials
  
• Thursday: editing
  

Upcoming topics include:

• Thursday: How and where I distribute the videos
  
• Friday: Reader questions
  

And remember, tomorrow I will answer any questions that you have. To stay in the theme of the week it would be excellent if you provided your questions in video (either on Facebook or on YouTube) and I will edit them in. I will, as always, accept any questions you have by email or by commenting on this post.

So start thinking and let me know what's on your mind. I can't wait to hear from you!

podcast-logo1.gif
If you use another podcatcher you can grab my podcast RSS feed here.

You can watch this and other Techno//Marketer videos on your preferred video channel:

Technorati Tags:
conversations, marketing, Matt Dickman, Techno//Marketer, video, tips

Once you have captured your video (either from a camera or from a software program like iShowU) you need to edit it down and add any final touches that you want. iMovie is the program that I use for my editing, but there are many solutions out there. These drag-and-drop systems make it very user friendly and the quality of the transitions and titles make the end product look professional.

Previous topics:

• Monday: equipment and software
  
• Tuesday: video tutorials
  

Upcoming topics include:

• Thursday: How I edit and produce the final product
  
• Thursday: How and where I distribute the videos
  
• Friday: Reader questions
  

And remember, on Friday I will answer any questions that you have. To stay in the theme of the week it would be excellent if you provided your questions in video (either on Facebook or on YouTube) and I will edit them in. I will, as always, accept any questions you have by email or by commenting on this post.

So start thinking and let me know what's on your mind. I can't wait to hear from you!

podcast-logo1.gif
If you use another podcatcher you can grab my podcast RSS feed here.

You can watch this and other Techno//Marketer videos on your preferred video channel:

Technorati Tags:
conversations, marketing, Matt Dickman, Techno//Marketer, video, tips

This video answers the most popular question (by far) that I get about my videos, how I do my video guided tutorials. You may laugh when you see how easy it is with my pieced-together, DIY solution. But hey, it works.

This has a number of other implementations that you may find useful for your business including, but not limited to:

• Distance learning
  
• Guided software tutorials
  
• Archived presentations
  
• Recorded FAQ responses
  

Previous topics:

• Monday: equipment and software
  

Upcoming topics include:

• Wednesday: How I edit and produce the final product
  
• Thursday: How and where I distribute the videos
  
• Friday: Reader questions
  

And remember, on Friday I will answer any questions that you have. To stay in the theme of the week it would be excellent if you provided your questions in video (either on Facebook or on YouTube) and I will edit them in. I will, as always, accept any questions you have by email or by commenting on this post.

So start thinking and let me know what's on your mind. I can't wait to hear from you!

podcast-logo1.gif
If you use another podcatcher you can grab my podcast RSS feed here.

You can watch this and other Techno//Marketer videos on your preferred video channel:

Technorati Tags:
conversations, marketing, Matt Dickman, Techno//Marketer, video, tips

As I mention in the video I use the built-in camera on my Mac laptop for most of my video work and I use iMovie on the Mac for editing. The reason that I mention Mac is that everything is included out of the box. It's extremely easy to use for beginners and the quality of the end results is fantastic. It's a great setup for the novice and you can easily scale up over time.

I also supplement the video work with an HD camera and a Flip video camera that I take with me on trips and to conferences. My mic is a pretty heavy-duty podcasting rig that runs through an M-Audio USB pre-amp. Stay tuned for more!

Upcoming topics include:

• Tuesday: How I shoot my video tutorials (the most frequently asked question that I get)
  
• Wednesday: How I edit and produce the final product
  
• Thursday: How and where I distribute the videos
  
• Friday: Reader questions
  

And remember, on Friday I will answer any questions that you have. To stay in the theme of the week it would be excellent if you provided your questions in video (either on Facebook or on YouTube) and I will edit them in. I will, as always, accept any questions you have by email or by commenting on this post.

So start thinking and let me know what's on your mind. I can't wait to hear from you!

podcast-logo1.gif
If you use another podcatcher you can grab my podcast RSS feed here.

You can watch this and other Techno//Marketer videos on your preferred video channel:

Technorati Tags:
conversations, marketing, Matt Dickman, Techno//Marketer, video, tips

• Wireless Social Networking To Transform Tech, Media, Telecom
  An article on Information Week about the coming boom of wireless social networks driven by iPhone.
  (tags: iphone   socialnetwork   socialmedia   mobile   marketing)

I use a lot of video on this site to help educate and inform you, my community. Due to that fact I get a lot of questions about video from production to editing. Next week on this blog I am going to produce a series of posts and videos that show how I shoot, manage and publish my video content.

Top level topics include:

• Monday: Equipment and software
  
• Tuesday: How I shoot my video tutorials (the most frequently asked question that I get)
  
• Wednesday: How I edit and produce the final product
  
• Thursday: How and where I distribute the videos
  
• Friday: Reader questions
  

On Friday I will answer any questions that you have. To stay in the theme of the week it would be excellent if you provided your questions in video (either on Facebook or on YouTube) and I will stream them in and link back to your site. I will, however accept any questions you have by email or by commenting on this post.

So start thinking and let me know what's on your mind. I can't wait to hear from you!

podcast-logo1.gif
If you use another podcatcher you can grab my podcast RSS feed here.

You can watch this and other Techno//Marketer videos on your preferred video channel:

Technorati Tags:
conversations, marketing, Matt Dickman, Techno//Marketer, video, tips

iStock_000003099857XSmall.jpg
Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak to the Cleveland Web Association on the topics of micromedia (Twitter, Pownce, FriendFeed, etc.). This was a follow up presentation to the one I gave back in February and is meant to dive a bit deeper into the subject.

I thought the audience was very receptive to the topic and the examples absolutely help out with that. David Meade of Optiem gave a bit of a more technical primer before me and is who I reference in the first few minutes.

The presentation is available below as a SlideCast (meaning I have added an voiceover audio track to it) which you can access by hitting the green middle button that looks like this Picture 18.png .

Enjoy!

If you are interested in having me speak to your company or organization, you can check out my other SlideShare presentations here and feel free to contact me for more information.

Technorati Tags:
conversations, customer service, FriendFeed, Identi.ca, marketing, Matt Dickman, micromedia, PR, social media, strategy, Techno//Marketer, technology, trends, Twitter

Picture 14.png
Does the world need another Twitter clone? How about thousands of them? Identi.ca is a Twitter competitor that us running on an open source platform called Laconica. The product is open source and can be installed and rebranded anywhere including behind corporate firewalls.

The trend with these services is to become more and more distributed and eventually interconnected. I would fully expect Google to implement a common protocol for these services to become universally integrated in the future. For now we'll have to rely on tools like Ping.fm and Summize (which was purchased by Twitter today) to carry out our conversations.

Key Takeaways:

• More and more Twitter competitors will rise up taking niche communities with them as Twitter remains on top for the foreseeable future
  
• Open source versions of Twitter will begin appearing behind corporate fire walls acting as communications tools and helping knowledge managers compile conversations across the enterprise
  
• Oddly during Twitter's periods of sporadic downtime, sites like Identi.ca were so crushed with traffic that they also crashed limiting Twitter's exposure
  
• Core components missing here are the API, mobile integration (both of which are allegedly down the road)
  
• Twitter's own open-source software is out there and may trump all of the up and comers
  

podcast-logo1.gif
If you use another podcatcher you can grab my podcast RSS feed here.

You can watch this and other Techno//Marketer videos on your video channel of choice:

Technorati Tags:
conversations, Inside//Out, marketing, Matt Dickman, micromedia, social media, Summize, Techno//Marketer, technology, trends, Twitter, Identi.ca

• Why Brands Need a New Kind of Leader
  A great article by Brian Morrissey about the movement of social media mavens to corporate America to help big companies understand social media. Scott Monty's move to Ford is the case in point.
  (tags: adweek   ford   evangelist   socialmedia   scottmonty)