Among the various tools big companies use to maximum their business is video. It's a technology that small enterprises use not nearly enough as they should. With platforms like YouTube, Vine and even Instagram vying for a top spot in online video, SMBs should realize the opportunity to expand their marketing efforts and reach.
We've heard the argument before: Video, whether it's used to give insight into how a company operates or to create spiffy advertising campaigns, can be a hot ticket to success. According to Ashan Willy, senior vice president of product management at video conferencing company Polycom, putting a video on a website is very easy today. As with so much of technology that a mere 10, even five years ago was dauntingly elite, video is extremely accessible, relatively cheap, and insofar as how companies are typically leveraging it, requires minimal skill.
“[Making a video] is as easy as using a smartphone to record yourself and putting it on your website,” Willy says.
The payoff your business may see could be astronomical. Say you're running an operation that specializes in some obscure branch of science or technology, one that when described tends to get lost in language only a NASA engineer comprehends. Video, in which all us lazy Americans spend our spare time indulging, is an opportunity to show your business, product, or idea in action, sans the complicated text. Or, say you're in the fashion retail sector: What better way to show off the fit and flair of apparel than in a series of live action shots? Watching images is the closest thing we have to experiencing them in real life.
Businesses need to be aware of video's
marketing and advertising value and the ease with which it can be pulled off. The cost of production is not a hit to budgets, there are many options for easy hosting, it’s easy to share and there are so many possibilities for how video can impact a business. Whether you’re looking to inform, entertain, recruit or sell, video is a platform that can help businesses reach their goals. Regardless of how simple and reasonable investing in video technology may be, it may remain a tough sell. To an extent, video is still perceived as an art, and as with any art, the fear of producing something terrible dies hard.
Edited by
Rachel Ramsey
