Why Online Video is good for your Corporate Executives and How to Deploy

Categories: Community Marketing, Podtech, Social Media, Video, Web StrategyPosted on January 20th, 2007

Sharing Social Media Strategy
This morning, I forwarded an email to a client showing them how Sun’s CEO Johnathan Schwartz has embedded his video interview on my colleague Robert’s ScobleShow. I encouraged them to get their CEO on the Scobleshow, here’s some of the reasons why I listed why Online Video is good for your CEO. (or any other executive).

It makes sense I share this info not only with that client I emailed but with the rest of the good folks that are deploying Social Media. Having evangelized and built a program at Hitachi Data Systems, I know what it’s like.

Who am I writing for?
This knowledge is best suite for your CEO, other Executives, Corporate Communications, PR, Multi Media, Interactive Marketing, Integrated Marketing, Web Marketing, and Executive Communications, please forward this to the appropriate person.

Why Online Video is good for your Corporate Executives and Strategies to Deploy:

1) Time Efficient
For many CEOs, committing and writing a blog is not going to happen. This was evident in this video where Michael Dell is asked point blank “why don’t you blog?” . Video is a happy middle point as it takes about double the time (prep time and recording time) to get recorded.

2) Talk directly to the ‘people’
Frankly, I’m sick of press releases talking about CEOs in the third person, or corporate bios talking about an executive. With online video the executive comes to the ‘edge’ of the company to have a real conversation with the marketplace. It’s real, with real emotion, nuances, and body language that can’t be expressed over text.

3) Take advantage of the Network Effects
The term Network can be interchanged with “Viral”. By placing your video online, it should be put into viral players that encourage bloggers, and other website manager to embed the video and sharing it with others. Google Video, YouTube, Blip, and if you create content with PodTech you’ll have the benefits needed to share.

4) Reuse Opportunities
These videos can be displayed on your corporate website, the extranet, intranet, embedded or linked to from a press release, email newsletter, sent to investors, and encouraged to spread on other websites. For those in Integrated Marketing, you’ll love this.

5) Speaking in person to the whole world across time
Since the web is global (and the top medium in the workplace in North America) it can be easily found and shared across distances and is saved in the internet for access over time. Some theories suggest that the content over the long term is more effective than big media buys. How many people does your CEO reach by giving a speech? 10? 100? 1000? . On the web it can reach mass audiences.

6) What a Online Video Conversation is:

A) Your Executive having a real life conversation, not scripted, no cue cards

B) Your Executive engaged in a real conversation with another human being

C) Tough questions and Real Answers, if your Exec doesn’t know, they will earn more respect from the community by saying “I don’t know, but I’ll find out and tell you”

7) What a Online Video Conversation is NOT
The type of conversational real life videos I’m talking about are NOT:

A) Your CEO speaking to a bunch of people and simply recording it, unless they are a truely a gifted orator it’s not personal enough nor engaging.

B) Your CEO reading a primed script

C) Canned questions without improv or authenticity

A great online video conversation is like improvisational jazz, performers building and responding to each other around a given melodic theme.

How to quickly get started:
I’ve experience here, as I’ve been through this in a corporate setting.

A) Build your own internal video team
I recommend building a small internal team that can quickly record video and publish. It’s not supposed to be hard (there are vlogs appearing everyday where people are doing this). Here’s what I recommend:

A) Find some internal folks that are already interested or creating video (look at your web team first)

B) Allocate about $1000 for consumer grade cameras, mics and a tripod. They may need some video software.

C) Learn up on the trade, get some training in. This is not supposed to be film quality video but at the same grade as what’s being produced on the web.

D) Record internal presentations by execs and put on Intranet, you’ll get more mileage for this program.

E) It’s better to have an internal team that can do this (with some consumer grade camera kits) rather than outsourcing to a video company that will over charge you and over produce something so simple.

B) Find an existing video show that welcomes guests
There are many video blog shows that are emerging, and they’re vying for content. This is a quick and easy way to get going. Below

9) What to look for in an Online Video Show
If you decide that the first step is to get on an Online Video show before creating your own I recommend the following criteria:

A) Find a show that has a pre-built network around it

B) The show is already speaking to your market

C) Post-production skills to make it turn out appropriate

D) The interviewer should be experienced in conversational arts and familiar with dealing with execs.

E) There should be NO cost to this video

For the show and the company this exclusive video conversation should be win/win

10) Integrate with other Social Media Strategies
Here’s some other related thoughts I’ve shared, hope this helps.

10 Social Media Strategies for the Fortune 1000 Corporations

Corporate Podcasting Strategies for 2007

Web Strategy: Overlaying Social Media for your Corporate Events

Transparency
If it’s not apparent already, it should be known that I’m a PodTech employee, I serve as a Social Media consultant to our Fortune 1000 clients. My expertise is based upon my experience in deploying Social Media, as well as discussions with our clients. Learn more about me on my profile page.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, January 20th, 2007 at 9:33 am and is filed under Community Marketing, Podtech, Social Media, Video, Web Strategy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

[...] Learn more Here’s an excellent book: that over 100 contributed to (including I) on Blogging and Podcasting, if you’re interested in picking it up, it has insight from many industry experts, all which are more intelligent than I. If you found this post helpful, also read 10 Social Media Strategies for the Fortune 1000 Corporations. Update Jan 21st: Yestereday I published some strategies for using Online Video for your Execs. [...]

Posted by Web Strategy by Jeremiah » Corporate Podcasting Strategies for 2007 on January 21st, 2007 at 7:38 am

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Posted by fivcvegqce on January 23rd, 2007 at 12:31 am

[...] G) Online Video While Online Video has existed for many years on the web, it’s most notably been gaining traction from the video blog, or video sharing sites of great popularity such as Google Video, or it’s recent acquisition YouTube. In addition to third party video sites, colleague Robert Scoble is well known for being the ‘Video Guy’ at Microsoft, while he took behind the scenes footage and shared on a Community networking site. Other companies have seen the success in this and have also launched online video sites such as General Motors. I recommend starting with thinking about Video for your Executives and thought leaders. [...]

Posted by Web Strategy by Jeremiah » The Many Forms of Web Marketing for the 2007 Web Strategist on February 5th, 2007 at 6:52 pm

5)Speaking in person to the whole world across time

Vitally important to know your customer and to acknowledge your potential market.

Posted by Joe on February 13th, 2007 at 3:08 am

[...] We have a lot of smart people at Aptima. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to start the CogBlog. However, we have some individuals—okay, I’m talking specifically about President and Founder Daniel Serfaty here—who write well but really shine through the spoken word. Thinking of an older post by Jeremiah, I pitched the idea of having Daniel participate via audio or video blogging. [...]

Posted by Traces of Inspiration on February 20th, 2007 at 8:03 pm

[...] This week, KFC is is the news as this bad press hits YouTube. The president promptly responded, and even did an online video, good job Gregg. class=”yellow”>View video remarks from KFC President Gregg Dedrick (although they need a direct link to the video, I had to splice this code together in order to link to it directly). I hope they keep this open transparent dialogue going, have you read my Web Strategy on Why Online Video is good for your Corporate Executives and How to Deploy? [...]

Posted by Web Strategy by Jeremiah » Responding to Bad Press using Video, and Video Brand Hijacking on February 27th, 2007 at 7:35 pm

[...] I encouraged Clare to consider doing a video show, she’s very personable, real, and down to earth. Video could be a good solution for her to communicate to the world, given the time it takes to blog, I’ve written tips on how to do that here. [...]

Posted by Web Strategy by Jeremiah » Scoble interviews Clare Hart, Executive at Dow Jones on February 28th, 2007 at 6:22 pm

Another useful article.
I’ve been video podcasting since late last year and have already clocked up 10.
They take time to put together and you realise very quickly the need for good scripting, lighting!
Recently, we did a podcast with an interview with a CEO. He was a confident communicator.

Re: Whether or not a CEO’s would be motivated to blog - In my view the only way that they (CEO’s or managers) will ‘keep it up’ aka dynamic is if they work with the Marketing department or whoever it is that is assigned to manage their Communications strategy.

Maybe part of the problem is that PR agencies have the whole thing ‘tied-up’.
i.e: Blogging and PR have not yet converged as it impacts the traditional way of communicating with the press et al.

In summary, we need a few CEOs to take the lead.
I only hope there is no hidden process that is implemented inside RSS technologies - Sorry is that too cynical!

Posted by Dr Savi on March 2nd, 2007 at 4:39 am

Good Dr.

I agree, we need some leaders in video. John Schwartz has done 2 videos or more with my colleague Robert Scoble, although not an ongoing ’show’ it’s a good start.

I suspect you came from this post, but there’s some cases documented of execs using video to combat bad PR:

http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2007/02/27/responding-to-bad-press-using-video-and-video-brand-hijacking/

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Posted by icupitre on April 27th, 2007 at 10:38 am

[...] I would also suggest that video is great for executives, and I’ve listed out some resources on Why Online Video is good for your Corporate Executives and How to Deploy. [...]

Posted by Web Strategy by Jeremiah » Enhancing your Website with Video on May 22nd, 2007 at 9:35 am

problem we have is that when the CEO sends an email out saying to everyone ‘watch this video’ and thousands of people start streaming all over the country - it brings down WAN and LAN links with the bandwidth consumption.

Any ideas around this?

Posted by myles on May 22nd, 2007 at 6:00 pm

One way is to have an blog, where the video could be at, but don’t announce it when it goes live, let users organically find it.

Secondly, you could announce it to different regions at different times

Thirdly, consider cutting the video into different segments, or just have a low-res version for intial usage, offer a hi-res version later.

Fourthly, consider Flash technology to display the video, I suspect there are some loading benefits (but I’m not sure)

Lastly, consider streaming services out there that can host the video for you, or offer some type of optomized way of watching the video.

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on May 22nd, 2007 at 7:07 pm

[...] Video for your Executives and thought leaders [...]

Posted by 小叮当 » Blog Archive » 网络营销的不同形式 on August 7th, 2007 at 5:25 am

[...] Please don’t think I’m down on blogging, in fact, I’m one of the biggest advocates of joining the conversation. I really want you to think about the ramifications of CEO blogs before you start, this post is intended to help you. If you’re wanting to think about other tools, I’ve often though video is great for executives. [...]

Posted by Web Strategy: The many Challenges of Writing a CEO blog on October 12th, 2007 at 2:07 am

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Posted by Kevin Devaney on November 16th, 2007 at 7:37 pm

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[...] Why Online Video is good for your Corporate Executives and How to Deploy Jeremiah Owyang, Web Strategy by Jeremiah | 1/20/07 [...]

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[...] as Google Video, or it’s recent acquisition YouTube. I recommend starting with thinking about Video for your Executives and thought leaders. This also includes live streaming where participants can webcast video in real time, often [...]

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Have you guys seen htttP://ecorptv.com yet?

It appears to be a you tube type site strictly devoted to video.

Posted by Spencer on October 23rd, 2008 at 3:43 am

more and more corporations seeking new media and video production are getting away from your typical below average corporate video production companies and going with more high end companies to deliver the best product. The last dvd we produced for our sales reps to use for potential clients costed us a bit more than usual, but the results have paid it all back. We used mwctv.com, a company known for film and reality tv not corporate video but they did a hell of a job!

Posted by george mcmilliam on November 18th, 2008 at 11:28 pm

Some great points raised here, I think that the overall apathy towards “Corporate Video” is changing. My production team has adopted the term ‘Ciné Business’, helping us approach every project with the same enthusiasm as we do film production.
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Posted by Jean-Paul Bankes-Mercer on February 20th, 2009 at 11:47 am

[...] Video blogs and mobile videos. Let your executives speak in person to the whole world, here is why this is good. And encourage your employees to use their mobiles to document things that customers or other [...]

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Why Online Video is good for your Corporate Executives and How to Deploy « Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang | Social Media, Web Marketing…

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