When we talk about interactive video elements, there are a lot of examples: text links, annotations, product “fly-outs”, etc.  One of the most effective, under-used, and truly interactive features is the “hotspot”. Hotspots enable users to create ‘clickable items’ in a video. For example, a product video featuring a model wearing a shirt could allow a viewer to click the shirt, delivering them to the product page where the item can be purchased.

Hotspots start and end at precise times. They can either have text associated with them or be completely invisible until the user mouses over the item.

Here at Liveclicker, there are two types of hotspots:

1. Static motion
2. The “dot-spot”

Static motion hotspots

For static motion hotspots, the area that is clickable on the video does not move between the start and end times. This is best used when you have a presentation video with one fixed camera angle. See this OneStopPlus example at 18 seconds.

Dot-spot hotspots

Dotspots are arguably the most powerful. With a dotspot, a blinking, spherical light (think: LED) is placed over the desired object in the video in the color of your choice. With the constant blinking, not only is the user’s eye naturally drawn to the product, but they are compelled to take an action and interact with the video. See some examples below:

The inclusion of these various hotspots gives users a more personal experience with the videos. They get to play with the video, not just passively watch it. Their attention is drawn to the vehicle for the message being presented, and they are not distracted by other lower converting elements on the page.

The online video experience is now more than TV, more than video on the internet, it’s a fully interactive shopping experience.  For more best practices on interactive video, you can check out Liveclicker’s recent webinar with Abt Electronics: Making the Most of Interactive Video and Video Commerce Analytics.

The summit will begin Thursday, August 9th with a Clients Only Workshop in the afternoon followed by our opening reception at the Hyatt open to all summit attendees.  Friday, August 10th will be filled with 11 practical cutting edge video commerce sessions. Session topics include:

• The Future of Social Video
• Video SEO – How it has Evolved
• How to Align Your Video Content with Your Brand
• The Forefront of E-Commerce Innovation: Mobile Video
• Interactive Video Best Practices Panel
• Making the Most of Video Analytics
• Video Distribution – Placing Your Video Where it Counts
• Remaking Retail – Is Video Transforming Retail into Entertainment
• Is Personalized Video the Next Frontier in Video Commerce
• Production 101: What You Need to Succeed
• Video Commerce Expert Q & A

Following an intense day of video commerce sessions, we rented out the entire Legends Club Luxury Suite at AT&T Park on Friday night for our attendees to relax and watch the San Francisco Giants take on the Colorado Rockies.

There is limited space available at the summit this year, so please register early if you would like to attend.  You can take advantage of our early bird rate and save $300 off the summit price if you register by June 1st.

Check out the event site: videocommercesummit.com for more information on the summit including video interviews from last year’s attendees.  Stay tuned to videoretailer.org for more information on the summit as we get closer to August.

Of course, there were plenty of important findings shared about the intersection of social and video. Among the findings shared at the event:

• 181 million viewers in the US watched 40 billion videos in January, 2012 (not counting video ads)
• Created social media and online video were 2 of the top 3 marketing trends cited by a Forrester survey conducted in the summer of 2011 in terms of confidence perception among interactive marketers. The future of both categories looks exceptionally bright.
• Online video ad spending is expected to double in 2012 vs. 2011 as a % of overall video spending (online video ad spending is growing twice as fast as TV spending)
• Online video is the fastest growing category of ad spend according to the IAB/PwC (Jan 2012), more than doubling the next closest category. Video ad spending is projected to grow at a 54.7% growth rate in 2012 vs. the next closest category at 27.0%
• Retail video views per retailer 2Xed in 2011 compared to 2010, with strong continued growth into January, February, and March of 2012 (according to Liveclicker research data)
• All age demographics are showing continued adoption of social networks. The fastest growing age group are those aged 50 – 64 years old.
• A sample of 7,000 videos among Liveclicker clients showed that the top 1% of videos accounted for 23.4% of all sharing activity. The top 5% of videos accounted for 52.0% of all sharing activity.
• The most shared videos had the smallest dollar contribution on a per-share basis. The least shared videos generated an average of $4.88 per share, compared to the top 25% most shared videos, which generated only $2.61 on a per-share basis
• The most shared implementations featured a video on the product page (e-commerce) that displayed by default. These implementations also featured a share button and multiple options to share in the video player.
• 9 of the top 10 retailers with the most shared videos also posted interactive videos to Facebook.
• PowerReviews shared a Step2 case study highlighting a gamification engine powered by the PowerReviews Essential Social Suite led to a 10X increase in user generated video submissions.
• The same strategy led to a 135% increase in Facebook referral traffic
• It also led to a 3x increase in revenue from Facebook-referred visitors.

If there was one theme to take away from the event last week, it was that the intersection of social and video is still in its early days. There are many unexplored opportunities yet. The magic formula is being converged upon, but no one has found it yet. With the help of technologies like the Essential Social Suite and the Liveclicker Video Commerce Platform, marketers are getting closer than ever. Many are already finding commercial success.  With smart marketers using smart technology, more breakthroughs are certain to come.

5 tips for presenting on camera

Here are a few suggestions that will simplify the daunting task of finding and coaching your on-camera talent.

1. Look for the diamond in the rough - Believe it or not, there are actually people out there who are energized by the opportunity to speak publicly, but they aren’t necessarily always the most outspoken or outgoing person in the group. Look for the person on your team who works well under pressure, is highly adaptable, and an effective communicator. Pull them aside and tell them that because of their strengths, you think they would do a great job presenting on camera and ask them to give it a try. You never know, you could have the next Ryan Seacrest working right under your nose.
2. Credibility is everything – A common misconception in the realm of online video is that professional talent is needed in order to make an effective video. However, online video watchers are more concerned with the presenter being informed about the topic than the presenter being completely polished. A relatable presenter gives the consumer a better chance to connect with your brand, thus increasing the probability of a product video conversion.
3. Talk to your neighbor – When presenting on camera, it’s important to keep the perspective that you are talking with a close friend over a cup of coffee at your kitchen table. Keep it conversational – speak with your audience, not at them.
4. Deep breaths – When speaking on camera, one’s natural inclination is to talk faster than a normal gait. Part of it can be because of nerves, and the feeling of just wanting it to be over with quicker. If you try to pay close attention to your annunciation, it will help slow down your pace. Also, you will know you are at the right speed when you feel like you are speaking uncomfortably slow. It will not feel natural, but try and stay cognizant of your pace as much as possible. You have very important information to share, and it would be a shame if someone missed it because you were talking too fast!
5. Conquering the content – Find out what works for you! Some people have the memory of an elephant and love to memorize scripts and recite them; others are really great at ad-libbing. On the other hand, sometimes, we all just need a good teleprompter app! There is no right or wrong way to serve up the material to your presenter. Just know that everyone will have a different preference. It’s in your best interest to play to their strengths.

Last is what I like to call the “good ‘ol train wreck.” Sometimes you just have to go for it, you may not feel completely prepared or think you have the right person, but the amazing thing about video is that if you mess up – you can simply try it again. So throw caution to the wind and give it a go! After all, you won’t get the right take until you start with the first take.

Company names Simon Mutlu as Vice President of Sales

San Jose, CA - March 08, 2012

Register here >>

Liveclicker’s video commerce expert, Justin Foster, will be presenting, alongside a panel of retail marketing professionals from Vitamin Shoppe and Diapers.com, on how video and social media can drive traffic to online stores and influence shoppers to buy more products.

Attendees can expect to learn:

• How to sell more products through social video
• How to create customer-centric conversations with video and social media
• How educating shoppers with “how to” videos and customer reviews can drive results
• Best practices for integrating social media and video

Visit The Social Video Commerce Luncheon event site for more information and to register >>

Recently, Liveclicker’s Director of Video Production and I presented the webinar: Retail Video Production A to Z.  It was evident by the record number of webinar attendees that production  continues to be one of the main challenges retailers and brands face with their online video programs.  Below is an overview of the section of the webinar focused on pre-production planning.

Enjoy!

Importance of pre-production planning

Who are you shooting for?  Thinking about who your audience is, and how they will benefit from your video program, should be the main priority in pre-production planning.  Planning for product video production can be broken down into 2 categories:

1. First Shoot – Planning for the foundation for what your videos will look like.

• Goal – Set clear goals for how many videos you want to create per month, and work backwards to figure out resource allocation and budgeting.
• How – decide on the delivery on your video messaging – Will the tone be light and casual, informational, lightly scripted, heavily scripted, etc.
• Who – Decide who is delivering your video: a well-spoken customer, employee, or professional talent.
• Content – What are you actually saying about your products? Are you relying  heavily on the product description?
• Where – Where can you shoot that will best resonate with your customers? Showroom, on-location, open conference room, etc.
• Look – Decide how you want your video to look.  Will you do product close ups? Will you need a display table? What kind of background do you want – infinite white, or cloth background?
• Length - Do you need 120 seconds when you can say all you need to  in 60? Use Liveclicker video analytics to measure drop off rates and test different lengths.
• Logistics – What products are you going to shoot, why are you shooting those products, and how are they getting to the studio?
• Notes – Taking notes will help post-production go much more smoothly.

2. Ongoing Shoots – Planning for how you can maximize video production efficiency

• Focus on maximizing the efficiency for your production process.
• Decide what products get shot.
• Find out how quickly you can get products into the studio.
• Have a process for educating talent on what they are shooting in advance of the production day.
• Find out how long it takes to get videos through post production. Consider using video production automation software like Liveclicker Studio to scale production and cut down on editing work and time required between shoots and go-live.
• Plan to test – Change up delivery, content, look and location.  Use Liveclicker’s Custom Insight video analytics to compare different variables of videos against each other.
• Edit video content to address issues that come up frequently in support calls

As a thank you to people for taking the time out of their busy conference schedules to meet with us, we will be giving out a FREE $50 giftcard from the Liveclicker client of your choice (see logo collage below) to the first 30 people we meet with.

To set up a meeting with Liveclicker at the show, please choose an open time slot within our calendar below that works best with your conference schedule. If there is not a time below that works with your schedule, please email sales@liveclicker.com to see if we can accommodate you outside of our conference hours.

As a thank you to people for taking the time out of their busy conference schedules to meet with us, we will be giving out a FREE iPod Shuffle to the first 30 people we meet with.

To set up a meeting with Liveclicker at the show, please choose an open time slot within our calendar below that works best with your conference schedule. If there is not a time below that works with your schedule, please email sales@liveclicker.com to see if we can accommodate you outside of our conference hours.

6. More brands will attempt to scale video production with technology, leading to an overall deepening focus on product videos

Liveclicker Studio

Scaling video production has remained a constant challenge for companies since the beginning of video commerce. Even those companies who are successfully producing a lot of content struggle with automating the production process.  With the release of new technologies in 2012 like the newly developed Liveclicker Studio, companies will be able to quickly create quality product videos using an automated process.   With a solution like Studio, companies will be able to:

• Shorten the time it takes to shoot simple, scalable product videos
• Reduce required resources needed for each video
• Integrate post-production with pre-built video templates, reducing need for manual editing
• Have a direct connection for batch uploading and encoding to a video platform

7.  One top 100 retailer will launch a longer-format ‘branded content’ series as a way to drive long term loyalty & audience

By developing a longer format ‘branded content’ series, at least one major retailer will embrace video as way to integrate their brand into the lives of customers. A good example of a retail brand creating this type of content already is the clothing company, KarmaLoop.  They offer several different shows ranging from a daily video series called “Daily Loop”, which integrates the shopping experience with coverage of the most current trends and styles, to other longer form content shows like, “A Day in The Life”, which follows a day in the life of a celebrity.

8. The number of Top 500 Retailers with at least 100 online videos will double by the end of the year

At present, 116 of the Top 500 Retailers have at least 100 online videos live on their sites.  33% of the Top 500 Retailers have less than 10 videos.  Those companies are just getting started in video commerce, and have huge potential to grow their video library over the year.  For the past three years, the numbers of retailers producing video has grown; this year will prove no exception.

9. Video QR codes aren’t going anywhere

Liveclicker had several clients run video QR code campaigns in 2011.  Most of them were successful, although many of them were done in an experimental capacity.  Key reasons I expect to see the trend continue:

• Video QR allows merchants to deliver a better quality of service and product information in-store
• Growing smartphone ownership & sophistication among catalog and in-store shoppers will grow the user base
• The ability to measure engagement with print campaigns brings new accountability to these campaigns
• The ability to deliver more compelling brand experiences, any time, any where, has proven to be winning formula for brand marketers

10. 2012 is the year of mobile video commerce (again)

You may recall I predicted this trend last year as well.  Looking back on 2011 today, I see the year now as more about the launching of new content with a big focus on product videos, as opposed to one where the primary focus was on mobile video..  Having said, with the growing support of HTML5 video both on mobile devices and in webmail clients, the increased penetration of smartphones throughout the world, and the growth of tablet shopping, I do believe mobile is again the video commerce trend to watch in 2012.

These are all the predictions I have for this year.  Only time will tell if they come true. You can sign up to view the recording of this webinar and download the slide deck on Liveclicker’s webinars page. Registration is also open for Liveclicker’s  next webinar coming up on February 9th: Retail Video Production A to Z.