The internets first ever recession!

Considering the last recession was pre-Internet days, it will be interesting to see what impact, influences and advantages the internet will have on the current economic climate.

Estate agents, furniture retailers, established chainstores- are all victims. Even today it was announced the shoe stores Barratts was going into administration. For now the 400 shops will stay open.

So, I have to bring in online video content into the discussion, as that is what I do. So, how can it be an advantage in these tough times?

Professionally made video content on websites can make a company stand out beyond competitors, which is important more than ever before right now. When people surf around for prices, the personality and staff from a company can make a faceless business seem friendly and approachable- just think, Bernard Matthews and Victor Remmington was doing it for their companies decades ago!

If the person in the film is the one who answers the phone to new customers, then its a great ice breaker.

Estate Agents would really benefit from presenting their staff in video form to potential new customers, testimonials from previous customers build up confidence in dealing with a business that is new to you.

If you would like to look at getting video content on your company website, give me a call- I'm on 0845 602 8874.

Jonathan.

Good video content- but nobody is watching!

I stumbled on a Youtube channel where they either have the know-how, or have invested money in making some professional video content. They have lapel mics, use autocue, graphics and film effects are added in edit. Its all tied into a very professional website with a blog and clear categories.

To the people the information is aimed at its informative and simple, although the films are possibly a little bit too long in duration (around 6 minutes each).

Lets say the channel is called ‘Bestadvice4u’. (It’s not- but when checking if the username existed for the purpose of this exercise, I signed it up to Youtube anyway!)

I want to touch on where they are going wrong.

OK. They're uploading videos almost every day. Which means using all their resources very quickly. One a week is good enough for what they offer. I recommend a Sunday- its surf-day!

They upload three videos at a time. Which means when any of their subscribers opens Youtube on the front page, only the last video uploaded from that account will appear. Subscribers will never know the other films exist unless they go to the channel page- I made the mistake of uploading several films in one go and couldn't understand why only the last film was getting any hits. So just upload one film at a time per week.

They’re not ‘reading’ results. All the films from the first week only have 20-30 hits, and all have just 1 star. It looks bad and it’s hard to admire them as experts in their chosen field when nobody is watching or responding. So look at what you are doing- if its not working don’t just carry on!

They don’t provoke a response. You need to encourage comments, post the film to a blog, or add a video response- people then come back to see what has been said. Something is wrong when viewers don’t do this.

They may well just be using Youtube to post the videos into the blog on their website and taking advantage of not using their own bandwidth. But clicking the statistics and data shows usually only 1 or 2 people are viewing the videos from the blog. One will be the blogger checking the link worked, the other click the person in the film watching themselves! If things are that bad hide the links (you do this by clicking ‘hide’ next to the links).

My conclusion? ‘Bestadvice4u’ has got money to spend. They’ve had a website made with bells and whistles, it feels professional and they know what they are talking about. But nobody is listening.

The solution.

• Delete all but the last few Youtube films.
• Find other people talking about the subject (you will have literally millions of Youtube videos from people vlogging the very problems they solve).
• Post advice in comments, send a sincere message with advice, add them as a friend. Don’t spam and send hundreds- just half a dozen would start the ball rolling.

Video content and a professional website and blog are not enough when it comes to being discovered, a little interaction can get the results you need.

My Tony Hart Tribute!

This is a film I did back in 1994. It is very much influenced by Tony Hart and his style- from the simple sets, perspective, and animated dough!

Ahmet Yildiz

Today I'm talking about a video I made which features participants from all around the world giving the same message.

Back in September 2008 I was asked to help out with a tribute film to a young Turkish man who is believed to have been the victim of an 'honour killing' because of his sexuality. The film went live on my 'JonathanRobinson' Youtube channel this Sunday, and is here:



The film information on the Youtube page here explains more about Ahmet's circumstances and situation, so I just wanted to add a bit about how the video took shape.

Finding participants was very difficult. Requests were sent via Facebook and Youtube. Many guys offered to do the film but the footage finally arriving in my inbox was another matter. At first we really wanted guys that haven't been in any other Youtube films, but again it was hard to get guys who have never done anything like this before to start on such an emotional issue. So most of the participants are people who are regular posters to Youtube anyway who knew how to use the camera and send video files.

Luckily Eduard from Bearcelona had recorded a good half dozen well filmed messages, which lifts the quality of the film.

The next hurdle was making each filmed section consistent in style and shot size. I did a guide on how to film the piece to camera and most of them followed it. The problem was how they sent the footage- I wanted everyone to send it via my preferred file transfer site 'yousendit.com' in the formats requested, but the footage in all manner of file types was arriving via various email addresses and file download services. In the confusion one or two clips may have got 'lost in the system' so unreserved apologies will be due if and when people start asking why I decided to omit them! The truth was I was really struggling to find participants so everyone I could use was used.

Editing it was the easy bit, apart from adjusting sound levels and having to move some shots to centre of frame so the shots all looked as similar as possible. The graphics were created by Eduard from Beacelona, which is his specialist area.

The response has been very good- there has not been any hate comments, the nature of the subject matter means it was a likely viral as far as sharing amongst the 'gay bear' community (currently 20% of views are viral), and interesting to see 29% of the views are from embedded players (24 in total). Also the repeated message gives a clear invitation to viewers on how to repeat a response in the comments...

This mash-up of participants from around the world all taking part in the same film will be something we will see a lot more of (I haven't seen it done before, so please let me know if you have). Its biggest drawback is in the required planning.

It has given me ideas on some future films, which I'm going to start work on soon.

Woolworths Closure and Video Content.

Its just a week since I posted my Woolworths video on Youtube, and it has been the most successful film documenting the closure of the store over the past week EXCEPT for one other film which uses copyrighted pictures and audio. Its been even more popular than the broadcast reports from ITV and Associated Press.

Firstly, I've got to say the quality of my film is accepted as pretty average. I already talked about what I used and how fast it was turned round in a previous post, but considering its popularity I feel far better videos capturing the closure of Woolworths are worthy of mentioning. And as its been a quiet week for work as everyone is either still off, or slowly getting back into work routine, I've had a chance to follow the progress of my Woolworths film and compare it to the many other videos on the same theme of the store closures.

They mainly fall into the categories of:

A- 'Mash-ups' of mainly copyrighted images to a commercial music track- Like this
B- Members of the public filming on their camera phones with a running commentary- Like here
C- Staff photo montages- there are many of these, like this and this.

So now to my favourites. These films deserve special mention and many more hits.

Pole Dancing- suggested as a future career for this Woolworths staff member!

Desperate measures to sell the last bargains in Somerset.

Crash, bang, wallop in Loughborough

Staff party in a closed store caught on camera by the public!

Before and After in Worthing

Waltz of Woolworths in Malvern

2nd favourite Cha Cha Slide in Didcot. I love it how the store still appears to be full of customers

My favourite- Super Troupers at the Pallasades in Birmingham- a very well done. Where were you lot when I was looking for members fo the public to sing when I was filming in Birmingham for ITV's 'Who Dares, Sings'?

This film by Mike Probert really captures the emotion well in Newquay, and really deserves more views- its exactly how I would have executed my Woolworths film if it wasn't a spur of the moment decision to film it. (And I had permission to actually film in the store!)

Whilst the above film by Mike used 'Greatest Day' by Take That, this brings me to the final point in todays blog. Copyright.

Youtube have also started introducing audio-disable for films with copyrighted music. Videos with commercial audio will end up like this one. This will possibly have the biggest impact for amateur video makers in the history of Youtube! For example imagine Mike's film above silent.

Basically on Youtube a copyright holder can either decide to do nothing, allow you to keep the music but a link is added to itunes to buy the track, and they also get any ad clicks from the video featuring the music. Or the worst option they can have the music removed!

That's all from me, thank you to all of the above Woolworths staff and customers for amusing us- and good luck to the staff for finding future work.

We will see more events like the Woolworths closure covered in every perspective on video over the coming years, the trick is making sure the effort put into making the video content gets rewarded!

Back to work!

Yesterday was the first day back in the office and it was very cold indeed, it will take the old mill where I work a few days to warm up again I expect.

The 'Woolworths' film I knocked up on Youtube is doing well. Now the top film when you type in 'Woolworths last day' in search. I changed the thumbnail and added details from the Woolworths Wikipedia page and that seemed to make a difference to visitor numbers.

I have had a few nice responses from staff who have captured the atmosphere within the stores on video phones very well, from their photo montages where you get a real sense of community, to video clips just showing staff messing around and having a laugh, doing stuff like the 'Cha Cha Slide' and racing round in trollies despite the stores still being open to customers.

I suppose its a final two fingers up to the Woolworths managers who let the business get in such a state. It is weird to think that 800 different parts of the UK over the past week the exact same scene has been repeated- staff looking dazed and confused surrounded by empty shelves (all with 'sold' stickers on them- yep even the shelves and baskets have been sold off).

Its the redundant staff I feel sorry for more than the end of a much recognised brand.

Woolworths final day of trading

I went to my local Woolworths in Stockport today to catch the final hours of the stores opening. The intention was to film something, so as it was a spur of the moment I just took my Sony cybershot. I felt the handheld roughness of the images would add to the chaos, and with some slomo edits and an emotional track from Mr Kevin MacLeod it seeems to have done the trick.

It was filmed around 1pm, edited by 4pm, and online and having its first 100 viewers by 5pm, so a four hour turnaround- the way it should be!

The film is here- http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_fBGhDEGvU8

Condolensces to all the staff from the stores, and shame on the big bosses who should have kept the business moving with the times.

Years ago I filmed in the big HMV store in Manchester city centre, but got caught! Turned out they thought I was sussing out the tills to do an armed robbery! Luckily they let me leave with the promise I would delete the footage- which of course I didn't as it went into my college video project!