I was talking to some customers this past week and was quite surprised they were aware that Google owns YouTube.  Google has not made it no secret that video is very important content. Google purchased YouTube about 4 years ago for a modest $1.6 billion. This investment is valued today at around $6 billion. Not a bad return on investment if I do say so myself. 

Run Forrest, Run!

Now more than ever, it’s time to run. Every company should consider itself a media company. Video is not only a standard method of entertaining, it’s also a way for you to educate and communicate with your audience. For businesses and brands of all sizes, an aggressive online video strategy is vital to meet your audience from the comforts of their homes.

With your vision you push an online video agenda forward – to support more aggressive activity.

Fuel for the Fire

If you’re a brand marketer looking for ways to sell the idea up through the management hierarchy, the most recent quarterly online video reportfrom Brightcove and TubeMogul contains a number of useful nuggets reflecting emerging trends for brands, online media, magazines and broadcasters.

Perhaps most interesting: For the first time, newspapers have surpassed broadcasters in total online video minutes streamed. Once bastions of the printed word, newspapers are rapidly adopting and producing video content in a drive to stay relevant and protect their turf as news gatherers, regardless of previous format restrictions. And while the shorter-form style of video content for newspapers is different than the longer form favored by traditional broadcasters, this shift is still quite significant. The lessons here for brands is clear: Engage your audience in the manner they prefer or risk irrelevance. Evolve or face extinction.

The spectacular growth of Facebook has created a new niche - video referral service. For the first time, the uber-popular social platform surpassed Yahoo in the number of video streams referred. A most recent study indicated, Facebook accounted for 9.6% of all referrals, making it second only to Google. The role social platforms like Facebook and Twitter will play as primary content discovery and viewing destinations will only accelerate. Some predictions have Facebook closing the gap on Google search as early as the end of this year.

The Facebook video data represents an important internal selling point for brand marketers, too. Because while some executives may be less savvy about creating their own media channels or extending their brand into video entertainment, most corporate leaders understand the importance of having a dynamic Facebook presence. Use this information as a way to demonstrate the effectiveness of online video and expand from there.

Need more incentive? The convergence of Web and TV continues. Over The Top (OTT) devices like Apple TV, Google TV and others are still in their infancy but expected to take further root with your audiences this year. A recent studyshowed that of all connected TV users, roughly half are watching YouTube videos on their television sets. In other words, the online video opportunity will become even more far-reaching, to the point where “online video” is indeed too limiting a term.

So let’s get serious about this opportunity and get down to January-style business. Over the course of the next three weeks, we’ll provide a guide to creating your own in-house video production studio. We’ll cover the following areas to help you sell your ideas and run faster:

Week 1 – Selling the Idea

In this post, we’ll discuss how best to convince internal colleagues of the value of in-house video production and offer a common-sense road map to demonstrating the potential for success before investing big budget dollars.

Week 2 – Logistics and Cost

Here we’ll examine in-house versus outsourced production, including an inventory of what you’ll need – and what you won’t – to get started with in-house production. We’ll also look at the real-world costs of video production in your recommended setup.

Week 3 – Production Style, Format, and Quality

This is important. Are you looking for brochure-format, TV-style entertainment, or something completely different? In our next post, we’ll discuss how best to determine a production format and style appropriate for your brand, plus take a look at producers, on-air talent, staged sets versus real-world settings, and other everyday production components.

Many of you are already far along this path. Some are just starting. To steal a phrase from my personal trainer, it’s a process, but absolutely worth the effort. Start today with a steady jog and you’ll be running flat out before you know it.

If you don’t have a You Tube channel yet for your business it’s as easy as 1-2-3 to create channel and start shooting video about your products and service. A strong video strategy is to educated viewers about your products or service.  Google, and humans alike, love real or unique information to support a strong internet presence within the sphere of your industry. So get your camcorder and start shooting your employees in action. 

Michael Luevano is the founder of Blackwood Industries, a brand platform marketing agency for authors, artists and content creators of all types. Email me at Michael@bwindustries.comor follow us on Twitter @ Bwindustries.com.

Real People- Working for People- On Time- All the Time.

Blackwood Industries can and will put your business on the map. We welcome you to meet with Michael Luevano for your complimentary consultation.