These are very impressive figures indeed. Well, here is something more important to medium and small startups that are trying to compete with other businesses on the Net.

Next to Google, YouTube comes second as the most popular and most used search engine in the globe. Moreover, videos are indexed by Google which means that videos will often appear on the topmost page of each search result – a spot where most businesses shell out huge cash to be located.

Users can also connect and interact with videos on this popular website, enabling them to give feedbacks and allowing small online firms the chance to promote brand new prospects and tie-ups through comments and even back links.

Online video is easily disseminated and shared via other social networking websites, like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, reaching more consumers and expanding the volume of potential views.

One of the benefits of incorporating videos is that it boosts a website’s name and presence and the brand it is promoting by giving in-town clients and Internet shoppers a new method of seeing another side of the owner and the site that the company is hosting.

This is very crucial in today’s trend because online competition has turned global no matter how small entrepreneurs think of their business and there is actually so little that sets aside one business from another in the same niche.

One of the most important things to consider is that businesses stand out through the creation of engaging and informative video. This provides would-be clients the chance to be educated about the people running a business and it also creates a connection between clients and the site owners.

In other words, businesses create videos about anything that gives their clients a sense of who they are and how they do what they do. Online video firms can upload a video that will simply introduce its staff or present a video that will show the people how to accomplish a certain task with one of its products.

One online firm based in the United Kingdom – Videoplaza – concentrated on selling advertising management systems for video and secured on Wednesday a Series-B funding.

The $12 million was led by online companies Innovacom and Qualcomm. Videoplaza recently got funding from Northzone and Creandum, which also joined in pouring funds for Videoplaza. This brings to $18 million Videoplaza’s total funding.

Videoplaza has expanded its offshore base and delivered 5 times more advertisements in 2011 across more than a dozen markets just as the company launched new branches in Singapore, Germany and Spain.

The firm’s monetization in the online video market is seen to boost Videoplaza’s focus as Qualcomm already has a solid investment in the video chipsets technology.

Videoplaza is looking into expanding its niche with the monetization as well as infusion of fresh capital and conduct research and development. While the market for television is estimated around $161 billion annually and online usage just a tiny part of that, many online entrepreneurs are preparing for more robust growth in the online video business.

As more consumers let go of their need for cable viewing, bigger opportunities arise in advertising and hosting video on the Internet. Videoplaza helped display 500 percent more advertisements to international viewers in 2011.

The company utilizes HTML5, Flash, Siliverlight, iOS gadgets, Sony, Android, closed IPTV and smart TV environments in its platform. It expects that by next year over half of its online traffic will come from tablet and mobile phone devices, bigger than the firm’s 2011 fourth-quarter expectations where eight percent of its traffic come from non-personal computer gadgets.

Videoplaza emphasized that there are lots of obstacles to overcome as a result of so-called gadget “fragmentation” and with the volume of linked devices increasing, new IP-streamed television formats are becoming among the toughest markets at present.

The company also estimates that by 2020 there will be almost 10 billion connected mobile gadgets and online business owners making money through online marketing and video advertising.

Reports, even during the last few months, stated that 70 percent of Internet users in the United States visit online video websites like Vimeo and YouTube, showing an increase of five percent compared to last year, when 65 percent of users used such websites.

The best spot in the rankings

Well-made videos with relevant content have much higher chances of taking the top spot not only in Google but in other search engine rankings as well. Videos are ranked and searched based on their demand and popularity in addition to their relevance on subjects that users search for. Videos are an ideal method to enhance searching and help products put their names on top of search rankings. One of the most effective ways to land in top search rankings is to use keywords. Adding simple phrases or words to a video presentation will give it more chance of hitting the top in online searches.

Easy access and cost efficiency

Video must be available anytime and with ease. It must have enough appeal to attract the masses which means that it must be available for download or viewed from any part of cyberspace. They must be easily accessible, saved and must be viewer-friendly. There is no better way to make websites competitive and relevant than through strong yet cost-efficient video marketing tactics.

Huge traffic and demand

According to surveys, videos can boost the volume of website profile clicks by over 30 percent; enhance business calls by 19 percent; increase non-online visits by 31 percent; hike site visits by 56 percent; and can boost purchase incidence by more than 20 percent. Over 41 percent of consumers these days watch online videos each week, with more than 71 percent watching at least once per month.

Convenience and audience impact

More and more people today are finding it quite a bit of a hassle to have to read information from websites. In other words, most people today do not want to read. They want to be “spoon-fed” and see videos and get right down to business. Videos are more convenient; it saves the visitors time and eyestrain. Videos not only enliven people’s experience, they also teach and entertain at the same time.

An effective video, thus, triggers emotional involvement that plain text can’t do and ultimately lead to visitors choosing to buy whatever it is a site is selling or promoting. The best way to reach out to people and entice them to buy your product is through engaging, entertaining and informative video marketing tactics.

With a fearless forecast like this, people might ask: Could the Year of the Dragon be the time that online entrepreneurs embrace video in their marketing ventures? The general consensus could be a resounding yes. Here are the reasons why:

1. Video is crucial for search engine optimization (SEO) and inbound marketing

Presenting videos on your website is an effective strategy to entice guests and potential clients. Users allot an average of 2 extra minutes on sites that host engaging videos compared to those that do not.

Websites also gain a lot through video because it helps increase their so-called “quality score”. Long clicks, which pave the way to extended site visits, are the result of a good site content that enhances engagement with visitors. Survey shows that through the use of video, websites have 53 times more chance of landing on Google’s first page search results.

2. Video is growing at an enormous phase

Based on the latest survey over 48 hours worth of video time was being uploaded each minute to YouTube since May of last year. The figures only grew bigger: the online video giant, as of December 2011, boasted a whopping one trillion-plus (and counting) of viewed video for the year alone. Video sharing, a key element in video marketing, is increasing every day, up 39 percent since 2007.

3. Video is making TV unpopular

Based on a recent survey conducted by Bright Roll, 65 percent of online marketers plan to budget promotional cash from conventional television to online video. More than 25 percent see mobile and online video as two important areas that will demand a huge increase in spending for 2012 and the coming years. Online entrepreneurs plan to invest more on video simply because of its proven sales potential.

4. Video attracts the big bosses and the masses

Online video marketing is not only ideal for end-consumers as what many people think. Corporate executives watch videos before they decide on buying something. According to Forbes Insights, 65 percent of top decision-makers check out websites of vendors after watching a video. Clearly, video is now emerging as an effective way to link with and sell to both top company decision-makers and the ordinary consumers.

There are many companies today that still do not realize the importance of streaming HTML5 and speaking on “Business Case for HTML5 Video”, Kaltura Entertainment and Media managing director Devin Copley described the type of consumers that only HTML5 Video can connect with.

According to Copley, the HTML5 video landscape is characterized by hand-held or mobile gadgets, by smart phones and tablets. In other words, there is a new generation of online video users and it is not your regular desktop video consumer of years past but a couch potato with an iPad, or an individual sitting on a cab or park bench with an Android phone.

He explained that a quick glance at the worldwide tablet market can be misguiding as these high-tech gizmos have not yet caught on outside the United States. Based on recent figures, more than 80 percent of tablet sales come from the United States.

Immersive experience

Moreover, tablet viewers are more inclined to view the so-called “long-form content”, simply because the experience these types of people get is nearer to the experience they get from watching television than what a personal computer can give them.

Copley stressed that there are many ways to reach out to this new generation of online video users but they all have their own setbacks. Apparently, hand-held applications are a notably immersive way to connect and reach out with this type of people. But, there is a huge barrier to really get consumers to download a particular application and install it.

Copley emphasized that even if businesses sell long-form and premium content, clients are not going to pay, say five dollars just to see it unless they see a trailer first. However, businesses know that customers are not always easy to please, and they are not going to be able to see a trailer first unless the one offering the deal can make that available through an HTML5 video presentation.

He also cited the enormous costs that come with the development of applications, including the necessity to develop apps for several types of platforms and gadgets, as one of the reasons why online video entrepreneurs must turn to HTML5 Video instead.

Clearstream strives to gauge the relevance and quality of videos on a page where an advertisement is set up while announcing a measurement metric for page content and video quality of ads. The company calls this “ClearstreamScore.”

With more and more people viewing online video on top of traditional television, ad marketers are now joining the bandwagon to entice more audience and take advantage of this trend.

The goal is to ensure that video ads find their way on websites where advertisers can make people notice them, that the sites are capable of hosting good and quality video and that advertisements are not placed near video content the advertiser would not want to be linked with.

Like TV

According to Brian Mandelbaum, Clearstream co-founder, in order for online video to succeed, it needs to be like television. “What television has been offering, Mandelbaum said, is a “dependable space where the label can interact or relate with the customer.”

Mandelbaum added that the problem with having the same online video content and aiming for it is you would never know what you will be getting. “There is this black hole in the video industry, because the term ‘video’ can mean a lot of things.”

Through its video ingestion software, the firm looks forward to make sense of what video campaigns have done. The company is able to ingest the content (especially the video, and not the text) that is adjacent. “The crucial part is what is inside; the page no longer matters,” Clearstream noted.

Measuring quality

In measuring video quality (which is one element of ClearstreamScore) of a given site, the technology analyzes factors such as how video is being encoded, the stream’s size, metadata, video length, and whether these are low or high-definition.
The other element of ClearstreamScore – content index – categorizes video streams on a page. The process can be done through frame by frame, and considers audio, speech, object and text detection.

Mandelbaum emphasized that they have trained their system to search for specific objects, like “pistol, profanity, nudity,” things that certain types of brands will not want to be placed near.

Clearstream is seen to come very close in line with actual advertisers and labels to help boost the purchase of the company’s online video content.

I-Behavior is a major provider of behavioral targeting systems and database marketing while Kantar Shopcom is one of the biggest provider of consumer level, traceable, in-store Internet-based purchase behavior data in the market with more than 230 million consumers in the United States, covering entertainment, retail, and auto services.

Through the merging of Kantar Shopcom’s CPG purchase behavior input with the data-matching capacity of I-Behavior for Internet-based behavioral targeting, online marketers can get in touch with clients based on their in-store activities or demography.

By making use of these important tools, the two firms can now measure and target actual offline acquisitions from online video ads, while attaining the needed scale provided by typical mass media.

Huge impact on ad planning

According to Kevin Haley, Videology head scientist, what ad promoters really need to find out is if their ad moves soap off the racks. The new team-up with Kantar Shopcom and I-Behavior lets people to literally tell CPG ad promoters just that.

Haley added that the ability to offer ad entrepreneurs with this degree of offline and ongoing Return of
Investment gauge will have a huge effect on ad planning within the online video landscape and its related markets with fast-phased revenue cycles.

The combination of Videology, Kantar Shopcom and I-Behavior lets ad marketers to aim for offline segments across the in-stream online video network of I-Behavior that is comprised of over 80-million subscribers.

Considering the huge number of information given as a result of this collaboration, there’s a great chance for thorough analysis of purchase behavior in the brand level, which includes hikes in volume of revenues, retail penetration as well as purchase frequency.

Blue-chip companies

On top of this, ad promoters will have access to campaign inputs that include repeat sales, propensity to drive trial and patronage and brand-swapping; offering a gauge of both results and immediate outcomes over a period of time.

Videology has also launched just recently a similar tie-up with Korrelate for gauging automotive offline acquisitions linked to online users who visited the ad promoters’ website or who were presented with a video advertising.

According to Shopcom CEO Katie Casavant, the biggest blue-chip firms rely on Shopcom’s insight to make wise investment decisions. Casavant stressed that they are excited about this partnership with Videology and I-Behavior to share their expertise to the growing industry of online video marketing and advertising.

Internet-based video is among the most vibrant and influential forms of promotions a company can dip its hands into and ignoring it in these modern times will be a big mistake. But then the question is: how do you make your videos stand out in the highly-stacked competition?

Based on YouTube’s newest findings, more than 86 thousand videos are being uploaded online daily. The figure is equivalent to Hollywood churning out more than 300 thousand features every week. For sure, the content is presented in various forms, which is the reason why many of these videos rake in lots of “hits”.

For instance, the Star Wars Uncut Film is more than 2 hours in length. It inspired project creation that involved the re-creation of Episode 4 with film producers sending out their exclusive 15-second clips to create the full-length flicks.

The uncut film has raked in just below one million hits since it was uploaded last week. In contrast, the newest VW advertisement – “The Bark Side” – at one minute in length and uploaded on the same day garnered an astounding 7.21 million views. This is just one of the disparities in online video marketing but some figures can be more alarming.

With the number of views the high-ranking videos are garnering and the volume of time an average individual allots for YouTube, one might think that ad promoters would be going out of their head just to join the online video marketing production website. That’s not totally correct, though.

Nearly 30 percent of videos on-site enjoy 99 percent of the views. Around 10 percent of this is actually getting financed by ad promoters, leaving around roughly 19 percent left without any advertising.

This is equal to roughly 16,676 hours of videos per day. The truth is – advertisers fear the concept of online video advertising. The idea of web video marketing is still quite new and ad promoters are all dipping their hands on this venture at this particular point.

This is just temporary though and for online entrepreneurs who are planning on monetizing their videos with advertising and giving their brands more exposure on the internet, now is the ideal time as prices will soon start to increase and video sites such as YouTube will be carved up for the right bidders.

Video marketing is a very crucial part of the Internet’s future. Thus, getting involved with it now and promoting your content through YouTube and other similar sites will greatly determine the success of your online ventures.

The near extinction of the short-lived Quick Response Codes shall give rise to mobile visual search, which gives people speed, convenience and a more engaging interactive marketing experience.

BieMEDIA has invested heavily in Scotland-based mobile applications provider – Mobile Acuity – a premier authority in visual-mobile search apps for independent and corporate retailers as well as interactive campaigns utilizing the so-called Visual Interactivity for online brand promotion.

This transaction makes bieMEDIA the biggest shareholder of Mobile Acuity. It introduces a series of new visual-mobile searching capability to bieMEDIA’s portfolio of mobile and web solutions to give more ‘touch points’ for users to be engaged with certain products.

According to bieMEDIA’s chief executive officer Jon Barocas, Quick Response Codes were developed as ‘quick extensions’ to upgrade bar codes. He added that with the company’s investment on Mobile Acuity, they are able to get straight to the point: point, shoot, get the information and be able to acquire the product right on the dot.

Barocas added that bieMEDIA is now able to provide a more engaging and interactive experience given the company’s wide-ranging media and video marketing expertise and experience.

Tesco PLC, a worldwide media solutions retailer, has thrown its commitment to collaborate with Mobile Acuity to put into test its new visual mobile search apps to further boost its mobile capability at point-of-sale and while in motion.

Instead of having a bar code scanned, customers can simply point their hand-held phone-camera at particular products to automatically add to their cart, or receive more info before actually deciding to buy.

Customers can also purchase any music in the 7-Digital music selection or outside the retail site, such as at billboards, posters, friend’s house, or other visual ads. Through the “point-shoot-purchase” system in mobile business, customers can now make acquisitions anywhere and anytime the album-cover images are visible.

This innovative mobile shopping technology is also in use with music retailers which use the solution to integrate the power of visual searching and video marketing to its brands and products. Customers, at retail stores, can use their smart phone to listen to in-store albums or music at any 7-Digital and mobile listening outlets and even buy on-demand.

Online entrepreneurs around the world today know how powerful video marketing is. This business strategy is emerging to be one of the most powerful mediums for brand marketing and promotions, online or otherwise.

Perhaps the biggest reason is that video these days hold another dimension in motion that lets the viewers to be instantly interactive and engaged on what transpires on the screen.

Ideas into motion

One of the best ways to encourage your customers to interact with your products or brands is to present videos that require them to be involved in the advertising process. As an online marketer, you could, for example, produce a small series whereby the story documents the various kinds of suggestions by the viewers or public. Those who can come up with the most interesting ideas can have their concept turned into a video.

Unlimited power of video

The power of video is huge. It is limitless, as there can always be a sequel, addition, or a follow-up to the story. A successful video is one that can encourage interactions with users by stimulating their interest so that they will tune into your video marketing brand and follow the story as it progresses.

Now, incentive is one of the most crucial elements to keep attention so make sure to allow your campaign to give what your audience wants to view as your video marketing ploy runs along smoothly.

Also, listening to suggestions and modeling your plans around what you think is what the audience wants to see may help a lot. The purpose here is to give your brands the right amount of exposure and interaction. Make sure to hold on to this focus as long as you can to make your business run in the right path.

Audience participation

Meanwhile, launching a video marketing contest is another way or bringing traffic to your website or business. You can ask your audience to submit their own video where the best entry can win a prize.

Make the requirements based on your product promotion and video marketing campaign and you accomplish three objectives in one attempt: you have provided relevant content, you have your audience focused and actually collaborating with you and your product and you also have a variety of promotional materials that your customers themselves have thought of.