Jan/100
Brighton Video – The ‘Take Away’ Society
One thing that really surprised me about the UK when I first moved across was the number of furnished homes that were for rent. One hardly comes across that in South Africa where most people accumulate their own living things. It's not uncommon for the locals to pack a few boxes, tuck them under the arm and saunter off to their new abode. Clothes, bed linen, the favourite coffee mug and their tech gadget that is what is being moved. It's therefore not surprising that rental is the option for goods and services. Why buy umpteen movie DVDs for instance when it is cheaper to rent. And those disks don't clutter up the environment. Travel light is the motto. Perhaps the iPod would be the most appropriate example of the take away society. With one hit the iPod dispenses with shelves full of CD's. It means at least one box less to carry when moving. What if you want to buy your DVDs instead of renting? Don't worry, Amazon's Unbox or TiVO have records of what movies you bought. You could eventually download your bought DVDs over and over again for free. We don't need boxes for our photo albums either. Everything is either stored on our computers, on Flickr or even on Facebook. What about those handy telephone booklets we used to record our friends' details in. No longer necessary. Those can all be stored on Facebook, or other online diaries. Speaking of diaries, you still use one of those hard copy ones? Okey. I do. But there's 'upcoming', Google calendar, your mobile phone, PDAs, you name it, for storing your meetings and important notices. And these applications e-mail you reminders. Books, I can hear you shouting out. What about our books. Surely we still carry those around with us? Well yes, but Amazon's eBook the Kindle is looking like a winner. So another few boxes less. I used to have ten boxes of books. I have whittled those down to one, and even that one I stored with a friend when I relocated to the UK. Have a look at some of the business success stories of recent years and wonder whether these have been driven by the nomadic society we are becoming. Just think about the internet and Google as an example. I needed a locksmith to fix the front door yale lock. I googled for the ones within our postal code area. I actually have two telephone directories I could have checked. Never occurred to me! This search facility is incredibly important because we no longer know the environment we live in as intimately as we used to. When you live in an area for years, you know every shop and service. Instead we can't do without GPS features on our phone or on a gadget in our car. Another success story is Amazon of course. It's a mobile online shop. You don't even need to know where they are. You can shop for your groceries, clothes or entertainment online. You could live without leaving your home and your home could be almost anywhere in order to receive anything you want. What about our jobs. Surely there is some stability there or even continuity of experiences. Not either. The trend shows an increase in freelancers or non-employer businesses. According to the US Census Bureau there was a growth of 21% between 1997 to 2004 in the number of non-employer businesses in the USA. With formal jobs being shed at a rapid rate, there is no reason to presume that this trend was a one off. So what do you do when you can't nip into the office next door or amble across to another workstation to get advice if you are stuck? Then you Twitter it to your buddies who are all checking the Twitter dialogue box all day long. You have instant help and and advice from a string of friends. Recently I have been learning about the technology available to small businesses. The support available in the technology is huge. As an example, one can hire online boardrooms per hour, per day or per month. It's software that simulates the entire scenario. All that's required is a computer, video camera and broadband and we can video conference with anybody anywhere at whatever time suits all participants. If you are wondering what new idea might be a winner in order to make you those first millions, besides buying a lotto ticket, then think of any service or product that could help with making people's lives as nomadic as possible. But then this is hardly new is it? We've come full circle. We just don't use tents for our homes and camels or horses for transport anymore. Anja Merret lives in Brighton, UK, having moved across from South Africa just over a year ago. She now looks after the business interests of her daughter who is a Flash Developer and Accessibility expert. She started a blog at the beginning of the year under the heading of chatting to my generation. Although she is chatting to the baby boomer generation, she sometimes feels that all generations have the same issues to face, they just don't have hearing aids or walking sticks! One of her pet peeves is the war in Iraq and in fact anything that causes innocent people to get hurt. But she also loves tech stuff, although only as an amateur. She considers herself a Silver Surfer Gadget Geek. She is even considering queuing for an iPhone in the UK later on in the year. But her daughter has offered, so she will only be taking hot food to the Brighton Geeks waiting in line. Her
The landing page is the page that appears when a potential customer clicks on an advertisement or a search engine result link; the page you land on . This page is an extension to the advertisement or the link and is optimized with relevant keywords and phrases for the purpose of being indexed by the search engines. The way to think of your landing page is as the front door to your business. It needs to be easy to open, inviting and display a friendly look. As you sell products or services on your e-Commerce site, your landing page invites readers in to browse. We have some considerations for you to think about as you construct your front door. The first thing a visitor sees after he clicks on your ad is your landing page. Keep in mind the research about where hot spots are on the screen above the fold and upper left side of the screen. That is the area on your page to create copy or pictures that you want customers to see first. Headlines need to be in bold. Make sure visitors know the product or service you are promoting. Your message should be clear to the reader, and it should define the value of your product or service. This is a good spot for pictures or videos, because both the medium and positioning will get your customer s attention. Keep It Simple Your page needs to be well organized. Columns may help, but remember that a single column results in more conversions than multiple columns. The flip side of that issue is that search engines look for columns, just as the human eye does. It s a good way to organize content on your page. Take a look at the composition of your page and minimize columns if at all possible. Keep your copy easy to read and understand. Visitors will click on to another web site rather than wade through what reads like a foreign language. Try to minimize the number of click required to complete a purchase. Retail stores lose customers if their service is lacking. And your site will lose customers if the purchasing process is lengthy or difficult. Whether it s online or in a retail store, customers just won t put up with hassle. Try to make buying your product or service as easy as possible; preferably, one click on the landing page should get the customer to the page to complete a purchase. No e-Commerce site reaches 100% click through rate. But yours will increase if you make the process simple. Brand Consistency Finally, it s important to remember branding is part of your strategy. Some of what we have talked about here will need to be tweaked for your particular site. You won t want a page full of energy if you determine a less forceful approach is desirable. Likewise, a calm and pastoral page won t work if you want an edgy feel. The tone of your page needs to reflect the branding you are trying to achieve. Tone and brand need to complement each other for maximum appeal for visitors. If you keep the front door concept in mind as you create your landing page, your chances of visitors becoming customers will improve. Two Types of Landing Pages There are two basic types of landing pages, both defined by the type of site you are running or the type of Internet business you are conducting. A reference-landing page clearly presents information that is relevant to the visitor. These can include text, images, relevant links, or other dynamic elements relating to your business. Reference landing pages are most effective when they meet the objectives of their publishers or authors, which may be associations, organizations or public service agencies. In many instances, reference-landing pages are used for PPC campaigns and their effectiveness is measured by the click through rate and the proceeds paid from advertising that they are used for. A transactional landing page is exclusively designed to persuade a visitor to do business or complete a transaction. The goal of the transactional landing page is the sale of a product or service. If information is to be captured, the page will usually withhold information until some minimal amount of visitor information is provided, typically an email address and perhaps a name and telephone number as well enough to "capture the lead" and add the prospect to a mailing list. Landing Page Headlines The headline on your landing page is the first thing that people see when they follow the link from an advertisement or email. Headlines are the most important element of your landing page, as it will either grab your visitor s attention or turn them away. Use a headline that clearly states the biggest benefit to the visitor. If you tell them exactly why they are there, its more likely they will stay longer and convert from being a visitor to a customer. In addition to giving a strong value-add statement, keep your headline positive and upbeat. Remember, the sole purpose for a headline is to grab your reader s attention. Landing Pages and Pay Per Click Campaigns Pay Per Click (PPC) is an Internet marketing or advertising technique whereby visitors are directed to an advertiser's website after clicking on an advertisement, and the advertiser pays for each visitor on a per-click basis. In PPC campaigns, the landing page should be customized to present the searcher with exactly what they re looking for and provide the most relevant and focused results. Basically a PPC landing page is any page on your site where searchers land when they click a link on a search engine results page. Landing Pages for Your Email Marketing Campaign The layout and content of your landing page can make or break the success of your email marketing campaign. The first page that your visitors see when they click the link from the email in their inbox should mirror the email itself. Your mailer and the landing page should be consistent in both content and format, conveying a clear message of your event, sale or offering. Recipients should be able to connect with your home page easily, accessing information by clicking on multiple links throughout your mailer and landing page. Unlike other marketing strategies, results from email campaigns are easily measured. Results are reported in terms of opens , which report how many people saw your offer or newsletters, and click through rates (CTRs) measure how many people actually clicked on the links in your email. Test Your Landing Pages Whether you are using landing pages for a PPC advertising campaign or email marketing campaign, how do you know if the page you designed is effective? One of the best techniques used to test the effectiveness of your landing page is A/B split testing. A/B testing allows you to test two landing pages against each other in real-time. The two web-based offerings need to be almost identical; almost, meaning that you make just one change between the two versions or your advertisement or landing page. This one change can be just about anything; it can be simply changing the background color, text color, adding a photo or graphic, changing the text arrangement, or changing your headline. Both versions of your advertisement will be live at the same time, allowing you to compare the results of their effectiveness against each other.
About The Author Tony Mandarich owns & operates Mandarich LLC, a full-service web media business specializing in web site development & optimization, video production, photography & Internet marketing. More information visit- http://www.mandarich.com/PPC/pay-per-click-management.html
How To Get Great Audio For Your Internet Video Production Creating good audio is the most difficult challenge when creating Internet videos as well as videos to share with family and friends – especially for those of us who are using consumer types of camcorders. It is easy to fool the eye but very difficult to fool the ear. If you make a mistake with audio, the ear will catch it while the eye is a lot more forgiving of video problems and inconsistencies. If you spend a lot of time on YouTube and other user generated video sites, you will notice that the sound on many of the videos are mumbled, garbled and often unintelligible. Yes, they do have a somewhat ellipsoidal pickup pattern so that their audio pickup pattern is aimed more to what is in front, but you’ll find that most camcorder mikes will pick up your mumbling, heavy breathing, and other extraneous noises. Some camcorder mikes do allow you to slightly focus their mikes from wide angle to narrow. Unfortunately, many of the most affordable camcorders - especially t The Sima MZM-1 is a camera mountable zoom microphone. The MZM-1 minimizes off-axis audio and noise, improving range and overall sound quality. The lightweight MZM-1 mounts to the shoe of any video camera and operates on a single AAA alkaline battery. Under $25 The Sennheiser MKE 400 Compact Shotgun Microphone is a professional audio solution for handheld consumer video cameras and larger video cameras alike. The integrated shockmount conveniently mounts the MKE 400 onto any camera accessory shoe while effectively suppressing handling and vibration noise. Up to 300 hours of operation on a single AAA alkaline battery. TIP 2 – USE A WIRELESS LAVALIERE FOR RECORDING TRAVEL Most camcorders have an electronic circuits built into them called AGC or Automatic Gain Control. It automatically adjusts the sound recording level so that the camcorder will hear something, no matter how faint it is. The further you are away from your sound source, the more the AGC has to magnify the sound. The more it amplifies the audio, the more it also amplifies the surrounding noise as well. If you are a distance away and the audio source is faint, the camcorder may adjust the AG By the way, getting close will not only make your audio sound better, it will make your video look better. It is a lot more difficult to fool the ear than the eye. This means that if there are problems or breaks in the audio, it is almost impossible to cover them up by using creative editing. If a visual doesn’t quite match or you get a strange out of focus shot or two, it is easy to replace it with a cut-away or new angle. However, with audio, your audiences will notice every small change – every gap in the recording. This means that when you record a performance or event, make sure you record and capture the sound as a continuous event, without any breaks. While the camcorder is rolling, capturing the sound, you can be zooming in and out, getting different shots, shooting close-us, etc. For example, when I was in Hawaii with my kids, I taped my kid’s Hula Dance lesson. Later when I got back, it was easy to edit the video by just inserting shots of new video over the clean audio track. In addition to inserting shots of the class itself, I inserted visuals of the entire Hawaii trip. Also, by using headphones or at least an earphone, you can check to make sure that the sound is actually working. This is very important when using external mikes where a dead battery or a disconnected mike plug or cable may spell disaster. It may sound a bit odd, but every location has its own background buzz. It can be the sound of the surf pounding away in the distance, it can be the sound of the city outside the walls of a ballroom, and it can even be the soft buzzing of the lights and electronics in an office. By recording this background tone and using it while editing, you will be able to insert it into your video to cover any gaps in your audio recording. By cross fading from the good sound to the background tone, the loss of audio won’t be as jarring as going from voices and singing to deafening silence. If you are mixing in new sound or recording dialog, you can help make it seem like it really belongs by mixing it with the environmental sound. That’s my seven audio tips. If you are able to integrate these seven tips above into your daily video shooting process, you will find that your videos suddenly seem to be much better. Your friends and family might not be abl By: Mark Shapiro Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
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