What Makes a Successful Web Video

Posted on March 15, 2013 by dzineit

Creating a video for your website is an effective tool to engage your audience and increase search engine rankings – that is if done right.  Simply sticking a video on your site without giving any thought to its content and images will not attract page views. So when producing a video for your site you must be sure to keep certain production and content tricks in mind.

The key to creating an effective web video is planning.  Decide on the primary objective of the video.  Is the video selling a product or service? Is it informational?  Your video must have a single purpose or your audience will get confused. Focus on your target audience and make the video with them and their needs in mind.  Plan the structure of the video – beginning, middle and end.  Will it be narrated?  Will you have music?  Organize the video. Create an introduction to grab their attention, middle with info and facts, and end with a call to action.

Make sure viewers have something to watch, not just something to listen to. Telling a story in video is more than just talking into the camera. You have to show people your product or service. Video is a visual medium, and you need to think about what images you want to use to convey your message. It doesn’t have to be clever or funny. It should be comfortable and natural.

It is important in a web video to get the attention of your viewers quickly.  People have a short attention span when it comes to viewing online.

People like videos.  A nice video can deliver your message that will engage your viewer much better than any text or photo can.  A successful video can attract hundreds or thousands of new visitors to your site, many of whom will buy products or services recommended to them in the video.  It works for any industry.

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Peter Crisafi (Peter Crisafi dzineit)
dzine it, inc. +1.212.989.0813
26 West 23 Street
New York, NY, 10010 U.S.A
Specialty:
News; Web Design; Web Design Info

What a CMS Can Do for Your Website

Posted on March 15, 2013 by dzineit

A CMS or content management system is a great tool for many businesses and their websites. It allows you to manage what’s on your site’s pages by providing simple tools to create the content and publish it.

Content management systems offer easy to use administration that helps you to manage the content of your website when it suits you.  You can edit, maintain and extend content when you need to. A CMS allows you to get content changes live on your website quickly. It provides you with the ability to quickly react to changes in the market place.  If you want to create future content – a CMS will allow you to do that as well. You can prepare material to publish for a specific date, e.g. new offers, sales, marketing campaigns and PR. It’s easy to write content and then save this as a draft.  With a CMS, it is possible to control who can write and who can approve content. It ensures that only content that is approved beforehand is being posted on your website.

A CMS makes it simple to keep track of all the pages on your website regardless of how many you add. Additionally, you can publish the same content with different themes, which can be tailored for desktop, tablet and mobile. You can run marketing campaigns and create landing pages for your site.

Content management systems are also a good way to support your e-commerce activities.  Combining a CMS system with an e-commerce store allows you to create keyword rich, SEO friendly product content and reviews to support your online marketing and enhance sales.

Updating your own website allows you to lower your costs. The ability to change content yourself saves the cost of going through an agency to make changes each and every time your website needs tweaking.

Overall, a CMS gives you better control over your website. Using one will help all kinds of businesses with the need to capture, manage, store, preserve, and deliver data on their websites in a practical, efficient and cost effective manner.  Content management systems offer many advantages.  If you are considering a new site – or updating an existing one – you should consider a CMS to facilitate your efforts to manage your online presence.

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Peter Crisafi (Peter Crisafi dzineit)
dzine it, inc. +1.212.989.0813
26 West 23 Street
New York, NY, 10010 U.S.A
Specialty:
News; Software Development; Web Development; Web Programming

Bigger is Better for Facebook

Posted on March 13, 2013 by dzineit

Facebook has introduced a new news feed.  The updates to the news feed are the latest in a series of tweaks and new offerings from the leading social media site. Unlike past changes, the news feed changes are more pronounced than past offerings and updates.

The new look incorporates bigger images and allows for customization. The changes include a redesigned layout with larger images of maps, news articles, photos, and apps information. The  image-centric design allows users to scroll though several different news feeds based on what they are looking for — images, games, music, news, best friends, all friends. Users can choose to sort the feed chronologically or only look at things like what music people are listening to or what events are happening. And depending on the things a user has liked on Facebook in the past, he or she will see articles that are trending and that are most relevant to them. The new design also features bookmarks like before, but they now are “more relevant for people” and show up on every page.

The company also noted it has several new feeds to explore in addition to the same news feed users have today. They include:

  • All Friends — a feed that shows you everything your friends are sharing
  • Photos — a feed with only photos from your friends and the pages you like
  • Music — a feed including posts about the music you listen to
  • Following — a feed with the latest news from the pages you like and people you follow

These changes are the first big overhaul to the first page people see when logging into the site, since Facebook debuted the news feed in September 2006. The goal is to increase time spent overall on the Facebook news feed – as well as increase engagement with content and ads. It also aims to make the Facebook experience more unified across multiple devices like computers, smartphones, and tablets.

The redesigned news feed will start rolling out to a small number of people on the Web first and will then show up on phones and tablets over the next few weeks.

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Peter Crisafi (Peter Crisafi dzineit)
dzine it, inc. +1.212.989.0813
26 West 23 Street
New York, NY, 10010 U.S.A
Specialty:
Digital Marketing; News

How to Handle an Online PR Crisis

Posted on March 7, 2013 by dzineit

The company news and public relations landscape has been altered dramatically with the popularity of the internet.  These days anyone — right or wrong — can post information online through their website, blogs and social media.  Once it is out there – the word is quickly spread, shared and circulated.  That’s great if it is good news.  But if it is not – the bad news is out there for all to see regardless of whether the claim has merit or not. 

With this in mind it is important that companies be out in front of their on line reputation and monitor what the public and the press are saying about your business, service or product.

If something negative is happening.  Don’t ignore it.  It won’t magically disappear.
There are several ways you can help restore your reputation and achieve more positive results and minimize the negative ones.

First – be nice.  Be direct and communicate exactly what’s happening and the steps you’ve taken to mitigate the issue and solve the problem.  If you have no news – say that as well.  The public appreciates honesty.

Consider posting your own information in the form of articles, press releases and videos.  This can help you spread your own story and offer positive information about the company and what it is doing right. Posting on line videos with your own message – can be particularly useful as search engines are attracted to them. By taking action to foster positive sentiment, you can quickly change public perceptions and soften the impact of bad news.

Be open to suggestions and opinions – When someone sends you an online comment – Respond as best as you can even if it is just to say you’ll dig up some more information and get right back to them. People will appreciate that and you may even get some new customers/clients.

The fluctuating nature of the web means that situations can arise unexpectedly and in various forms, and can often include an element of surprise that you didn’t envision. Your digital footprint is important, so if you do find yourself in the midst of negative online sentiment, consider some of these simple steps.  A proactive approach can turn the tables to achieve positive results rather than negative ones.

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Peter Crisafi (Peter Crisafi dzineit)
dzine it, inc. +1.212.989.0813
26 West 23 Street
New York, NY, 10010 U.S.A
Specialty:
Digital Marketing; Internet Marketing; News

Why Social Media Works

Posted on March 1, 2013 by dzineit

Social Media may officially be considered a relatively new way of marketing.  But if you take the time to give it some thought – social media is really something that has been around for a long time.  Just not through the internet.

Think about it.  A restaurant advertises it has the best burgers in town.  You may or may not think they really do.  After all, the word is coming from the restaurant itself.  Your friend tells you he went to a restaurant with the ‘best burgers he’s ever had’ and now you think – ‘maybe this restaurant is really good’.  Now your friend tells their friend, who in turn tells there friend and all of a sudden — the restaurant has a line out the door.

Social media is a perfect for spreading the word on the street. Now you are not selling yourself or your business – others are doing it for you. If you get your message to Twitter, Google +, Facebook, your blog — fans and followers will get the word out for you.

If you have really got a good service, product and offer value to your customers, social media is an excellent way to help spread the word.  You’ve already got a good story—and marketing is a lot about telling your story.  Prospective customers appreciate the word of others like them.  They offer honesty and fairness.

Smart users of social media take time to measure their efforts. They use the medium to generate and capture leads and build a relationship with customers and keep them. Measure your social media marketing ROI and pay attention to what people are saying.  By tracking your results you can learn from any mistakes and build a successful business for years to come.

 

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Peter Crisafi (Peter Crisafi dzineit)
dzine it, inc. +1.212.989.0813
26 West 23 Street
New York, NY, 10010 U.S.A
Specialty:
Digital Marketing; Internet Marketing; SEO

Make Your Bounce Rate Work for You

Posted on February 25, 2013 by dzineit

Many website owners focus on the quantity of visitors to their site rather than the quality of their visit. Many people don’t realize that the bounce rate or the percentage of visitors who come to your site but leave shortly after arriving can be an important statistic and a useful analytic tool as well. Analyzing this measurement might help you distill what is wrong with your site and aid you in improving your site’s performance.

Bounce rates will be different for every website, but there are situations where you will have an unnaturally high bounce rate. If a page has a high bounce rate and the average time on page is close to 0, this is a bad bounce. Visitors are not staying on your website and they are not reading your content. You should figure out ways to make that page more appealing.

Evaluate page content and make sure that it is well-written and matches what visitors expect to find after reading the headline or title of the page. Tweak marketing copy and visuals to help customers find what they need quickly. Content should be clear, concise, and paired with exciting graphics that point visitors to what they want. Make pages more appealing by reducing excessive advertisements and fixing other distracting features.

Examine your site’s usability. If customers can’t find what they need on your website, they will abandon it and go somewhere else. Take a look at your site and to clean up any usability and navigation problems that are asking people to leave.

Open external links in a new window. If you link to a lot of external website or embed advertisements, sometimes visitors will click these links and leave your website.

Improve load time. The quickest way to turn a visitor away is to have a slow loading site.

It is always good to review your site and see what is working and what isn’t.
Reviewing your bounce rate and average time on page will help you know that and may be a way to improve your site and thus effectively your business.

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Peter Crisafi (Peter Crisafi dzineit)
dzine it, inc. +1.212.989.0813
26 West 23 Street
New York, NY, 10010 U.S.A
Specialty:
Digital Marketing; Internet Marketing
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