In my last post on video distribution, I outlined the foundations of a smart e-commerce video distribution strategy.  Today, we’ll build upon those lessons by further detailing something I call “smart channel enablement.”  We’ll look at video+SEO best practices but branch beyond search to show how to maximize the value of video distribution regardless of channel.

To start, I’ll posit the three pillars of a successful video commerce distribution strategy are as follows:

1.  Interactive Opportunities: your off-site e-commerce videos must embrace interactivity to drive purchases.  Without interactivity, it’s difficult to connect shoppers with e-commerce opportunities.

2.  Broad Reach: a large…

YouTube’s announcement last week that it would begin supporting automated video captioning caused a lot of excitement in the video commerce and video SEO worlds.  Then the balloon popped.

Automating speech-to-text has long been a goal of those seeking to make video more search engine friendly.   Unfortunately, the YouTube technology isn’t ready for prime time.  Google says the technology is in “beta,” but applying that moniker might be going a little far.  The technology is so bad it’s almost embarrassing.  I’d go into details, but in this case, a video’s worth a thousand words.

1.  Click on then…

For some time we’ve touted the merits of video distribution in video commerce.  I believe video distribution is more important now than ever for e-commerce merchants.  Unfortunately, I also think most online retailers misunderstand video distribution and therefore are at risk of implementing poor video distribution strategies.

Why distribute e-commerce video?

Video distribution is important because it enables retailers to multiply the effectiveness of video assets without additional investment in video production.  I often tell e-commerce merchants, “a video on the product page and the product page alone is a terrible waste of revenue potential.”

Over the…

Video in email is a topic we’ve covered recently on the VCC blog.  On February 24, Google made in-email video closer to reality for email recipients who maintain Gmail accounts.

Previously, Gmail users could view Youtube videos in their webmail client, but only when Youtube previews were enabled via the Labs tab available under the Settings menu in Gmail.  In other words, very few Gmail users actually took advantage of this functionality.  Now, Google has rolled Youtube previews out across all Gmail subscribers.  All that is required to view video in Gmail is to include…