In my last article, I talked about the increased expectations customers have for direct, personal and helpful engagement from the brands they give their business to, especially with social media and online video content.  To help retailers keep up with this growing trend, I have compiled 10 tips below featuring actual businesses who have been successfully improving customer loyalty with online video.

10 Ways To Be a Customer Service Champion with Social Video

1. Give your customers a voice – Zappos allows customers to submit videos to the company’s customer-reserved YouTube channel – where customers can share a testimonial and

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I lament the fact that most businesses doing “social video” campaigns today are too often fixated on increasing reach and awareness as their end goal, and do not have enough focus on engaging customers directly.  With increasing consumer demands on businesses and brands to engage with social media, it should no longer be considered acceptable to treat video as just content; it needs to be part of your customer service strategy.

In this article, I delve into why customer service is so important in the social media era, and how you can get a leg up on…

Measuring social video ROI can be a daunting challenge for retailers today.  In fact, ROI can be often overlooked in social video initiatives when marketers choose to focus on the less tangible goal of customer relationship building.  In this article, I review the reasons why social video ROI measurement is a critical element to the success of your social video program.

Coming of age: Social video initiatives realizing ROI expectations

Social Video ROI has come into prevalence now. I base that claim off of two key survey results from Social Media Examiner’s 2012 Social Media Marketing Industry Report:

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Last fall, Google released their new “Freshness Algorithm” in an effort to provide more relevant, real-time results for search queries. This new algorithm shows yet again that Google’s number one priority is to always feature the freshest and most relevant product information. In this article you’ll learn about what you can do to update your product page videos to perform better under Google’s new algorithm so you don’t get left behind!

Thad Rueter, Senior Editor for InternetRetailer.com, reported last December that because of the Google’s new algorithm, e-commerce sites with low-quality and unoriginal content would be demoted in search…

I interviewed Justin Nassiri, founder and CEO of the user-generated video platform, VideoGenie, on the power of using consumers’ video testimonials to build better customer relationships.

Why should retail and e-commerce brands use consumer-generated video testimonials? Justin and I came up with 5 good reasons that can help make the case for you and the decision makers at your company:

5 reasons why consumer video testimonials are great for e-commerce

1.) Gets consumers’ attention quickly through an emotional connection

Research studies from web usability specialists have revealed that the average new website visitor spends 5-10 seconds…

Pinterest is by far the fastest growing social sharing site today.  With the increasing popularity of Pinterest, online retailers and brands are provided with another valuable social video distribution channel.  In this article, I will explore how to use Pinterest’s video features to increase search engine visibility and consumer interest in your online store and brand.

People are always looking for deals for products purchased online and in-store. Learn in this post how offering incentives for people to watch your e-commerce and retail videos can be a great way to improve sales, expand your consumer base, and establish customer loyalty.

I interviewed ExpoTV.com’s Founder and President, Bill Hildebolt, about their research findings on the opportunities brand retailers, e-commerce sites, and other marketers have to target Millennials with user-generated online video. I also shared my own tips for effective strategies that retail brands and e-commerce sites can use to persuade Millennial consumers to buy from them.

In a double-interview special: I talked with Zappos’ Senior Manager of Photo & Video, Laurie Me’chelle Gates (previously Laurie Me’chelle Williams), who shared some of the tangible, real-world business benefits from her company’s social video strategy.  Before I get to my interview with Laurie, below is a dissection of why I think some companies and agencies are not using social video in the right way.

My “rant” about the big problem today with social video

“Social video” is already being considered the next big business trend. So why am I starting to get worried?

Unfortunately, I am seeing “social video”…

If you are an e-commerce business or retailer, it’s a no-brainer to be doing videos of the products you want consumers to buy.  Many businesses today recognize that product videos are a great way to get online visibility in search engines and social media, as well as engage with consumers on a level that static photos and text can’t.

Product videos are also big with the younger generation, the GenY’s or Millenials. The folks over at EXPOTV.com shared with me their research confirming that the 16-34 age group are even more interested in product video than other…