First a bit of good news: Despite a spate of pre-wedding worry, the Internet didn’t collapse under the weight of Friday’s royal wedding.

But the mega-ballyhooed nuptials of Prince William and Kate Middleton did draw an impressive online viewing audience, with live streams available from most of the major media organizations, Livestream, Hulu and many other sites. The Royal Channel on YouTube, the official channel of the British Monarchy, was an enormously popular choice for online viewers, for both live and rebroadcast streams.

Exact stream numbers are difficult to pinpoint given the number of…

The bar is being raised on the quality of user generated video.  Before I begin, I want to clarify what I mean when I use the word “quality” because it falls into a few different areas.  When I talk about quality video I’m specifically referring to production, content and distribution quality.  In short, production takes into account single or multi-camera set up, type of camera, lighting, sound, framing, angles and editing.  Content addresses what you’re actually saying on camera, along with enunciation, body language, eye contact and word emphasis, etc.  Distribution is how you leverage your final video asset to…

An interesting thing has happened to live television in the past year or so. It’s become social.

Using Twitter, and to a lesser degree, Facebook, traditional TV viewers have incorporated a “second screen” alongside their television sets, creating massive social events out of live TV specials such as the Oscars or Grammy Awards, the Super Bowl, popular weekly programs like American Idol, and even—in an odd DVR-era twist—commercials.

According to Twitter execs, during broadcasts of Fox TV’s huge hit series Glee, Twitter usage increases 30 times its normal average for the entire duration of the program. From personal experience, I…

What exactly is “social video marketing,” if there is even such a thing? Is it just about placing video on YouTube, other video distribution sites, and social media channels like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn – or is it something much more than that? I explored those questions and decided that the time is right to give our own definition. Read on and learn about the special relationship between video and social media marketing, and how understanding and harnessing that relationship can help you engage with your customers, and help provide a great competitive advantage with all of…

Anyone committed to driving social and digital media innovation from inside the marketing machine of a midsize to large company understands well the pressures of proving the value of your efforts. Now, two new studies provide sharp insight into the CMO mindset that must be considered when plotting a course for growth, along with your own internal online video sales pitch.

Here’s the first bit of eye-popping news: According to a new survey by social business software company MindTouch, only 15 out of 143 Chief Marketing Officers and Chief Communication Officers (CCOs) in Fortune 100 companies have…

In Part 1 of the ROI of Video Commerce Platforms series, I outlined the evolution of online video publishing technology: from CDNs, to OVPs, and finally to VCPs (video commerce platforms).  Further, I defined a video commerce platform as “a set of integrated tools that enable businesses to maximize the value of video.”  In this second part in the series, I’ll emphasize the importance of results generation as the focal point of the video commerce platform, provide a simple framework for thinking about results generation using an industry example, and break down the components that, when taken together,…

We’ve talked plenty on this site about the importance of creating a smart online video strategy, one that complements and advances your specific brand message and provides a roadmap toward the right style of video for your company.

But what about the video that you can’t affect? In particular, the hundreds of thousands of customer-generated videos now freely posted on YouTube and other sites that dole out brand opinions and product reviews to millions of passionately interested viewers.

How do you go about making that part of your video strategy?

That’s the marketing challenge many retail…