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”…

I interviewed Google’s spokesperson Andrea Faville to learn more about the video features available on Google+ (Plus) Pages. Andrea shared examples of e-commerce and retail businesses across the web taking advantage of the newest video features and shared some tips for how you can do the same!

What is it about online video that influences our shopping habits? What’s behind how it affects our brains? Here are 5 explanations shared with me by behavior science experts about why online video triggers consumer purchases, and my own marketing tips for how e-commerce specialists can take advantage of each of them.

With Facebook recently making its own Credits the mandatory virtual currency earlier this month, and with it seeing more adoption amongst the bigger social gaming companies and brands with video ads, it’s time for e-commerce and video marketing professionals to tackle the next important question: When is this going to mature into a real opportunity for the rest of us? In this presentation and opinion piece, I explore a number of ways I think that can realistically happen.

I interviewed social video expert consultant and creator of one of the earliest – and still most successful social video series today, George Wright. In this rare interview, George shared with me the keys to how he managed to make BlendTec’s “Will it Blend?” YouTube video series a viral sensation and an economic success.  He also shared his tips for what we can learn from doing product videos in our own retail, e-commerce, and marketing activities.

I originally met and interviewed George Wright back in late 2008, when he was Blendtec’s VP of Sales & Marketing. (George has…

I interviewed Paul Verna, senior analyst for the digital intelligence and research agency, eMarketer, to talk about how Facebook credits can be a key strategy for retailers to reward customers, and turn “likes” into loyal fans.

I interviewed Mark Robertson –  video SEO expert, ReelSEO publisher and featured speaker at the 2011 Video Commerce Summit August 1^st-2^nd in San Francisco, who will be presenting on “Why Video Marketing has Evolved Beyond SEO.” Mark shared with me his belief that “social” has become the huge driving force not just for Video SEO, but for all video online.

I’m going to be speaking at Mediabistro’s Social Media Optimization Conference (SMOC) on May 23-24 in San Francisco, and presenting on the subject of “social video optimization.” I thought it would make for a good opportunity to share here about the role of social video with eCommerce today, showcase how some successful companies are using video eCommerce to maximize performance and profits, and dole out some of my own tips for optimizing your social video program for the buying and selling of goods, services, and solutions over the Internet.