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 our continued coverage of how-to videos, we’ve decided to stuff your virtual stocking with some good examples from an assortment of retailers that can inspire you with creating your own how-to videos.  Also, feel free to check out my previous post on how-to video tips for e-commerce for some background on how to create good how-to videos if you’d like to supplement ideas from this post.

I interviewed Pete Blackshaw, Global Head of Digital & Social Media at Nestle, who shares his tips on how retail and e-commerce businesses should take advantage of consumer generated media with their own video marketing strategy.

Today I  began my day no different than most others; I browsed through numerous news articles, blogs and trends related to online video.  I’m continuously excited to see how quickly online video is moving in so many different directions and benefiting people and businesses around the globe.  From YouTube’s new scheduling feature, greater mobile optimization and the speed of social video (most recently surrounding Osama’s death) to effectively leveraging advertising dollars in each of these areas, there is always something going on that’s pushing the online video envelope.  That excitement aside, a reality dawned on me that there are…

As a tie in with April’s “Earth Month”, the CEOs of two organic produce companies, Stonyfield Farm and Honest Tea teamed up for a “cooperative video contest” with two objectives: Promote the companies’ partnership for Earth Month, and generate more awareness of the benefits of organic food and beverages. Below I have outlined how we can learn from their example of doing video in a “cause-related marketing” campaign, and have listed some tips for how your own business can do cause-related video marketing and practice corporate social responsibility.

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…

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…

I interviewed Chris Wood, Video Production/Project Manager for Kiddicare, the UK’s largest and favorite online (and offline) retailer of baby supplies. Chris is the visionary behind the company’s innovative video programs.  We discussed how his company may be a model for what the future of video in online retail could look like.

I originally wrote at ReelSEO about Amazon.com’s new program – Amazon Studios – a business partnership with Warner Brothers studios for featuring and paying new filmmaking talent (both filmmakers and scriptwriters) with an eye on making big motion pictures. Since then, I’ve had time to muse on the peculiar partnership between the world’s #1 online retail store with a major film studio, and share with you here my proposal for Amazon Studios to provide a much better video commerce platform – not just one for feature-length filmmakers, but for the existing customers already supporting Amazon.com.

Grant Crowell interviews Video Commerce Consortium’s own Founder, Justin Foster, who moderated the panel, “New Strategies for Marketing and Ecommerce.” Justin and I discussed the new opportunities with video in for getting discovered and monetization, user-generated video innovations with retailers, and the different priorities around online video between marketers, talent, and producers.