Green Video Sharing

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by Guest Contributor on March 4, 2010

Green Video Sharing by Richard Matthews

Videos can do much more than sell products, they can communicate important social messages and shape people’s consciousness.

Video sharing is an ideal medium for communicating the urgency of climate change. Online videos are also a powerful educational medium. They help explain the complexities of the climate crisis and sustainable solutions.

According to ComScore, there were over 31 billion videos viewed online in November 2009 and green videos are an increasingly large part of that offering.

Videos are proliferating online and video sharing is behind this exponential growth. Video sharing is facilitated by hosting services that allow individuals to upload video clips to an Internet website. The video sharing site will then store the video on its server and allow others to view it. Individual niche networks may be small, but comulatively they are now larger than broadcast television. Further, online video is not limited by the content or time constraints of traditional broadcasting.

Companies and organizations that leverage the extraordinary reach of online video are also able to share their message with millions without paper, ink or transportation.

For green marketers, video sharing offers a powerful channel to reach consumers and promote their message. Specifically, video sharing enables marketers to engage consumers through a compelling multimedia experience.

Video sharing works largely through word-of-mouth marketing, it attracts highly influential online users who have the potential to become brand advocates. According to Jupiter Research, 28 percent of users that view online videos regularly ranked themselves as the first person people come to for media recommendations, compared with 12 percent of all online consumers.

Video is also having a major impact on advertising channels. As reported in AdAge.com, “For years, online advertisers have used online ad exchanges to buy display advertising. But now exchanges are also coming to the more complex and fractured world of online video.” The same article continues, “online video ad exchanges promise to become more commonplace. But the notion of near real-time video ad buying is a major break from the past and stands in stark contrast to TV, where inventory is generally bought well ahead of time.”

The online video market is divided into premium content (professionally produced entertainment) and user-generated videos. These video ad exchanges are seeking to service the vast low end of the market which has been difficult to monetize.

While the online video boom continues, some of the multimillion dollar start-up sites that support them have not been able to stay afloat. Last Thursday, video site Veoh declared bankruptcy after consuming $70 million of venture capital, and recently Joost burned through $45M before being sold at bargain basement prices.

However, the portal is secondary to the content of the video. The viral nature by which many of these videos are spread mean they are not dependent on any one portal, it is the viewing public that decides which they view, and which they share. A few key influencers can create the kind of buzz that translates to millions of hits.

There are now many options available for eco-friendly messages. Compared to traditional broadcasting, online videos are inexpensive and when taken as a whole, they have even more reach.

Check out The GREEN MARKET’s complete series on Green Videos: Online Video Consumption / Video Sharing Strategy in 12 Simple Steps / 5 Key Elements of a Successful Online Video / 10 Biggest Video Site’s Green Content / 10 Sites that Specialize in Green Video Content / 11 Best Green Video Channels or Series / Hulu’s Green Video Programming / Netvibes’ Green Video Programming / Best Green Videos

Richard Matthews is a Marketing Consultant and author of The GREEN MARKET, a blog dedicated to green investing and the economy. Richard hails from Quebec Canada. He enjoys hiking, canoeing, and rock-climbing.

Modern Hippie Mag endeavors to showcase individuals who radiate the modern hippie essence, see our videos here.

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Tags: Advertising, communication, green videos, marketing, Richard Matthews, The GREEN MARKET, vimeo

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