In those types of scenarios, it’s critically important to be able to restrict your audience to a select group. In this post, we’ll walk through seven examples of when curtailing sharing is necessary, and best practices for securing your videos with the exact settings to use.

Project Collaboration With Your Team

Picture this: You are part of a marketing team at a tech company that has multiple teams working on a variety of projects. Project X is one such product, and is due to be released in two months. The team working on Project X wants a promotional video for the launch, which your team has been tasked with making.

Naturally, there is a lot of collaboration between your team and the Product X Team as they develop the new product. They have to communicate how it works, all of its benefits, and the type of people who will be most interested in it to your marketing team.

Your team must then translate that information into an attention-grabbing video. It has to make the new product look good, and appeal to the target audience. This will require a lot of back-and-forth between the two teams, especially as you finalize the video.

This is where the ability to easily allow Product X Team access to the unfinished video, while ensuring no one else can see it, becomes imperative to a successful launch.

Video Privacy Settings to Use

Since every person involved in the project is an employee at the same company, three specific factors shape the optimal video security options for this situation. You probably log onto the same network, possibly through a VPN. You might also have existing company credentials for accessing your company’s admin or intranet.

If you can’t easily embed your video, or just prefer the ease of sharing an automatically generated landing page, single-sign-on (SSO) is a great option. It requires a little setup, but once it’s in place, SSO allows anyone at your company to use their existing credentials to access your videos on a SproutVideo hosted website. Viewers are authenticated by your existing Identity Provider, like Google Apps, OneLogin, or ADFS.

A second option is to embed the video on a secure page, for instance, in your company’s intranet. You’ll want to leave it set to Private on the SproutVideo platform, so your video will only appear where it’s embedded. You can also leverage allowed domains or signed embed codes to make sure the embed code can’t be copied and shared elsewhere.

Since you are all on the same network, IP address restriction is an easy third option for ensuring your videos will only load for viewers on a whitelisted connection. It’s seamless for the viewer, and easy to set up if you know your company’s IP address. This setting also works regardless of whether you are embedding your videos, or sharing via a website or landing page hosted by SproutVideo.

Sharing Updates With Your Customers and Clients

Ken and Dana Design are a customer of SproutVideo. They’re purveyors of high-end jewelry, with a beautiful range of engagement rings.

Since their customers are usually anxiously awaiting the final product, Ken and Dana leverage video to engage them in the production process. Given the nature of their rings, these videos normally have to be kept top secret.

Video Privacy Settings to Use

Your business might not work with precious gems, but client deliverables are often for their eyes only. When working with parties outside your organization, you have a couple options for video security settings.

Password protection works perfectly in this situation. It’s simple for the client – they just need to know the password for the video to watch it. If they want to show the video to anyone else, they can share the password and the link easily, while still keeping the video secure and under wraps.

For additional control, login protection is a powerful and simple way to deliver video to clients. With login protection, you create a secure viewer account for each person. Then, you can grant video access to each individual. You can also determine how long their access lasts, whether they can download any versions of the video, and how many times they can login to watch.

Video Campaign With Influencers

Imagine you are the owner of a toy company known for its specialization in Montessori toys for young children. You’re preparing to launch three new toys this holiday season, and have done your research. You’ve identified social media influencers in the Montessori education field to help add credibility and get the word out to potential customers.

Not only do you want to ensure the influencers understand exactly how your toys work, but you also want to ensure that absolutely no one else knows about your offerings until launch day. Video happens to be the best tool for the job.

Video Privacy Settings to Use

Tracking is incredibly important since you are trusting third parties with insider product information. If word gets out to competitors, they might have time to beat you to the punch. You also want to preserve the element of surprise for your product launch.

As we just reviewed, login protection provides lots of control over the terms of video access for individuals. It also provides lots of tracking information about your viewers. You can audit your viewer log to make sure credentials aren’t being shared without permission.

Training New Hires

The new Montessori toys range has sold beyond expectations. You are now in need of new staff over the holiday period to keep up with demand. To quickly bring new hires up to speed, you’re planning to use video during the onboarding process.

Video Privacy Settings to Use

Similar to internal project collaboration, training videos typically contain sensitive company information. For new hires, SSO or secure embeds are great options.

If you want them to get a jumpstart on their training before their official start date, login protection is another great choice. Login protection can be setup for anyone inside or outside of an organization.

Geo-targeting an Audience With a Special Offer

The Montessori toys range has sold well, new staff have been trained, and it’s time to go international. The problem is that you need to offer slightly different prices in foreign countries. For example, the videos marketing the product in Europe are going to show higher pricing compared to the US.

Video Privacy Settings to Use

Since these are marketing videos, you want them to be shareable and publicly accessible. However, you still need to prevent videos with different pricing information from being watched in specific areas.

Geo whitelisting allows you to designate the specific countries or regions where your videos can be played. Once enabled, your videos will not load or play in countries or regions that are not included in your whitelist.

Sharing Meeting Minutes Internally

Whether it’s a board meeting or a town hall, you might need to go back and review the discussion down the road. Video is a great way to capture and preserve important information.

Video Privacy Settings to Use

Company meetings usually include sensitive information, so privacy is always important. If the information and discussion shared in the meeting is particularly valuable, opting for SSO will give you control over who is able to view your videos.

Alternatively, login protection is also a good choice for this type of video. Login protection allows you to grant video access to individuals. That means you can adjust which videos each team is able to see when they log into your video website.

Special Offers for Members or Subscribers

Say you’re at a non-profit organization throwing a limited-seating event that will sell out quickly. You want to ensure your biggest donors, supporters, volunteers, and sponsors get first dibs on those tickets. This means you can’t just send a video about the event to your regular mailing list.

Video Privacy Settings to Use

How can we get the word out to select people? Secure embedding of the video in a members-only section of the website. Or, use login protection to grant video access to individuals.

Have any questions about sharing your video securely? Share with us in the comments below or on Twitter @sproutvideo

The post 7 Best Practices for Restricting Sharing for Business Video appeared first on SproutVideo.

In this post, learn how to turn customer support into an asset for your business by using video to drive engagement, utilization, and retention.

Engagement

Great customer support isn’t just about answering technical questions or solving specific problems. It’s also about ensuring your customers are engaged with your product and services.

Video can drive engagement by helping customers get to know your company on a personal level, enhancing product knowledge, and inspiring them with new ways to get the most out of your offering.

Here are just a few ways to do this:

Introduce the Team

Use video to introduce your team members, especially your customer support staff. Highlight their skills, but also allow their personalities to shine through.

For example, Starbucks really nails it with this video about their scholarship program for baristas:

You get to know the people making your coffee, while also gaining an appreciation for the ways in which Starbucks supports its employees. A heart-warming video like that does double-duty: creating a personal connection, and driving brand affinity.

For your purposes, you might consider introducing your head of customer support or success. Chances are, your customers will interact with this person, or a member of their team, at some point.

Putting a face to a name adds a very personal touch. When customers hear how passionate this person is about providing great customer service, they’ll be more inclined to reach out for help when they need it.

FAQ

Use video to answer questions that seem to come up over and again. This shows you are listening, paying attention and eager to assist.

Starbucks has an excellent example of an FAQ video on their 1912 Pike blog. It walks you through all the steps to make cold brew coffee using their products at home:

By positioning your company as an expert, these FAQ videos help drive engagement because viewers will turn to you first when they have other relevant questions.

Make sure you also monitor your social media pages and relevant discussion boards for inspiration as well. As it just so happens, these are also great places to share your FAQ videos.

Not only will this set you apart from your competitors, it will often prompt discussions with potential customers, and new opportunities to highlight your offerings.

Reviews

Use video to allow your customers to leave a review on verified purchases. You can then share their reviews if they include useful information for other potential customers. They may even come up with ideas or product hacks your company overlooked.

Amazon supports video reviews on its products, and we think this will become more common over time. Here’s an example of what a video review looks like on Amazon:

They often get buried by other reviews, however. Since video can have a large impact on customer purchase decisions, that probably isn’t ideal.

Depending on how you plan to use them, you may want to feature video reviews prominently on your product page, or make them easy to find.

If you aren’t getting a lot of videos from customers, or they aren’t quite on the mark, try asking a few pointed questions or providing guidelines to ensure a useful response. Here is a guide with more details on leveraging user-generated content for business.

By allowing customers to help each other make better decisions, you increase engagement by building a sense of community. This can be incredibly empowering to customers, new and old.

Utilization

Once your engaged prospects become customers, there are still plenty of reasons to continue adding video – starting with the moment they sign up.

On-boarding is an excellent opportunity to use video. When new customers signup, most companies rely heavily on email and text to get them up to speed. That might be adequate for some, but it could be putting new users to sleep. And, anyone skimming the emails might miss important information.

Sharing a charismatic, succinct video offering a clear visual guide to using your product is a highly effective alternative. Not to mention it will help you stand out from your competitors.

This example from Canva walks you through their design platform in under a minute. It still manages to touch on nearly every step you’d need to take to make a beautiful custom image using their platform:

This makes the on-boarding process much less cumbersome for the customer. It can even serve as a sales tool by making it clear how quick and easy it is to put an attractive design together.

On-boarding videos can also help you better understand the customer journey since you can review engagement heatmap reports for individual viewers. This reporting allows you to see which parts of the video the customer is engaging with in particular.

Read this article to learn more about how video can be leveraged beyond on-boarding for growth marketing.

New Features

Using video to update your customers on new features and developments is yet another way to drive utilization. New features or upgrades are exciting, and a perfect subject for an engaging video.

Rather than letting them get lost in email inboxes, surface your feature release videos prominently on your website. Consider adding them to your help site, specific product pages, or featuring them on your blog. Our customizable video embed codes are perfect for sharing these types of videos.

Real Customer Stories

Go a step further by showcasing how other customers are already using or benefitting from your product or service. This could include just one of your features, or a new development that improves the product over all. Importantly, you don’t have to get everything in one video.

Invision – a collaborative design product – achieves this by featuring snippets of interviews with several of their customers. The video is placed prominently on their homepage, and allows you to quickly get a sense of the main benefits of using their product. Here’s an extended version featuring MailChimp:

By sharing stories from real customers, you’ll engage prospects and users in multiple ways. This approach has the benefit of a human touch, inspiring ideas, and ramping up your engagement potential online.

Retention

New sales are exciting, and tend to get most of the focus when it comes to video campaigns. However, repeat customers and loyal users deserve plenty of attention too. After all, high churn rates can kill your business.

Leveraging video for retention can help engage your customers and drive repeat sales. Here are some examples of ways to do that.

Personalized Videos

Use a video to respond to a question about your product or service. If an existing customer emails customer support with a question, send them a video with a short response, including their name. This is a powerful and personal touch where you can really show your customers how much they mean to you.

It doesn’t have to be polished, and it’s ok if it’s off-the-cuff. It’s really the direct connection that counts.

This video from TD Bank involves much bigger stunts than what we’re really suggesting in this section. However, it’s such a great illustration of the delight a personalized surprise can bring to a customer, that we had to include it here.

A Big Thanks

In the same vein as the TD Bank video above, customers should feel important, not like another number. This is a great opportunity for a really personal and human touch.

Try just saying “thank you”. Create a short clip to thank your customers, by name if you can.

This example from Asha House is a perfect example of a more general thank you to all of their supporters after achieving their goal.

Asha House THANK YOU from The Sound of Hope.

By keeping the focus on their customers, rather than their products or the company, the message comes across as genuine.

If you are struggling to find an occasion to send this type of message, think about what you know about your customers. Celebrate milestones, like the anniversary of when they became a customer, or their birthday, if you have that information. Consider offering a loyalty reward if they’ve been around for a while.

The main goal is to continue building an authentic connection with individuals. Still, there are some benefits. Your customer is far less likely to go elsewhere for the same product or service if their loyalty is appreciated and rewarded by a friendly, human face.

In short, we think video is the ideal medium to cultivate a feeling of human connectivity between a company and a customer online. Have you implemented video for customer support? How did it go? Let’s discuss in the comments below.

The post Using Video For More Personal Customer Support appeared first on SproutVideo.

There are plenty of imaginative ways to create video with just a laptop. We’ll walk you through ten of the most accessible and straightforward ways you can make video without any fancy gear at all. Warning: once you read this post, you’re out of excuses for not making more video!

1. Artificial Intelligence

No, really. There are online services that allow you to create videos using AI to handle the editing process.

First, you’ll need to pick a topic by entering text or a URL. Then, the platform you’re working with will put together a video using sophisticated algorithms, licensed content, and automated editing tools.

One such platform is Wibbetz, a startup using AI to automate video editing. Another option is GliaStudios, which works in a similar manner.

A related option is Magisto. They allow you to upload your own clips, and uses AI to edit them together according to the mood you select for your video. This is a good option if you’ve already got some content to work with.

None of these options are fully automated – at least, not yet. You still retain plenty of control over the branding and final output of your video.

2. Live Stream

Don’t have time to record and edit a video? Live streaming is a quick and easy way to get a message across to viewers.

As a bonus, a recording of your live stream is automatically saved to your SproutVideo account. You can then share the on-demand video as-is, or download it, make some tweaks, and reupload it to our platform. It’s basically a two-for-one solution to creating a video with just a laptop.

You can live stream using your camera’s built-in webcam, a screencast, or pre-recorded video files. For a more thorough guide on how to live stream, check out our recent How To Video episode on the six simple steps to live streaming for business.

3. Screencast

Screencasts allow you to capture activity on your screen as you navigate different programs or webpages. Often used for support videos, screencasts are a great way to walk viewers through a specific process, or teach a new skill.

Here’s our guide to making a professional screencast, with detailed steps to follow:

First, you’ll need a screen capture program, like Quicktime, SnagIt, Screenflow, or Movavi. There are many, many other options, from free to paid. Try out a few, and pick the one that best suits your workflow.

Key features to look for include HD video support, easy navigation, audio capture, and special effects, like the ability to highlight a specific part of the screen.

Then, pick a topic. It could be showing viewers how to use a new tool, or to complete a process correctly.

Practice the steps you’ll be navigating ahead of time. It will help ensure a smooth video, with fewer mistakes.

Although you can record the screencast and audio at the same time, that might not be ideal. If you miss a line, or stumble for a word, you don’t want to have to redo the whole sequence. For this type of video, recording the audio separately could save you a lot of headaches, even if you have to edit the audio and video together afterwards.

However you choose to record the audio, quality does matter. You don’t need a fancy microphone to sound great. The most important factor might be a really quiet room in which you can record your script.

You can make do with the built-in microphone for your laptop, use your phone, or spring for an accessory. For instance, this microphone does a great job for voiceovers. Whichever microphone you choose, jot down the bullet points you’ll need to hit, and start recording!

4. Webcam Talking Head

Technically, this requires your laptop to have a built-in camera. Most do these days, so we’re counting it!

The key to making a talking head video that looks professional is to get the lighting right, position the laptop correctly, and frame your shot well. Your traditional desk setup is not likely to be optimal for this type of video.

If your laptop is on your desk, it’s much too low to get a flattering angle when filming your face. You’ll want to raise it up so the camera is roughly at eye level. Then, angle the camera slightly downwards to avoid giving viewers a glimpse up your nose, or the dreaded double chin effect.

The photo above contrasts two different camera angles. On the left, the model is looking slightly down at the camera, resulting in a less flattering image. On the right, she’s looking slightly up at the camera, which is typically flattering on most people. It’s subtle, but a small change in a camera angle can work wonders on film.

Lighting is equally important. Move any available table or floor lamps behind the laptop, and position them so they softly illuminate your face. Make sure there aren’t any harsh shadows behind you. Also, check to be sure you’re not silhouetted by a backlight, such as a window.

Finally, frame your shot properly to make sure it’s visually interesting. Be sure to take care of the basics, like clearing clutter behind you. Rearrange furniture and art if you have to, in order to create a visually appealing space.

With your laptop positioned correctly, flattering lighting, and a properly framed shot, you’re ready to film! In order to do so, you will need software to enable you to record video from your webcam. If you’re using a Mac, you can use Quicktime, or if you’re on Windows, you can use the Camera app.

5. PowerPoint

Did you know you can export video from PowerPoint? This isn’t really the best way to make video, if we’re being honest. But, it will do in a pinch!

Microsoft provides an extensive guide to using PowerPoint to create video. You’ll need to be familiar with using PowerPoint. Even then, their guide warns that it could be a time-consuming process to undertake.

You’ll probably want to add a voiceover to your video, too. We wrote a guide recently about making professional voiceovers on the cheap. If you’re working with just a laptop, you’ll be limited to your built-in mic. You can still get a good result as long as you can control the amount of background noise in your environment.

6. Animated Video

If you go with an animated video instead of live action, the world is your oyster. Not only can you be extremely creative, you have a plethora of options to choose from, and total control over the end result.

Unless you are a talented artist or design professional, we’d recommend going with an online service that takes the guesswork out of creating animations. Some of our favorite options for animated video include Vyond, Raw Shorts, and Powtoon, but there are plenty of other great choices.

Sketch out the different scenes of your video to help visualize how you’d like the end result to be. This can be as rough or as detailed as you’d like. It’s a simple step, but it’ll help you stick to your concept, and achieve a polished result.

This animated explainer video for Padmapper by Grumo Media is from 2011, but it’s still engaging and nicely done:

Keep it short and sweet! Especially if you’re just starting out, it’ll be easier to stay motivated if you don’t try for a feature length film right off the bat.

If you get stuck, there are professional animation studios, like Grumo Media, or our friends Adelie Studios, that can help bring your ideas to life.

7. Stock Imagery

Believe it or not, you don’t even need actual video clips to make a video. You can use still images, and some simple editing techniques, to create a visually interesting video.

This type of video works best for news, current events, or historical videos featuring well-known figures. It can also work for short commercials or clips.

In this case, you’ll want to carefully script your video so you can more easily search for the imagery you’ll need. When reading through your script, think about possible ways you could portray different sections visually. Any specific places or renowned people are key to include.

You can purchase images from popular sources like Getty Images or Dissolve. Or, scour free sites for the images you need. We love Pexels, Unsplash, and Pixabay.

To keep it visually interesting, you’ll want to use a mix of panning, zooming, transitions, and possibly an editing technique known as the Ken Burns effect. Each adds motion in different ways to make it more of a video rather than a slideshow.

8. Stock Video Clips

You really don’t have to film everything yourself. If you’re pinched for time, or only have a laptop, you can find everything you need on the internet.

For example, Dissolve put together a pretty convincing video using only stock footage:

Although it’s meant as a parody, the video effectively proves the point that you can make a polished and attractive video with only stock footage.

Check out this updated article for an extensive guide to using stock footage, and finding it for free (or cheap).

9. Recorded Webinars

Webinars can be a great way to grow thought leadership, answer customer questions, or attract new leads. Once it’s over, don’t just discard the recording. Make it available to other website visitors as a resource, or as marketing for future webinars.

Most webinar platforms, like Webex or GoToMeeting, offer the ability to record and export video out-of-the-box. You don’t really need to do any more than that if you don’t want to.

However, it might be worth cleaning things up a bit. Say there’s a bit of chitchat at the start that doesn’t really add anything to the content of the webinar. You’ll likely want to trim it using a video editing program like iMovie or Movie Maker.

Sometimes, the visuals for the webinar aren’t that great, but the audio content is. In that case, you can go even further to edit your webinar into a more polished video. Swap out the visuals for higher quality screencasts, images, or stock video content.

You’ll need an editing program that can separate audio and video tracks. Both iMovie or Movie Maker offer that, as does Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere, among other options.

10. Repurpose Existing Videos

This one might be cheating slightly on the “you only need a laptop” premise. However, unless you’re really just getting started with video, you probably have an existing library of clips or finished videos.

Dive into that library and remix and match to create new videos. It might be as simple as creating a shorter version of a long video to share on your social channels. Or, an updated voiceover for an older video.

…Or, a Combination of the Above

Each of the approaches above could result in a finished video. However, you might need a combination thereof to achieve the result you want.

For instance, you could mix voiceover from a webinar with a screencast of your website. Or, take some old content, and add a new intro using your webcam to frame it differently.

Variety is the spice of life, as they say. There’s no real reason to exclusively use one technique when making a video.

Once you’ve created some quality video content, you’ll want to pair it with the proper video marketing tools. Here at SproutVideo, we provide premium video hosting that comes with a whole host of powerful marketing tools to take your video marketing efforts to the next level. Try us free for 30-days to see for yourself.

The post 10 Clever Ways to Make Video Using Just a Laptop appeared first on SproutVideo.

SproutVideo now integrates with a total of ten different marketing platforms. Keep reading to learn about the new marketing integrations we’ve added, and how you can leverage them for your business.

New Marketing Integrations

We previously added support for Constant Contact, Mailchimp, Drip, Aweber, and Infusionsoft. To that list, we’ve just added Campaign Monitor, Act-On, Hubspot, Intercom, and Vertical Response.

All of the supported platforms work in a similar manner with SproutVideo’s lead capture tools. With an integration setup for your account, and email capture enabled for the video(s) of your choice, you can send leads directly to your email or marketing platform.

How to Setup an Integration

Enabling a marketing integration for your account couldn’t be easier. The process to set one up is the same for all supported platforms within your SproutVideo account.

If you don’t already have a SproutVideo account, you can open a free trial today (no credit card required) to test out different integrations.

Navigate to Account Settings, and select Email Integrations on the lefthand side of the screen.

There, pick your preferred platform, and click Connect.

You’ll be prompted to enter your credentials for that provider. Then, you’ll be redirected back to your SproutVideo account. You can finish configuring the integration by selecting a list, among other options.

Going forward, any video with email capture enabled will send leads straight to that list. No more exporting and importing!

Details on The New Integrations

Although the basis for all of these integrations is the same, each one is a little unique. Here are the details on the differences between them.

Act-On

Because of how their platform works, SproutVideo will create a list for you within your Act-On account. Then, when your email-gated videos generate leads, we’ll send them automatically to the list we created.

If you’d like to set up welcome emails or opt-in emails, you can do so within your Act-On account. This integration is great for growing your list.

Campaign Monitor

Once you’ve setup the first part of the integration, you simply need to select a list to which you’ll send your leads. All email-gated videos will now direct the leads they generate to this list.

Since you can pick a specific list, you could potentially create a custom workflow within Campaign Monitor for new subscribers added to your list.

Hubspot

The Hubspot integration is very straightforward because it happens on the backend. Lead generation magic happens when you enable the Lead Capture option within your SproutVideo account. 

First, whenever a viewer watches one of your email-gated videos, the title of the video as well as email and contact information, is added as a Contact in HubSpot as a timeline event. The record also includes how much of the video they watched in increments from 1% to 100%. You can click on the contact’s name to get a detailed view of all the videos they have watched. Using that information, you can create multiple campaigns segmented by different viewing behavior.

In addition, your SproutVideo video library is accessible in HubSpot. You can add emails, and landing pages, and choose which videos to sync. 

Check out our Knowledge Base to learn more about integrating SproutVideo and HubSpot. If you’re looking for tips on using video as a conversion tool, check out these five ways to leverage video and HubSpot to generate demand and leads.

Intercom

The Intercom integration is similar to Hubspot because we are able to handle a lot of it on the backend. Every time a video generates a new lead, we pass it to Intercom as a contact. Then, we’ll automatically register any viewing activity as events in Intercom.

You can use those events to run targeted marketing campaigns. For example, if someone watches a product video, you could use that event to trigger an email with a special offer.

Vertical Response

With the Vertical Response integration enabled for your account, we automatically create a new contact every time a video generates a lead. You can also pick the list within Vertical Response to which you’d like to direct leads.

Once the integration is setup, you can start growing your list with your videos.

Are you using a marketing integration with your SproutVideo account? Curious how you might be able to use one? Ask away in the comments below!

The post Update: Marketing Integrations Galore appeared first on SproutVideo.

Issuing a login to viewers, with which they can access your videos, is a highly secure and easy way to share your content. It’s simple to setup, straightforward for the viewer, and can be tightly controlled by the content owner.

In this post, we’ll walk you through eight of the most clever ways you can use logins for sharing your videos, with some tips and tricks thrown in to boot.

What is a Viewer Login?

Just in case you’re not familiar, here’s a quick overview of viewer logins, and login protection.

Viewer logins are a combination of an email address and a password. Each viewer login is typically assigned to just one individual, although they can also be shared by a group. They’re used exclusively for video access, and work with videos on SproutVideo websites or landing pages, as well as embedded videos.

Login protection is a video privacy setting available on the SproutVideo platform. When a video is login protected, anyone trying to watch the video will be prompted for a username and password before they’ll be able to do so. Permissions can be granted to individual viewers for just one video, or can be granted in bulk.

1. Individualized Video Access

Sharing videos isn’t one-size fits all. It can be ok for certain people to have unlimited access, but not for others. Maybe you only want one person to be able to download your video, but still need to share it with a few more people with view-only permissions.

Login protection solves this scenario by enabling you to customize video access for specific individuals. You don’t need to upload more than one copy of your video. You also don’t need to create or share different links to your video, either (more on that below).

Once your video is set to login protected, and you’ve created logins for the viewers with whom you’d like to share your video, you can grant video access to each separate login according to your needs.

That means some people can be permitted to download your video, while others can only watch it. There are several other granular ways to configure viewer access, making this a very powerful way to control the privacy of your content.

2. One Secure Sharing URL For All Your Videos

Sometimes, you need to share multiple videos with a group of people, but you need to do so securely. Rather than sending a long list of password protected links, you can share just one URL with the group when using login protection.

If you choose to do so on the SproutVideo platform, you’ll also want to take advantage of the video website features we offer. This will simplify sharing substantially.

Once you have your site setup and ready to go, you can then use it to share all your login protected videos. When someone loads your video website, they’ll be prompted to login. As soon as they do so, all the videos they have access to will appear. Any videos they don’t have access to will not be displayed on the site.

Login protection makes it really easy to share your videos all in one place, using just one URL – even if you’re sharing videos with multiple people, each with different video access settings.

Note: videos appear on your video website according to their privacy settings. Refer to this help article about how video privacy settings work with video websites for more details.

3. Expiring Access

One really common request we encounter at SproutVideo is to be able to share videos with someone temporarily. By setting video access to expire automatically, you can help protect your content.

Limiting the period of time in which a video can be viewed helps prevent unwanted sharing. With a time limit enabled, even if someone tried to share your content without permission, the link they were attempting to share would eventually expire.

This is a particularly great option if you are concerned about people viewing content past a specific date. Perhaps you’re sharing video with students for an exam, or need to have a review process completed on time.

No matter the reason, putting an expiration date on video permissions is a straightforward way to limit access to your content.

4. Limited Viewing Sessions

Sometimes, it’s not about exactly when someone views a video. It could just be about the total number of times someone access your video. This is another great way to prevent or limit unwanted sharing of your content.

With login protection, you can limit the number of viewing sessions permitted for each individual. That means your viewers can only load your videos a specified number of times.

The way this works is by tracking and limiting the number of viewing sessions each person can have. If you limit it to two, for instance, someone would only be able to load the page containing your videos twice. Once the page is open, they could watch the video more than once. However, after the second time they loaded the page, they would not be able to open it again.

This curtails sharing because each time a link is opened in a new browser, it creates a new browser session. If you only permitted two viewing sessions, as in the example above, the max number of people who could view it would be two.

If your goal is to truly limit the exact number of times a video can be played the whole way through, there’s an easy way to do so. Simply use a post play screen to force the viewer to refresh the page to replay the video.

5. Tracking and Auditing Viewer Logins

Once login protection is enabled for your videos, SproutVideo generates robust reporting on exactly who is accessing your content. We publish the data in the form of a Video Access Log. This report details all of the minute interactions your viewers had with your videos.

You can see exactly who loaded your videos, and clicked play. If you have engagement metrics, you can also see how much they rewatched or skipped. This reporting is particularly useful if you need to know exactly who watched your videos, and how much they watched.

This level of granularity allows you to rest easy knowing that only people with permission are watching your videos.

7. No Password Management

When using login protection in combination with a video website hosted by SproutVideo, an added benefit is that you don’t necessarily have to manage users’ passwords.

By enabling the option to allow viewers to reset their own passwords, you can relieve yourself of the duty to assist them if they forget it. You will still have to create their initial password, but after that, it’s the viewer’s responsibility.

Of course, the account holder always has the ability to change passwords for a login at any time. This is just a handy option to explore, especially if you have large numbers of viewer logins to manage.

8. Revoke an Individual’s Video Access

When using password protection for a video, it can be frustrating to have to change the password, and then update everyone with the new password. With login protection, you can change only one person’s password. Or, revoke their access entirely, without changing anything for anyone else.

Since each viewer has their own login, editing one person’s password or access permissions doesn’t affect anyone else with access to the video. This could dramatically simplify your life depending on how you’re sharing your videos.

Questions about how your business might benefit from login protection for your video content? Ask in the comments below and we can help.

The post 8 Powerful Reasons to Use Viewer Logins For Your Videos appeared first on SproutVideo.

Unfortunately, a lack of time and resources is likely getting in the way. Today, we’re here to help you overcome those obstacles with an extensive post covering the best free resources you can use to make more video. Keep reading to get the skinny on the best free sources of footage, tutorials, hands-on experience, editing programs, and even equipment.

Stock Footage, Music, and More

One of the fastest ways to get up to speed on producing quality videos is to download some HD stock footage, and start playing around with it in the editing program of your choice. This allows you to roll up your sleeves and immediately start making videos. Even better, you don’t have to deal with the intricacies of filming original footage.

Where to Find Free Footage

Here are some of our favorite sources of free stock footage, in no particular order:

• Pexels does a great job with a variety of stock footage. Some of the clips land more on the user-generated side of the spectrum, rather than appearing to be professionally made. Depending on your project, that might be a plus. They could definitely improve discovery by adding a search function. Still, spending time browsing beautiful footage can be fun!
• Videvo has a robust library of clips, and also offers motion graphics. They offer search, and granular categories, enabling you to quickly find what you’re looking for. Some of their clips are on a green screen, which can add some fun elements to any project.
• Videezy offers HD and 4K clips in a variety of categories. You can browse by keyword, or search their extensive library. Our favorite features are that they show you other searches a clip appeared in, as well as what other people downloaded along with that clip. Those handy discovery tools help you find clips you otherwise might have missed. You can also follow contributors if you like a particular person’s style.
• VideoBlocks has a wealth of content, although you’ll likely want to signup as a member to get access to most of it. When you hover over a clip, it autoplays, allowing you to determine at a glance if it’s right for your project. With specific categories and easy search, finding clips is a breeze.
• Your old videos can also be a surprisingly rich source of reusable content. Obviously, this only applies to people who have already created some content. Go back over your library to check for useful soundbites, voiceovers, intros, or interviews that you might be able to use in a new video. Read this post for more tips on using your video library efficiently.

Free Music

If you need a great background tune, dramatic intro music, or even special effects, these resources have you covered:

• Music for Makers was featured on Product Hunt, and delivers royalty-free tunes to your inbox every week. You can also browse the archives, or become a premium member to access more music.
• Creative Commons has an entire section devoted to music, which is well-worth a look.
• Bensound offers royalty free music, with several genres available.

Imagery

If you can’t quite find the clip you’re looking for, you can fake it with stock photos. Find a picture of what you want to portray, and add it to your video with a slow panning zoom. Heck, the History Channel has made entire series with this technique!

Here are some of our favorite place to find free imagery on the web:

• Pexels holds it down for beautiful stock photography.
• Unsplash is a great source for professional photography, especially if you’re looking for stunning vistas.
• Canva has an extensive library of curated images, as well as editing tools if you need to make changes.

There are definitely other sources of free content out there. If we overlooked one of your favorites, please let us know in the comments!

Be sure to double check licensing information before using any content you find on the internet. If in doubt, contact the owner or producer directly.

Tutorials

We’re a tad biased, but the SproutVideo blog is a rich resource full of helpful how-to articles and video production guides. Even better, if you ask a question in the comments, a member of our team will help you out.

Youtube is one of the best sources for how-to videos online. If you want to get up to speed on a new editing program, learn how to use a fancy new camera, or master the basics of three-point lighting, Youtube is a great destination.

Community education courses are often available through local high schools or community colleges. Check the schedule to see if any upcoming events might cover topics relevant to video production.

If you’re willing to spend a little money, Udemy.com has many courses on videography, film-making, video-editing, and more. Usually, courses are created by successful professionals already in the field. Most courses are just $11, and you can check reviews before purchasing.

Experience on the Job

There is simply no replacement for hands-on experience when it comes to video production. Getting a foot in the door can be hard, but exposure, and building a portfolio are worth it.

If you’re already employed, and are being tasked with adding video production to your skill set, this is still a smart option. Consider job shadowing or assisting with a shoot on a weekend to learn how it all comes together.

Check Craigslist for opportunities to assist with video shoots. Volunteer at your local access TV station. Ask friends in the business if they know of anyone who might need a hand. Most video professionals are glad to have help.

We only recommend working for free if you can afford to do so, and really need the experience. If you already have some experience, you should be paid for your work accordingly.

Editing Programs

Most computer operating systems come with editing programs pre-installed. iMovie on Mac OS is a powerful and free video editing program. It comes with preformatted titles, lower thirds, transitions, and more to help you achieve a professional result.

Windows offers Windows Movie Maker, which isn’t as intuitive or fully featured as iMovie, but can still get the job done as needed.

If you don’t have access to a desktop, or are using your phone to shoot, you can handle all your editing right on your phone for free (or cheap). Here’s our guide to the top editing apps for mobile.

Equipment

Borrow from friends or family. Check attics and basements for forgotten gear. Especially if this is a new venture for you, you might be surprised at the number of people willing to lend a helping hand.

Local libraries, community colleges, or local public access channel studios are excellent resources too. They often have more up-to-date gear, although that will definitely vary by location.

Even non-profits or churches might have equipment they’d be willing to loan out when not in use. Be prepared to go over your needs in detail, and to sign release documents for the equipment. Remember, if you break it, you bought it!

If you can spare a dime or two, thrift stores, eBay, or Craigslist can be excellent sources of gently used gear. Be sure to ask careful questions before making a purchase. For instance, inquire about the age of cameras, and how they were used. The seller might not always know, but it’s definitely worth asking.

For those of us who have some existing equipment, another option would be to look for good trade-in deals. Some stores, like B&H Photo and local retailers, will take your gear as a trade-in or on consignment. This allows you to upgrade your kit at low or no cost.

Do you have any free or cheap resources you’d care to share? Let us know in the comments below!

Also, you know what else is free? A SproutVideo trial account. Signup today and test out our platform for free.

The post The Best Free Resources for Budding Videographers appeared first on SproutVideo.

This isn’t just about keeping the lights on. It’s really about building a better video hosting platform for business by listening carefully to what our customers are telling us.

Gathering, analyzing, and implementing customer feedback is one of the most important activities a business can embark on. All too often, it’s left too late, or done as an afterthought.

Here’s how we moved from reactive, anecdotal user research to a methodical, customer-centric process.

What We Were Doing

It’s normal as companies grow for certain processes to evolve in less-than-desirable ways. We found ourselves in a situation where the size of our user base had doubled, but internal metrics and communication around customer feedback hadn’t kept pace.

We were listening to what our customers had to say, and were proud of the highly personal support we were providing.

However, the lack of structure around customer feedback meant that we had no insights into the frequency of feature requests we were getting, or where they should fall in terms of priorities. It also meant we were unlikely to be targeting the right points of improvement for our app, because a particularly vocal minority could potentially sway our decisions.

How We Fixed It

First, we had to identify what wasn’t working. We also had to determine what we wanted to get out of customer feedback much more specifically. Then, we had to work backwards to define the processes that would get us where we wanted to go.

To pinpoint the pain points in our current process, we had a company meeting to review everything pertaining to customer feedback. We looked at the tools we were using, the sources of feedback, and how we were processing it. We also looked at recent customer feedback, and traced the communication and associated outcome internally. This included instances where a solution was implemented immediately, as well as ones that were shelved.

We found specific types of negative feedback, such as when a feature wasn’t working as advertised, tended to be resolved very quickly. Generally speaking, that’s a good thing. Somewhat unsurprisingly, we also found the squeakiest wheels tended to get the most grease.

We struggled a lot more with feedback that didn’t include a direct request. For example, if someone described a use-case for video, and we didn’t quite have the features they had in mind, we didn’t always treat it as a feature request. We also realized we could do a lot better with follow up in instances where a solution was implemented.

Then, we brainstormed how we could do all of it in a way that would mean less feedback fell through the cracks, while ensuring we had our priorities straight. We needed a process that was in line with our product strategy, and directly informed by customer demand.

What We’re Doing Now

We changed quite a bit of how we handled customer feedback, and it’s still a work in progress. We strongly believe there’s always room for improvement.

That being said, we are in a much better place now.

Where Customer Feedback Comes From

This part we can’t really change, but it’s important to understand so you know what we are working with.

We get customer feedback primarily from people writing to our support team. Since SproutVideo is a highly stable product, with 99.998% uptime in the last several months, we don’t get many bug reports or serious issues of that nature.

Most of the time, our support team is handling pre-sales questions, and helping free trial users set up their new accounts to their specifications. Hidden in there are a lot of points of feedback about how people want our product to work, and how they’d like to be able to use it.  

After email, live chat is a major source of customer feedback. Live chat has added benefits over email, because it enables us to ask questions in real-time, and get more precise feedback.

Social media is the final source of customer feedback, although not nearly as big for us as live chat or email.

Centralizing Feedback

An important change was to ensure all feedback was arriving in the same place, so we could standardize how it was handled. It also meant everyone who needed to review it would know where to find it.

Since social media was handled by a different team than customer support and success, we hadn’t previously routed messages received through social media to our support inbox. Doing so enabled us to treat all feedback the same way, no matter how it came in.

New Tools

One of the biggest gaps we identified through this process was the silent majority of our customers: people who never contacted us. We figured they still might have something to say, and looked for tools that would enable us to reach them.

A major win for us was FullStory. Using FullStory, we can review browsing sessions on our platform, both from the past and in real-time. When we’re considering changes to workflows within the app, or confused about what might have gone wrong for a particular user, FullStory is invaluable.

For example, say a free trial user uploaded a video to our platform, but didn’t activate their account. We can review how they were using our application to see if they searched for features we don’t offer, or encountered any difficulties using our app. If we notice a pattern, we flag it as an issue in Trello, and try to come up with solutions.

Better Outreach

Simply asking for feedback is a great way to get more of it. We always want to know what we could do better or differently. So, we started doing more outreach using email.

We targeted a few specific customer segments with this outreach; namely, new free trial users, free trial users who never activated their accounts, and people who wrote into support with a question, but never responded to our reply.

All new free trial users on our platform hear from their dedicated support rep shortly after they open their account. The aim is to understand their goals, and to help as needed. These conversations provide valuable information about how people would like to use our platform, and want to share video online in general.

For free trial users who never activated, we simply send a survey to try and get a sense for why it didn’t work out. The initial survey is automated, but, we do follow up personally depending on the response.

When we reach out about a past support ticket, sometimes we get a simple, “Yes, everything’s great now!” but other times, we might get another question. These efforts help ensure we’re learning as much as we can from each customer interaction, and providing the best support possible.

Tagging

Now that all our messages were in one place, and we were getting more information, we expanded tagging dramatically. We also standardized the tags we would use for different types of feedback. This helped not only with search, but also allowed us to analyze conversations in useful ways (more on that below).

Regular Reporting

We started circulating a company-wide email recapping customer communications on a weekly basis. This report includes a high level look at who was writing in to support, as well as a count of votes for different feature requests, potential pain points within the app, and bug reports. We also add a couple quotes from happy customers to keep things fun.

The Outcome

Our analysis of customer feedback is much more efficient than before. We are no longer over-reliant on anecdotes from recent conversations.

Looking at important trends in customer feedback on a regular basis enables us to easily determine what we should be working on next. Project planning has shifted to be truly customer-centric.

We also feel more in touch with important evolutions in consumer expectations. If a new feature is suddenly in demand, we’re sure to hear about it.

Finally, we’re much more coordinated internally. Rather than playing catch up with customer feedback, the whole team is up to speed and on the same page.

Naturally, this is a process, and we still have a lot to learn about how best to handle customer feedback. We’re all ears if you have any pointers! Please share in the comments below.

The post How Customer Feedback is Used at SproutVideo appeared first on SproutVideo.

Since video is one of the most powerful tools in your lead generation arsenal, we have been hard at work adding new marketing automation integrations, and are excited to announce that Drip, a lightweight marketing automation platform for savvy businesses, is now live on our site. Keep reading for tips on how to leverage this new integration, as well as details on how to enable it in your account.

A Little More About Drip

Drip’s platform is designed to be self-serve, and you can test it out for free for three weeks. Drip enables you to implement lead capture features on every page of your website with a simple snippet of code. From there, there are many possibilities for the types of campaigns you can run. They provide lead scoring and communication tools to help you target the right prospects at the right time, resulting in improved conversion rates and a shorter sales cycle.

Setting up the Drip Integration in Your SproutVideo Account

The SproutVideo and Drip integration is designed to send email addresses captured by our email gating feature straight to your Drip account. The two platforms are integrated on the backend so you don’t have to worry about messing around with our API or any code – we already did all of that for you. All you have to do is navigate to the Email Integrations section of your SproutVideo Account Settings, and click “Connect to Drip”:

Then, once the integration is enabled, you’ll need to setup email address capture for your videos to send leads to your Drip account. You can do so by opening the video you want to use for lead generation, and selecting the option to “Require Email to Watch Video”:

Back in your Drip account, viewer activity will show up in your feed automatically, and you can create automation rules based on viewer behavior, such as the title of the video they viewed, or the URL of the page where the video was located:

Then, you can setup specific actions, like a series of follow up emails containing more information and special offers, that will make up a highly targeted campaign based around your prospects’ viewing activity. For further details on how to do that, we defer to the experts, who elaborated on how to create an automated marketing campaign based on video viewing activity in a post on the Drip blog. This type of automated marketing can be really powerful for lead nurturing and driving conversions.

If you have any questions, or a request for our next integration, we are all ears! Let us know in the comments below.

The post Drip Marketing Automation: Our Latest Integration appeared first on SproutVideo.

So, what separates an effective, compelling explainer video from the crowd? Keep reading to learn the six keys to explainer video success.

1. Catch People’s Attention Quickly

The internet age has drastically reduced people’s attention spans. Some studies have shown as much as a 30% drop in the last few years, going from 12 seconds to just 8 seconds.

So, make those first 8 seconds of your video count. Get people hooked so they keep watching past the attention span cliff. It can be done! The average explainer video is watched for 2.7 minutes – that’s practically an eternity in this day and age.

2. Be Yourself…

Having a unique voice and approach will help you stand out. After all, this video is going to be the face of your company for potentially thousands of viewers, so take the time to develop a compelling and memorable persona.

Some great examples of memorable spokespersons include Flo for Progressive Car Insurance, and Isaiah Mustafa, for Old Spice. Love them or hate them, these characters have strong personalities you are almost guaranteed to remember, and keep your interest throughout the spot.

3. But It’s Not About You

Your focus should always be on your target audience. Starting with the planning and through the execution of your video, seek to answer key questions they may have about your company, product, or service.

Answering every possible question isn’t the idea here. Focus on the 2-3 main things people need to know about you and your products or services.

4. Short and Sweet

Given short attention spans, and the narrow focus of your video, your explainer video probably won’t wind up being that long. In fact, it shouldn’t be long at all.

An often cited sweet spot for explainer videos is 45 – 90 seconds. Anything less, and you might be leaving important information out, or just presenting a sales pitch. If you make it any longer, the majority of people aren’t likely to ever see those extra seconds.

Still, quality is king when it comes to video length. We recently touched on the fact that people often watch longer videos than is commonly assumed. If you are investing in an explainer video, clearly presenting all the points you want to in an intelligent and engaging manner is likely to be more effective than subscribing to the “science” behind recommended video lengths. If you can get someone to watch more than 8 seconds, after all, you have their attention and its yours to lose.

5. Delivers Results

Whether your goal is to keep people on the page, grow your email list, or capture leads, your explainer video should be able to help. Define a clear goal for your video, and align your content and call-to-action to reflect your objective.

To measure the success of your video, you will need to be able to track its performance with detailed analytics and granular video engagement metrics. Launch, test, refine, repeat.

6. Get Started

If you’re looking to create a great explainer video, you can hire a studio, or go the DIY route. We’ve written about a couple platforms for making your own animated explainer videos if you are feeling creative. We also have a guide to creating video with just a laptop if you need to keep your production barebones.

Have any questions about explainer videos, or looking to get started? Let us know in the comments below or share with us on Twitter.

The post Anatomy of a Great Explainer Video appeared first on SproutVideo.

Efficiency

Companies face an ever-increasing deluge of resumes when they post opportunities online.

One highly effective way to reduce the pile is to ask for a little extra effort beyond clicking submit. The task of recording a video interview requires time, focus, and thought about the specific opportunity, helping to weed out less interested candidates. Also, a recruiter can quickly peruse several submissions at once, all addressing basic questions typically handled by phone screens, so they save time by not calling people individually. With less to sift through, the ability to review several at once, and a higher genuine interest level on the part of the candidates, companies gain efficiency on several fronts when leveraging video submissions in the interview process.

Decrease of Emphasis on Paper Resumes

The emerging preeminence of company culture over other factors for success means the paper resume has lost a lot of relevancy over the past 2-3 years, especially since the online world has given companies more ways to evaluate candidates’ personalities and aptitudes than a 2 dimensional sheet ever could. Auditions for jobs, where promising candidates receive a very short-term contract (e.g. 2-4 weeks) to do real work for a company, instead of an immediate full-time job offer, is part of this trend too. Companies get to find out not just if a person has the right skills, but also whether they mesh well with the existing team, and candidates get compensation and experience while “auditioning.”

Top Tips for Putting Your Best Foot Forward

1. Dress as though you were at a regular interview: comfortable, fitted, professional clothing, and subtle make-up and jewelry if you choose to wear them.
2. Check your frame for clutter, bad lighting, or visual distractions. Your potential employer does not need to see your cats chase each other, or the laundry piling up in the corner.
3. Use your environment to your advantage. You get to interview in the comfort of your own home, so choose a place that makes you feel relaxed, has flattering lighting, and importantly, is very quiet with no background noises like a fridge, alarms, or air conditioner.
4. Test your equipment(!!!). Make sure your computer has enough battery power, your webcam is properly installed, your internet connection is strong, and your microphone is working.
5. Install any necessary software ahead of time and get comfortable using it so you can quickly navigate the menus and record video with ease.
6. Customize or memorize the recording software shortcuts (record, pause, stop, etc) so you can use keyboard commands accurately. This will greatly speed up the process and help keep the focus on your message.
7. Write out your key talking points, but avoid getting too detailed as the pressure of sticking to the script might interfere with your ability to quickly and naturally get the point across.
8. Keep it succinct and be respectful of the time limits set by the company for submissions. If you keep going over, consider each talking point carefully, and whether it is truly critical to your message. If you are substantially under, you might want to consider embellishing a little to showcase your expertise.
9. Speak slowly and clearly. Take a few deep breaths if you feel jittery or keep tripping over your words.
10. Try to keep unnecessary fidgeting or shifting of your arms and body to a minimum. Relax and smile naturally to avoid looking stiff.
11. Beware of bad lighting. Backlight, such as from a window, can turn you into a silhouette on camera. Overhead lights can create harsh shadows on your face. Angled, soft light from at least two points above your head illuminating your face should give you optimal results on camera.

The post Ace Your Video Interview appeared first on SproutVideo.