10 Top Tools for Creating Short Videos That ROCK

Videos are bigger than ever. According to eMarketer, videos are now the #2 most popular type of content which marketers are producing (right after articles). But creating short, powerful videos can be hard – especially without the right tools.

Fortunately, there are some AMAZING tools out there that can help you create, edit and jazz up your videos. Whether it’s tutorials, product demos or even just short, candid videos, apps can help. Here is a list of 10 top tools for creating short videos that ROCK!

1. Animoto

Available for iPhone and Android, Animoto lets you create videos using the pictures and videos you have on your phone. It has a full range of templates you can use to create a variety of themed videos; and the paid option for businesses comes with additional features, including music, analytics and the ability to add your logo.

Cost: Free for a 14-day trial; $29.99/month for the business version.

2. Prezi

Create amazing video slideshows from any device or computer. With a variety of professionally-designed templates to choose from, you can customize to your heart’s desire.

Cost: Free version; $20/month for the pro version.

3. GoAnimate

Create amazing animated videos using their wide selection of themes. It is like having a professional, customized, animated video produced for a fraction of the cost! Add or remove characters, change backgrounds, add lip-syncing and script your own unique story!

Cost: Free for a 14-day trial; $39/month for basic plan (requires watermark).

4. Magisto

An app available for iPhone, Android and Windows, Magisto lets you create beautiful videos quickly and easily using videos and photos you already have on your phone. Lets you add music, themes and special effects, and then share on social media. Users select the music and theme, and then Magisto’s Emotion Sense Technology extrapolates on these to create a video that elicits the appropriate emotional response.

Cost: Free for the basic version; Cost for premium upgrade varies depending on device.

5. Viva Video

FREE video editor available for iPhone and Adroid. Personalize your videos with stickers, titles, special effects and live dubbing. Storyboard shooting style lets you tell your own story, and allows you to edit, merge and trim your videos.

Cost: FREE

6. Directr

Provides a fully guided video creation experience. By asking questions and showing examples throughout the process, it’s like having a professional video director helping you along the way.

Cost: FREE

7. Moju

Using your own images or selfies, create short, audio-free (and therefore smaller and faster) video creations. Adds motion and animation to your images to create eye-catching, unique videos made up of 24 frames or less.

Cost: FREE

8. WeVideo

Easy-to-use tool that lets you drag and drop clips and use custom themes to create simple videos. Lets you add text, special effects and audio, and gives you the option to pan and zoom. For more customization, try the Advanced (premium) version.

Cost: Free basic version; $4/month for premium version

9. PowToon

A free tool that lets you create animated videos and presentations. Perfect for making product demos, tutorials or clips to share on social media.

Cost: Free basic version; $19/month for premium version

10. Socialcam

A simple app that allows you to create videos perfect for sharing on social media. Touted by Tech Crunch as “Instagram for video”, this tool offers a variety of filters, and lets you customize your titles and soundtracks.

Cost: FREE

Having easy-to-use tools for creating and editing your videos can make all the difference. Whether you want to create videos for your blog or for social media, the 10 tools above can help you create short videos that ROCK!

Looking for more video tips? See my post How to Crush It on Facebook with Videos and Your Smartphone.

What tools would you add to this list? Share below!

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6 Email Tips and Tricks That Don’t Actually Work

It’s no secret that email marketing is a critical component of the inbound methodology. After all, why work so hard to build up a database of leads if you never do anything with them? An email campaign can be a very successful approach to nurturing leads through the funnel if you take the time early on to outline a solid strategy.

Like most digital citizens, you’ll probably start off by doing some online research around email marketing. If other marketers have seen success with this method, it’s likely that you’ll want to figure out what worked for them.

Unfortunately for your research, just about anybody can pass themselves off as an expert in this modern age of digital marketing. While there is certainly a great deal of good advice available on the internet to help you improve your online marketing efforts, there is just as much bad advice out there that could potentially derail your hard work if you’re not careful.

On the other hand, it’s not always a case of pseudo-experts publishing inaccurate information. There are tons of outdated articles out there, in which case something that used to be effective just doesn’t work anymore.

To help you sort out the good email marketing advice from the bad, I’ve put together a list of real life “tips” I found on the internet that actually don’t work at all.

1) Send Your Message From a Reputable Email Marketing Provider to Avoid Spam Filters

“I send all my emails through MailChimp, so I can say basically whatever I want and it won’t end up in the spam folder because MailChimp! Right?!”

Wrong! While it’s true that you should coordinate your email efforts through a reputable email marketing provider to reduce the chances of getting blocked, you cannot rely on that fact alone to guarantee your emails won’t get stuck with a SPAM label. If you don’t want the spam filter to block your messages, then don’t send spammy emails!

2) Focus Most Your Efforts On Creating a Great Subject Line

“So if I spend all my time crafting the most clever subject line ever, my open-rate will be off the charts! Right?!”

Sure, that could be true. You could end up with the best open-rates the world has ever seen. However, if you spend very little time on the content – the actual meat of the email – your click-through rates will be in the toilet and your unsubscribe rate will skyrocket.

Your subject line should be a reflection of the time and effort you’ve poured into the content to ensure recipients are getting what you’ve promised them. It’s definitely an important component of a successful email strategy, but it’s not the most important and, therefore, doesn’t deserve the bulk of your focus.

If you’re not sure where to start when it comes to creating compelling subject lines, you can check out this post for some ideas and inspiration.

3) Utilize As Many Beautiful Images As You Can

“I read that 40% of people respond better to visual information than plain text information, so I should send emails chock full of spectacular images, right?!”

I agree that it sounds like a good idea given the popularity of social giants like Instagram and Pinterest. However, most email administrators turn images off in emails so that the user must download the images themselves. That extra step means that nearly 45% of those that actually open your email won’t ever see your images.

That also means that placing your call-to-action within an image is a terrible idea. Even if you use alt-text properly behind the images (definitely a good practice!), chances are good that your recipients will miss your message completely!

4) Continue to Send Similar Content After a User Has Downloaded an Offer

“Someone came to my website and downloaded a whitepaper about multi-factor authentication, so I should continue to send content specific to that service, right?”

While it might seem intuitive to frame your follow-up email marketing around the first resource a visitor downloads, there is no way to know where their actual interest lies without doing a bit more digging. If you are overly presumptuous in the content you send your contacts, they could become frustrated and, ultimately, unsubscribe.

So how do you learn more about brand new contacts? There are a couple of ways. One, you could wait for them to download additional resources before you determine the content you continue to send them. Or two, you could send them opportunities to tell you what else they might be interested in. Emails with multiple offers or short surveys can be a very effective way to learn more about your contact base.

5) Appeal to Potential Subscribers With a Deal They Can’t Pass Up

“I need to reach more people with my email messages, so I should pitch new subscribers an offer they can’t resist, right?”

Tempting as this strategy may be in growing your database, keep in mind that attracting the wrong visitors – those that aren’t a good fit for your product or service – to your opt-in conversion point will only hurt your efforts. Like most inbound marketing strategies, quality trumps quantity when it comes to email marketing.

Instead, try offering an actual resource that the RIGHT visitor can’t pass up.

6) Choose a Single Opt-In Approach Because It Helps Capture More Contacts

“The first article I read mentioned I should definitely just use a single opt-in method for growing my contact database, so that’s what I should do, right?”

Sure, you could certainly do that. There are obviously advantages to that approach, like a higher conversion rate from prospect to subscriber. If you’re playing the numbers game, then that could mean higher profits ultimately.

However, you shouldn’t take that approach simply because an article suggested it, especially if the article didn’t mention the disadvantages of the single opt-in approach. The thing about making it incredibly easy to become a subscriber with a single opt-in is that your mailing list could fill up with mistyped email addresses or people who never actually wanted to be on your list due to bots or ill-intended folks.

Of course, these aren’t necessarily reasons to go the double opt-in route either. When it comes to your mailing list, it’s a good idea to test each approach for a period of time, analyze the results, then move forward accordingly.

If you want to read more about the pros and cons of each approach, check out this article for a holistic view. Simply choosing a direction for your strategy based on something someone on the internet said is never a sound reason.

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All of the Social Media Metrics That Matter

Did you know that when it comes to social media metrics, there are hundreds that you could be analyzing? But the real question is, do you know where to find them, and are they all necessary for your business. In this post, we’re going to look at the metrics you can gather from the top social networks and which ones matter most for your business.

Official Social Media Metrics

First, let’s look at the metrics you can get directly from the top social networks. Here’s how you find them and what you can learn from them.

Facebook Insights

Facebook offers the most comprehensive metrics for business pages. You can start by going to the Platform Insights page to see a list of all of your Facebook Pages currently tracking metrics.

When you click on the Page you want to analyze, you will be taken to that Page’s insights. Here, you will find an overview of your most important metrics, followed by detailed sections on your Likes, reach, visits, posts, and people.

The overview starts with your Page’s main metrics, including the following.

• Page Likes: Total Pages Likes is number of unique people who like your Page. New Page Likes shows the number of new Likes your Page received during the last seven days, compared with the previous seven-day period.
• Post Reach: Total Reach is the number of unique people who have seen any content associated with your Page, including ads, during the last seven days. Post Reach shows the number of unique people who have seen your Page posts.
• Engagement: People Engaged is the number of unique people who have clicked, Liked, commented on or shared your posts during the last seven days. Likes, Comments, Shares and Post Clicks show the totals for these actions during the last week.

Next, you will see an overview of the engagement on the last five posts to your Facebook Page. These metrics include the following.

• Reach: Post reach is the number of people who have seen your post. Your post counts as reaching someone when it’s shown in News Feed. Figures are for the first 28 days after a post was created and include people viewing your post on desktop and mobile.
• Engagement: People engaged is the number of unique people who’ve clicked, Liked, commented on or shared your Page posts. In the Overview section of your Page Insights, you can see People Engaged for the last seven days.

At the bottom of the Overview page, you will find metrics for Pages you watch, such as your competitor’s Facebook Pages. Metrics include the Page Likes and engagement for Page posts.

In the Likes section, you will find your net Likes, which combines the following metrics.

• Unlikes: Number of people who have unliked your Page.
• Organic Likes: Number of people who have Liked your Page not as a result of a Facebook Ad campaign.
• Paid Likes: Number of people who have Liked your Page as a result of a Facebook Ad campaign.

Beneath that, you will find a chart showing the source of your Likes. Included are the number of Likes you receive on your Facebook Page itself, from related Page suggestions on other Pages, posts that other people make on your Page and Likes from mobile users.

On the Reach tab, you can review two different sets of metrics that affect your reach. After a graph showing your overall organic versus paid reach, you will see a graph showing your overall post Likes, Comments, and Shares. If these metrics increase, you will reach more people organically.

Next, you will see how many times people on Facebook hide your post, report posts as spam or unlike your Page. If these metrics increase, you will reach less people organically.

On the Visits tab, you will see metrics for how many people visit specific areas on your Page. These metrics can help you determine if your custom apps are getting traffic and if you need to update specific tabs more often.

On the Posts tab, you will see detailed metrics for your Facebook Page posts. By default, you will start by viewing your post’s organic versus paid reach and the post clicks, Likes, comments and shares. Note that the Post Clicks metric means any click on your Facebook post itself and not just clicks from your post to a website link.

You can use the first drop-down to switch from seeing your organic versus paid reach to organic versus paid impressions. Note the difference in the reach versus impressions metrics.

• Impressions: The number of times a post from your Page is displayed, whether the post is clicked or not. People may see multiple impressions of the same post. For example, someone might see a Page update in News Feed once, and then a second time if their friend shares it.
• Reach: The number of people who received impressions of a Page post. Reach might be less than impressions since one person can see multiple impressions.

You can use the second drop-down to switch from seeing post clicks, Likes, comments and shares to seeing only Likes, comments and shares; post hides, spam reports and unlikes; or engagement rate percentage. The latter is defined as follows.

• Engagement Rate Percentage: Engagement rate is the percentage of people who saw a post that Liked, shared, clicked or commented on it.

On the People tab, you will find a breakdown of demographic metrics for your fans, the people you’ve reached with your Page posts and the people who have engaged with your Page posts. This information can be utilized to ensure that you are getting the right fans for your business and to create content that will appeal to your fans, those you reach and those you engage.

If those aren’t enough metrics for you, you can use the Export button at the top right of your Insights reports to export additional data about your Page, posts and videos uploaded directly to Facebook. These have raw data about your Page’s activity. What is helpful is that each metric is defined within the spreadsheet.

Those who upload video will especially love the in-depth video statistics, such as how often a video was viewed for three seconds, 30 seconds or 95% of the total video length.

For those who would prefer a simpler summary of their Facebook Insights, Sprout Social provides one simple report. First, you have the overall Page Likes, impressions and demographics.

Then you have an overview look at when people are sharing your content and how.

Finally, you have a simpler look at how people engage with specific posts on your Facebook Page.

This gives you the vital information you need about your Facebook Page in one report, versus in tab after tab.

Twitter Analytics

While not as detailed as Facebook, Twitter offers its own analytics for all account users. When you arrive at your analytics dashboard, you will be greeted by a 28-day summary of metrics and highlights for your activity by month. Included are the following metrics.

• Tweets: The number of Tweets you’ve posted to your account.
• Tweet Impressions: The number of people your Tweets have been seen by.
• Profile Visits: The number of people who have visited your profile.
• Mentions: The number of times your @username has been mentioned by others.
• Followers: The number of followers on your Twitter account.
• Tweets Linking to you: The number of Tweets attributed to you in Twitter Cards with URLs.

On the Tweets tab, you will see a 28-day summary of metrics for the Tweets you’ve shared. These metrics include the following.

• Engagement Rate: The number of total link clicks, Retweets, favorites, and replies your Tweets receive divided by the number of impressions.
• Link Clicks: The number of times links within your Tweets were clicked. This includes links to hashtags and other users mentioned in your Tweets.
• Retweets: The number of times your Tweets were retweeted by others.
• Favorites: The number of times your Tweets were favorited by others.
• Replies: The number of times people replied to your Tweets.

You can click on any Tweet on this screen to see detailed metrics for the it. Included in these metrics, you will find additional data with an explanation of each.

On the Followers tab, you will get a detailed breakdown of demographics, lifestyle, consumer behavior and mobile information about your followers.

For those who would prefer a simpler summary of their Twitter analytics, Sprout Social provides one simple report. In a quick glance, you can see your main metrics, follower demographics and publishing statistics.

Google+ Insights

Google+ does not offer many metrics for its Pages. If you visit your Page’s Dashboard and click on the Manage Your Page button, you will find an overview of your most important metrics plus a link to your Google+ Page Insights.

Inside, you will find three sections of data. The first is the Visibility section, which shows your total views, broken down by number of pageviews, post views and photo views.

In the Engagement section, you will see metrics about the posts to your Google+ page. These include total actions, +1’s, comments and shares. Beneath the detailed metrics for your posts, you will see average actions by post type.

In the Audience section, you get a quick demographics overview of your Page followers.

LinkedIn Analytics

When you visit your LinkedIn Company Page you can click on the Analytics tab to learn more about your post performance and audience, all in one page. First, you will see metrics for posts made by your Company Page. These metrics include the following.

• Impressions: The number of times the update was shown to LinkedIn members.
• Clicks: The number of clicks on your content, company name or logo.
• Interactions: The number of likes, comments and shares on your update.
• Followers: The number of followers you acquired when sponsoring an update.
• Engagement: The number of interactions divided by number of impressions.

Next, you will see information about your followers and how you compare to similar companies.

Finally, you will see some metrics for your number of page views, unique visitors and visitor demographics. You can use the drop-down to switch between seniority, industry, company size and function.

Pinterest Analytics

If you have a business account on Pinterest, you can access Pinterest analytics to learn more about your profile activity, audience and Pins. You will start on the Overview screen where you can see key metrics for your profile, audience, activity from your domain and most popular Pins.

In the Your Pinterest Profile section, you will see detailed metrics for your profile’s impressions, daily viewers and Pins. You can use the tabs at the top of the report to see top Pins based on number of impressions, Repins, clicks and all-time favorites.

In the Your Audience section, you can see metrics for your average monthly viewers, average monthly engaged and specific demographics and interests.

In the Activity from your domain section, you can see pinning activity from the website you have verified for your page using the Pin It button. You can use the tabs at the top to see top pins from your domain based on impressions, repins, clicks, and all-time favorites.

Google Analytics Metrics

Now that you know what kind of metrics you can get out of the top social media networks, let’s discuss the most crucial metrics for your business. Using Google Analytics goals, you can learn more about conversions on your website, such as product sales, lead submissions, and email subscriptions. Combine your goals with the built-in social media reports within Google Analytics, and you can find out which social networks are best for your business.

Under the Acquisition section, you will find a few useful social media reports to help you determine which social networks drive traffic and customers to your website. In the Social Overview, you will get a quick look at the top social networks driving traffic to your website and the total value of the traffic you have received.

Under Social Referrals, you will get a more detailed breakdown of the following metrics based on social network referral traffic.

• Sessions: The periods of time when a user is active on your website.
• Pageviews: Instances of a page being loaded (or reloaded) in a browser.
• Avg. Session Duration: The average length of sessions on your website.
• Pages / Session: The average number of pages viewed per session.

In the Social Conversions report, you will see which social networks specifically lead to conversions on your website, along with dollar values (assuming you set your Google Analytics goal up with a specific dollar value per conversion).

These reports can help you determine where to focus your energy when it comes to specific social media networks. More than tracking followers and engagement, they will show you which networks ultimately help your bottom line.

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How to Craft an Effective Call to Action

Anyone running an online business is familiar with the classic Call to Action (CTA). Often filled with active verbs enticing us to “Buy Now,” “Download Our Whitepaper,” or “Sign up for Our Newsletter,” CTAs are a critical part of any online marketing strategy.

However, as your site grows and you have more content to promote, it’s easy to abuse the call to action. We’ve all seen this turn ugly—the cluttered marketing sites with twenty different calls to action clamoring for your attention as soon as you hit the page. Multiple brightly colored buttons each begging you to “Click Here” aren’t doing the site or the business any favors. These sites are like pushy used car salesmen whose eagerness and enthusiasm comes off as desperate and spammy.

Conversely, a strategically-placed CTA will attract interest and yield a radically higher conversion rate, giving visitors just the right prompt at just the right moment. If a site with multiple calls to action is the pushy used car salesman, a site with a strategic CTA is the seasoned sales professional, who builds a relationship and rapport with the consumer before moving to close the deal.

Consider Context

Call to action text is one of the most often tested ingredients of a landing page, and for good reason. Upgrading a vague, generic CTA to one that communicates value and prompts action can yield huge increases in conversion rates, so optimizing your CTA textis well worth the time and energy. But even a perfectly-worded call to action can be improved by considering it within the broader context of a website’s design.

A great sales pitch isn’t made by the closing line—it’s everything that leads up to the ask. The same is true of the call to action on your website. Even if you nail the verbiage on the button itself, if the aesthetics and content of a landing page aren’t designed to support and lead into the CTA, the conversion rate will suffer. A great call to action will fit seamlessly within the flow of a landing page so that when a visitor reads (or scans) the page, the CTA provides a clear and compelling next step.

A common practice is to ensure that the call to action is placed “above the fold,” and there is certainly still value in showing important information near the top of the page. However, studies have shown that when the CTA is placed precisely at the point where the visitor has the information they need to make their decision, rather than placed above the fold, ityields a higher conversion rate. So rather than arbitrarily forcing a CTA higher on the page, look at the page from a visitor’s perspective, and see where the call to action best fits in the overall flow of the content and design. Finding the right position for the CTA requires an understanding of the visitor’s expectations and an anticipation of their state of mind.

Understand Your Audience

So how do we understand our websites’ visitors? A/B testing and analytics give us valuable data about where visitors are clicking and which content is converting at a higher rate, but they don’t tell us about our visitors’ needs and motivations. The needs and motivations of our visitors are qualitative, as opposed to quantitative data such as analytics and A/B testing. The only way to get this qualitative data is to talk with your visitors. Spend time building a relationship with your audience and talking with them about why they do what they do.

Here are some ways to gain a deeper understanding of your audience:

1. Talk face-to-face. Emails, phone calls, and Google Hangouts can provide a backup option when it’s not feasible to meet with members of your audience in person, but there’s just no substitute to sitting down and talking in person. Being physically present helps nurture the relationship and will create a sense of trust and openness that you won’t get from a phone call. This feeling of openness will allow your customer to speak more freely, and you will gain a better understanding as a result.
2. Have a conversation, not an interview. Rather than grilling your audience trying to extract information from them, have a genuine conversation with them. Allow them to tell you about the problems they’re trying to overcome, struggles with their job, and the motivations behind why they do what they do.
3. Watch your audience use your product—even if that product is a blog. Ask them to go through some of their common tasks and talk about what they’re doing while they do it. Ask why they do things the way they do. The great thing about observing is that you can spot telling behaviors that your audience may not even be consciously aware of—things they wouldn’t be able to tell you themselves.

Use this new understanding of your visitors to optimize your content and call to action for what motivates them. Instead of focusing on a list of features, speak to how you’re going to solve their problems and meet their needs. When visitors understand the larger value of your solution and how it fits with their specific needs, they’re ready to take the next step. That’s when they should see your clear, compelling call to action.

A Truly Great Call to Action

A great call to action is more than just the words within the button. It’s knowing your audience well enough to know where the CTA should be on the page—the right moment when they’re ready for that prompt to take the next step.

To get to this level of meaningful understanding, you need more than just A/B testing and analytics data. Take the time to talk and listen to your audience, and you’ll be more fully equipped to create content—and a call to action—that resonates with their needs.

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