The Wall Street Journal has an article that is a nice follow-up to my post from yesterday on improving the effectiveness of websites for small business.
One of the downsides of web sales is that they can take away the personal aspect of a business, which for many entrepreneurs is so important. But, as the web evolves, entrepreneurs are finding creative ways to bring back the intimacy so important for many small businesses. From the Wall Street Journal:
Online video has become a daily fix for millions of people. Now entrepreneurs are starting to cash in on that obsession.
Consider Valentina Trevino. The 29-year-old Chicago artist and filmmaker regularly posts videos on YouTube, showing how she created a painting and what it means to her — and musing quirkily on a host of matters. In one clip, she ruminates about the strange connection between the ballerinas in Edgar Degas’s art and Britney Spears’s custody battles.
Here and here are examples that the author links to in the article.
Using tools like YouTube and blogs to tell your story can help to personally connect with your cyber-based customers. For example, if you sell free trade coffee over the Internet, show videos of the farmers you buy from while you tell of why selling free trade coffee is important to you. If you sell hand-made toys, post a video showing the care that is taken when making your product — maybe even add some narrative from one of your employees on why they love what they do.
Like any web tool, don’t forget the importance of keeping things fresh. Regular updates of such videos will help ensure that people will keep coming back.
There’s no doubt that videos can be a great way for small businesses to jazz up their site and really get the conversation going with customers and visitors.
But from the feedback we’ve had with business owners who have dabbled with youtube and other generic, enetertainment players there is some concern.
There are fears that using Youtube and the like can seem unprofessional and can result in viewers heading off site once a video is played. Additionally, some small business videos are pulled because the content is not deemed suitable by the Youtube community.
It seems that video will really take off for SMBs/SMEs when a credible, professional, lowcost video provider enters the space with an offering tailored to their needs.