Video – Clix

CLIX-iversary: Eric Noll

Clix — Fri, 08 Dec 2017 14:09:54 +0000

We welcomed Eric Noll to the Clix team one year ago today! Since then he’s been managing accounts, winning scrabble games, and drinking coffee— lots and lots of coffee. Happy one year, Eric! We’re so happy you’re a part of the Clix family!

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The Importance of Blogging

Clix — Fri, 18 Aug 2017 16:41:21 +0000

Blogging can help your business in ways like improving your SEO to becoming an industry leader.
All you have to do is create a blog that is informational, interesting, and well-liked. Now, watch the real expert, Kelly, explain the rest!

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The Importance of Internal Videos

Clix — Wed, 09 Aug 2017 15:00:48 +0000

Over the past few years, video has been the ever-increasing form of digital media. Content ranging from news articles to a simple blog post about, let’s say, The Importance of Using Coconut Oil all seem to contain one visually intriguing aspect: video. We, the public, have had the amazing opportunity to learn by reading about anything and everything since the printing press in 1440 and especially since we gained access to the world wide web in 1991 (Emspak & Zimmerman). We’ve consumed that knowledge and used it to the best of our abilities in classrooms or perhaps just for pleasure in a public library. Now we can have that information just about fed to us. All we need to do is sit lifelessly in front of a screen, watch, and listen. How great is that?

Inc. put what I’m saying into statistics. They explained, embedding a video in a landing page has the ability to increase conversion rates by 80%. For businesses, that is huge. Also, placing a video in marketing email campaigns can increase click-through rates by 200-300%. Imagine how that could aid a struggling business. Lastly, by 2019, video is believed to obtain more than 80% of web traffic. WHAT. I cannot fathom what video being 80% of all web traffic would look like. Anywho, I’m not here to talk to you about how video has increased and conclusively changed the game, not just with online marketing, but with the Internet in general. I want to explain how internal videos have affected Clix employee interactions, potential hires and prospecting clients.

To start things off, I am going to give you a bit of history about myself. I started working at Clix almost a year ago and it is my first ‘real’ job out of school. I’ve had internships in which I was working alongside a team, but nothing to this manner. To get the video ball rolling in my new position, we decided to do a boatload of internal videos. In only four weeks, we created 46 videos. That averages to 2.3 videos a day. The projects ranged from MySpace surveys that the team completed to FAQs about what goes on at Clix. Not to mention the short series in which our CEO broke down the importance of all things digital marketing. You could say that helped me get to know the team very well. SO, if that helped me understand the people I’m working with and the company I’m working for, imagine how it would influence an outsider– or even an insider.

A lot of our videos are humorous and that alone has increased the interaction of our employees. We were able to see and interact with everyone’s lighthearted and fun side. Work is work, but there’s also an opportunity to have productive, yet fun time with video. Take this Beauty and the Beast remake trailer. We made this when the new Beauty and the Beast was about to be released in theatres and, therefore, it was trending on social media. To make Clix prominent, the social media manager, Blake, and I decided to edit our employees into the new trailer. Here’s the result:

The video is short, entertaining and everyone had a great time filming. It gained traffic for Clix’s instagram account and besides being flagged on YouTube for copyright laws (oops), it was a huge success. The internal videos give those of us who work at Clix a second to laugh with the people who we debatably spend most of our time with. These are the people we learn to love, and to be able to laugh with them is something we cannot take for granted.

As for outside parties looking at our website, the videos provide a similar experience. Since working here, one of the best bits of feedback I received was from our CEO Jason. He explained that because of the videos, his friends knew Clix. To provide insight into how our company operates and interacts is a huge benefit– not to mention, what this does for potential employees. Since January, Clix has hired four new employees. I asked each of these individuals if the internal videos on our website / YouTube channel influenced their decision to join Clix and all of them agreed they did. Our new digital strategist even went as far to say that the videos swayed him to sign the offer letter. It’s difficult to say if we would still have these individuals without the videos, but that resounding “yes” from the new employees shows how powerful and influential internal videos can be. Ultimately, it can attract the kind of employee you are looking for and, therefore, decipher the business between good and great.

Potential clients also absorb the content a company puts out, whether it is professional or not. Though some of Clix’s clients have never met the team in person, they simply need to go to our YouTube or Facebook to encounter all of us and our personalities. We are no longer just a marketing team that relays information in quarterly meetings, discovering new ways to make your business grow and to aid your online presence. Well, we are, but we also are the people who say corny pickup lines on Valentine’s Day; we are the team that makes a video regarding the broken soap dispenser in the men’s room because it scarred all the males in the office, and we are the employees that have hobbies, and we want to share those with you. We are not all data and analytics, and we feel it is important to have that outlet. Though this all seems well and dandy, there are a couple of things to look out for regarding internal videos.

If clients see videos that have nothing to do with marketing or campaigns during the work hours, they may believe we are not using our time (and their money) to the best of our abilities. To aid this, we do our best for the videos to take the least amount of time and to link the content to marketing in one way or another. Though the Clix culture is fun and the employees here would say that the best part of working here is the people, there certainly are quiet days. It is not a party all the time and things do get serious, which is why throwing an educational video into the mix is beneficial so that potential employees know what to expect when coming to Clix.

To sum things up, internal videos are vitally important for the office atmosphere as it provides an outlet for the team to bond, it draws in potential employees that will mix well with the company, and it also builds and maintains relationships with clients. They say ‘a picture is worth a thousand words,’ well a video is essentially hundreds (if not thousands) of pictures sequenced together. The power and influence is undeniable and will do nothing but help your goal, your business, and your future.

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VIDEO TUTORIAL: Double exposure effect in Photoshop

Clix — Fri, 23 Oct 2015 15:15:18 +0000

Double Exposure Effect Video Tutorial

There is a very popular trend of creating double exposure effects for web, motion, and print graphics.

How to Create the Double Exposure Effect

The process is actually quite simple and I created a short video to show a simple and basic way to create this effect.

You will need 3 things for this tutorial…

Photoshop (obviously)
A portrait photo
A landscape photo

The Final Double Exposure Effect Result

This is my first video tutorial but if I get a decent feedback, I will be shoot some more. I hope you enjoy the video and thank you for watching.

Meet Michael

Some of Michael’s work

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YouTube Goes Offline…

Mon, 22 Sep 2014 22:04:36 +0000

Google recently announced that YouTube will be available offline in India. The reasoning for this being that the majority of the country doesn’t have access to high speed internet connections. So, to make YouTube more functional for them there will be the option of downloading the videos that they love so much directly to their phones. This means that users in India will be able to play their videos offline.

Now I’m sure the next question you’re going ask is “What about video rights?” Well, Google will set the video defaults so that the videos can be downloaded, but the user who uploads the video can opt out of that setting so that it can’t be downloaded and played offline. It’s Google’s goal to bring the standard smartphone experience to those in India and by having access to your favorite movies at all times, even without an internet connection, it’s a step in the right direction.

We all have favorite videos on YouTube that we watch to make us laugh, songs we love to listen too, or videos that we like to share with friends and Caesar Sengupta, vice president, product management at Google said, “You find videos you like, you tend to watch them over and over again.” Now, users in India will have YouTube availability at all times so that they can share in the experience just like everyone else. YouTube is taking great steps to ensure that India’s YouTube experience is the best it can be and this only the start.

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Keying A Green Screen In Adobe Premiere Elements 12 For Mac

Wed, 03 Sep 2014 15:58:22 +0000

Here is a quick and easy tutorial for keying a green screen in Adobe Premiere Elements 12 for Mac. Due to the fact that the Mac version does not offer a built in preset for this, it’s fairly difficult to produce if you don’t know what you’re looking for. However, once you find it, it’s pretty straight forward. So take a look and see for yourself. Thanks for the click and enjoy!

Contact The Clix Group for more information!

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How to add transcriptions and captions to a YouTube video

Clix — Wed, 27 Aug 2014 20:24:51 +0000

While there are many ways to SEO your videos, adding a video transcription is a huge bonus because search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo! can read the text. Adding a transcription text file can greatly increase the possibility of your videos ranking higher in search engines. Generating these transcripts can also give your audience the option to view the content in written form or video form.

Adding video transcriptions and captions to your YouTube video can be a frustrating process if you don’t know how to do it properly. In my last blog post I discusses what a video transcription is and why it’s important. Let’s jump in to the how-to. This blog post will discuss how to upload your text file to YouTube.

You can add video transcriptions and captions to YouTube in one of two ways: Make sure you are logged into YouTube and then go to your Video Manager and click on the “subtitles and cc” tab. You’ll be able to type what was said in your video directly into the video transcript text box. Or you can create a transcript file. (You should already have this if you used SpeechPad.)

Copy and paste the text from the file into YouTube. Make sure you convert file into a plain txt file if you haven’t already done that. To convert the file you can use programs like Notepad or TextEdit.

Select the original spoken language of the video {example: English} from the drop-down menu. Then click on the “add subtitles or cc” button and click the language in which the transcript in written. Once you’ve selected a language you can now upload the text file.

The file will auto-populate and you can then go in and set the timing of each caption/subtitle. You want to make sure the timing is set perfectly.

Once you have finished editing the time frames click save and Presto! You’re video transcription has been complete!

To learn more about optimizing videos and other inbound marketing services, contact The Clix Group.

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How To Create An Animated Lower Third In Premiere Elements 12

Wed, 20 Aug 2014 18:57:53 +0000

Learn how to create a simple and easy animated third in Adobe Premiere Elements 12. The animated lower third will add an extra level of polish to your finished product. Hope this helps!

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5 Video Interview Tips

Thu, 14 Aug 2014 15:12:42 +0000

Here are 5 tips for setting up a professional interview on the web (even if it’s your first try).

1. Equipment makes all the difference. So if you’re not using high end products, research them and understand the best settings to maximize their output. For example, if you’re using a lower end microphone, place the microphone as close to the speaker’s mouth as possible without it being in the shot and lower the internal volume on the camera settings so as to avoid the microphone from picking up any ambient noise or that awful background hiss we all know and hate!

2. Lighting in terms of visuals can make or break the shoot. If the subject looks too hard or has too much contrast, try placing the lighting so that it illuminates the person without washing out their appearance. Usually the easiest way to achieve this is by using 3 points of lighting. One placed in front of the subject, to the side of the subject, and behind the subject. It’s a tricky line to tow, but ultimately lighting has the power to turn your average shoot into an impressive one!

3. The composition of the interview is also very important. When shooting an interview utilize the rule of thirds. By placing your subject where the lines intersect it will create a much more compelling visual for the viewer that will garner their attention for much longer. Additionally, the golden ratio can be applied. The golden ratio follows along the same lines as the rule of thirds by placing the subject to either side of the middle in the first or third segment of the visual that is divided into thirds.

4. The background of your shoot is just as important as the foreground. When setting up the shot, the subject is to be the point of focus, so don’t have busy backgrounds and if you can’t help it utilize a depth of field shot to focus on the subject and leave the background blurry.

5. Eye lines are very important during the interview process. When shooting the interview place yourself just to the left or right of the camera depending upon which side the subject prefers. By having your subject looking near the camera and not directly into it, the viewer will feel more comfortable and at ease.

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Video SEO

Clix — Tue, 12 Aug 2014 15:20:13 +0000

What is Video SEO?

Video SEO is the optimization of video content to increase discoverability in the SERPs. Identifying video content by placing targeted keywords throughout a website page will optimize the page for search engines. This points to the location of the content for search bots.

Why are they important?

Video transcriptions are a textual representation of the content spoken in a video or audio file. Because search engines only crawl text, a transcription enables search engines to understand the subject matter of videos. Adding captions will also increase SEO. Caption files uploaded to YouTube are indexed by both Google and YouTube which will boost rank and allow for a higher placement within search results.

How do video transcriptions improve on-page SEO?

On-page SEO is defined by text elements on a page and are easily identified when viewing a webpage. Those elements include URL structure, page title, description, headers and also image alt text. These should all be created with a keyword phrase in mind. By adding transcriptions it is also adding to the keyword density on the page, or the number of times a targeted word is placed throughout the page. Reviewing your transcription can also help you determine which is the best keyword phrase to target as well.

How do I transcribe a video?

If you don’t want to take the time to write out the entire video transcription by yourself, I would recommend using a third-party platform called SpeechPad. SpeechPad is a very easy to use tool that will transcribe your videos for just $1 per minute. Once they send you the text file of your video transcription the next step is adding that transcription file to YouTube.

Adding a video transcription can be a frustrating process. Stay tuned for my next blog post where I will show you how to add your video transcription to your YouTube video.

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