VIDEO HAS CHANGED THE WEB

Video has totally changed the Web. Forty-five percent of Americans 12-64 say they watch video on the Web at least once a week. While many of those videos are silly YouTube entries posted by teenagers wanting their 15 minutes of fame, viewers also report that they will watch a video on a company’s site that they are considering doing business with, even if they wouldn’t navigate through multiple pages on the site.

What that tells us is that selling our association, our contractor members or our contracting businesses can be done efficiently by placing a well-designed video on the Web site’s home page. At least 75% of Web sites we design today have video on at least the home page, and often on other pages within the site. We want to keep visitors on the site and video does just that. We monitor results to our sites and find that the video is viewed by nearly every visitor.

Things to keep in mind when you consider adding video to your Web site:
• The production must be professionally produced by a production company who understands the processes involved in producing for the Web.
• Make it easy for visitors to “click to enlarge” your video so they aren’t forced to watch the video in a tiny format.
• You or your production company will have to consider the bandwidth needs of your users to avoid lengthy downloads.
• Your video should not exceed 3 or 4 minutes. Attention spans of Web users are short, and getting shorter all the time.

Write down the critical points you want to share with viewers and keep your video focused on those points. Your audio and video should always support each other, so don’t use pretty pictures unless they help drive home your critical points.

While the Webinars, and other Chicago MCA education programs, offer incredible value to contractors, the PR garnered from these offerings is just as valuable. Every business editor in America is looking for information to publish about green building. When a general contractor, developer or engineer reads that the MCA offers cutting edge educational programs to their contractor members they can’t help but connect the dots and realize that those contractors have the edge in green building

As most of you know, there is a video entitled “What is a Mechanical Contractor” available to you through the Promises with Proof campaign. You can view it on the Web templates on the www.mcaproof.com site. If you need assistance with the details of producing your own video, or want to customize the “What is a Mechanical Contractor” video, contact us for assistance.