There is no question that video plays an imperative role in the development of the internet. In a previous article we pointed out how video can help increase conversion rates while decreasing cart abandonment for ecommerce sites, and it is an important component across multiple industries.
Archive for the ‘Technology’ category
The Hidden Cost of Inexpensive Video
December 15th, 2010
Online Video Increases Sales, Lowers Cart Abandonment
June 2nd, 2010eMarketer just released a fantastic report titled: “Video E-Commerce: Innovative Models Drive Sales” you can get a hold of it HERE. According to the report, retailers know what consumers want and that is online video. This helps sites stand out among their competitors, lower shopping cart abandonment, and increase sales.
Jeffrey Grau, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report comments, “Retailers are making the case that videos boost their sales conversion rate, a measure of the increase in the percentage of shoppers who make a purchase after viewing a product video. “
Continue reading article at VideoAptitude.com
Video Article: In-House vs. Full-Service Production
May 3rd, 2010Companies are quickly seeing the importance of integrating video into their online communication strategies. Whether it is viral videos to increase brand presence, informative videos that help educate customers and position a company as subject matter experts, or the increasingly popular product videos that online retailers and consumers demand: video is important and will become a higher priority for online sites.
Continue reading article at VideoAptitude.com
Managing Multiple Twitter Profiles
February 25th, 2010
For those who manage multiple Twitter profiles (either for your own brand(s) or on behalf of your clients), it is very helpful to utilize a platform for centralizing content posts and monitoring conversations. This allows you to have a single login for all of the profiles you manage and keep things nice and organized.
There are several good Twitter management tools out there that will save you a lot of time. I prefer the HootSuite client – it’s free and has many cool features.
A Few Standout Features:
1. Manage Multiple Profiles: You can set up multiple Twitter profiles to manage from your single HootSuite interface. Each profile is very easy to navigate and just a click to switch between.
2. Schedule Tweets: This is key for work-flow efficiency. If you know you’ll be in meetings or traveling all day, you can schedule your tweets the night before. Or you can schedule everything out for the rest of the week – whatever works best with your process.
3. Manage Conversations: For each profile, you can easily create lists to organize followers, monitor mentions of your brand, monitor industry buzz topics, and the list goes on…
4. Manage Users: You can create users under your HootSuite account and grant them access to certain Twitter profiles.
5. Cool iPhone App: Very intuitive iPhone app for on-the-go tweeting.
Below is a video tour from the HootSuite site:
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Questions or thoughts? Feel free to leave a comment below or shoot me an email.
Cheers,
Forest
Dual Monitors – The Key to Efficiency
August 1st, 2009I was first introduced to dual computer monitors in 2007. Prior to that I worked from my 14″ laptop or a 19″ desktop monitor. Jumping into dual monitors of any size was quite exciting and has since completely changed my work-flow.
Now I primarily work with dual 22″ Dell monitors, (see photo below), and would recommend the approach to everyone. When I have to work from my laptop while traveling or on another machine, productivity is significantly reduced. If you only did 1 task on the computer (say look at your Outlook and reply to emails), a single monitor would suffice. But if you work with multiple applications open (perhaps a web browser, your Outlook client, MS word and Excel) and utilize several for the same task, dual monitors will change your life. If they don’t, please email me and I’ll take you to coffee so we can talk about it.
Why You Need Dual Monitors
1. Reduced Clutter: Instead of having a bunch of overlapping windows on your desktop, you can have two separate areas with clean organization.
2. Reference Multiple Applications: This is a big one. Most of the work I do on the computer requires me to be looking at two or more applications. Commonly I’m making entries to an Excel file while looking at an Analytics report in Firefox. Or I’m composing an email or other document and referencing a web page and 1 or more word documents. The list of examples goes on, but having separation of these documents and seeing them all at once is much more efficient then opening and closing to view (or even having them reduced in size to fit on one monitor).
3. Affordable Productivity: The cost of monitors has gone way down. I saw a new 24″ HD Dell monitor the other day on sale for $140 and you can likely find better deals than that. For the marginal $125-$200 depending on your taste, cost shouldn’t be a major factor.
4. More Output from Employees: If you have employees, get them dual monitor setups. They will think that you are a really cool boss, but more importantly they perform more efficiently. let’s say you have 15 employees. Pop for the extra $2000-$3000 one-time expense and get them all poised for more productive work. It may be the smartest few thousand bucks you’ve spent.
I can go on about the benefits, but the point is that if you want to get more done, then get dual-monitors. Don’t believe me? Check out this article from the New York Times on the subject. They note a study that found: “…that people who used two 20-inch monitors were 44 percent more productive at certain text-editing operations than people using a single 18-inch monitor.”
Here is one of my setups: 22″ Dell HD monitors via 512MB ATI Radeon HD 4350 graphics card.
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Questions or thoughts? Feel free to leave a comment below or shoot me an email.
Cheers,
Forest
