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Computerworld's David Ramel has posted a great tutorial, "How to get yourself on YouTube, for business or pleasure." I'd recommend it for anyone who's been thinking about posting a video on this site but isn’t sure how to get started. Come to think of it, I’d also recommend it for those who haven’t thought at all about online video. After you read this you should have lots of ideas about using online video for your company.

Ramel even provides a live video demonstration of how he composed and uploaded his own video. The article provides a fairly comprehensive overview of why and where you should be using online video, plus a brief introduction to how it's done. He suggests several ways video can be used effectively in corporate communications:

• Executive presentations and company events: share important announcements, commentary and special events with your employees and customers with online video
• Employee training: I'd include customer training, too
• Help desk demonstrations: don't just tell; show
• Marketing: "A picture is worth a thousand words, and thousands of pictures streamed together at 29.97 frames per second is worth a lot more," Ramel writes. This is where video sharing often shines best.

It doesn’t take a big production to have a big impact. We recently launched an all-new website at www.ktron.com, and I wanted to see if the search engines had indexed our new pages. On the first page of search results for "single screw feeder" I found a video I had posted on PowderandBulk.com showing K-Tron’s S60 Single Screw Volumetric Feeder.

Some Production Tips
Ramel suggests these settings for the best results on YouTube. I checked with PowderandBulk.com's publisher, Joe Taylor, and he says these are a good choice for this site, too:

• MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid) format   
• 320x240 resolution   
• MP3 audio   
• 30 frames per second (technically 29.97)

Try Two Camcorders
Another good idea from Ramel: use two camcorders, capturing the same thing from different angles, or different things that are happening at the same time. Not only does this allow you more creativity in putting the final video together, as Ramel suggests, it also gives you much more latitude in editing for the very best sound bites without annoying jump cuts.

Don Dunnington
Blog Moderator