Animoto–Custom videos made easy

A few weeks ago, a friend sent me a link to a video for a charity.  I was impressed with the video and commented on it.  Nice pictures.  Catchy music.  I thought to myself, “that must have taken forever to make.”  While video production isn’t my forte, I know a few who do it and know the time commitment involved.  At the time, I took note that the video was hosted on Animoto, but thought nothing of it.

Fast forward to this weekend, I was reading this article in Forbes magazine discussing the online video boom.  We all know about Youtube.  But what about some of the others?  Animoto was listed, and I got curious.  Well, I signed up for a count to “kick the tires”.  A few pictures here and there, pick a song from their music library and….voila!  I’ve got a 30-second video of the pictures I uploaded of our kids to share.  Pretty neat, huh?

Here’s how it works.  You upload the pictures you want to include and pick the song you want.  You also have the option to upload your own song.  Under normal circumstances, I would definitely upload a song from my music library.  Animoto’s is pretty limited.  After you’ve got the pictures and the music, Animoto analyzes the pictures and sets them to the music you’ve selected.

Animoto does allow you to pull your photos from other sites if you’ve already uploaded them.  You can also easily share your new video creation on Facebook, Twitter, post on your website or email it to friends and family.  By the way, did I mention that this service is free?  There is Animoto for business that charges a fee for an annual subscription or a 3-month trial.

After about 30 minutes of playing around, here’s what I created on Animoto.  Enjoy!

Is anybody out there?

Over the course of this blog, I have looked at why you should use social media to promote yourself or your business.  We know that people from various backgrounds are using it, but who, exactly, is out there?

I found this article today to be quite interesting.  I think that, to a degree, the general consensus has been that younger people were using social media.  This trend continues to be the case, however, take a close look at the numbers that were run between Q2 of 2008 and 2009 of those demographic groups that are using social networks:

The age group under age 35 was up 20%.  Not a big surprise.  However, take a look at the next two groups!  Users age 35-54 has doubled and those users over age 55 has tripled!

Take this into consideration.  Your potential audience through social media is becoming larger and more diverse.  There are more connections to make.  More strategies that you may have to use to connect with these various groups.