Three (FREE) Video Tools That Will Have Your Competition Squirming

If a new social media channel launched tomorrow, how quickly would you look into whether you could use it for your business?

Are you an early adopter? Or are you in the middle with the majority adopters?

Maybe you are what Everett M. Rogers labeled the laggard, and you’ll use the shiny new toy after everyone else already is.

I’ve had to train myself to become an early adopter for my business. I can’t be the last one to learn how to use a new social media channel for small business marketing or my clients will miss out. Unfortunately, learning how to effectively use new technology translates into more work. And I think that’s why many people tend to fall into the late majority adopters or laggards groups.

We’re exhausted. We can’t keep up. Stop already!

Unfortunately, this mindset will push us behind. If you keep doing things exactly as you are, without looking for opportunities to improve, you will miss out on opportunities to really grow your business.

Let’s look at this from a content marketing perspective. Are your blog posts mostly text? Are your social media updates text and images? Here’s some good news and bad news. Let’s start with the bad first, you need to consider using more video with your content marketing. And now for the good news, here are three really easy-to-use tools and they’re free!

Powtoon

Create animated videos and presentations with Powtoon. The program offers an extensive free version that places a small message at the end of your video. The message doesn’t appear with paid subscriptions. Use Powtoon to create explainer or how-to videos, product announcements, social updates, and so much more. Take a look at the book announcement Kate Russell created. She used an animated, humorous video to announce her book and virtual book signing event.

Screencast – 0 – Matic

Screencast-o-matic is really simple to use. One click and you’ve downloaded the program. Another click and you’re recording your screen with or without audio. You are also able to record your screen and webcam at the same time. Not many programs allow you to do that.

Use screencast-o-matic for explainer or how-to videos, such as when training someone or as part of an educational product. The video below is one I created to show my audience how to turn their LinkedIn profile into a lead generating machine. Tip: Screencast-o-matic allows you to upload directly to YouTube instead of saving the video to your computer. Do this because when you save it to the computer and then upload to YouTube, the video quality is compromised.

Ezvid

Ezvid is a free screen recorder. The website won’t tell you one thing about it, but they do host an explainer video on the homepage (see below). The program allows you to create really cool videos for product demonstrations, short commercials, business promos, you name it. Use it to share a business update, holiday message, or product announcement. They even offer a music library so you can set your video to music.

 

OK, no more excuses. Here’s a challenge. Use one of these tools to create a video for your business. Share it with me here and we’ll share it across all our channels and with the myMarketing Cafe audience.