However, with a smart commenting strategy, you can attract the type of traffic you want.

In the Internet marketing industry, establishing relationships is the most effective way to increase your traffic. By adding comments to blog posts that have value, the blogger will begin to recognize your name. Through this growing relationship, they may eventually start sending you a significant amount of traffic.

So what exactly is “valuable” commenting? Consider the following suggestions:

• Read the post thoroughly and only make a comment if you have something interesting or important to say. And no, “what a great post” does not count as something important to say.

• Join in on existing conversations about the post. Add your own thoughts to the conversation after you have thoroughly read what is already present.

• Offer any additional resources where readers can find more information. The blogger will see you as a source of relevant information and value your comments.

• Choose one specific thing from the article to comment about and add some further insight into the topic.

If you use commenting as a way to develop relationships and stay active in the community of your peers, it can be a successful traffic strategy. If you use commenting as an easy way out of writing your own original, thoughtful content, you may find it falls short of your expectations.

So, now is your chance to share with us. What are your valuable thoughts on blog commenting as a traffic strategy?

Photo courtesy of john_a_ward

Today Kurt Krejny, Fathom’s Director of Online Marketing, talks about how you can promote a unified and positive culture through your intranet. He also gives examples of how Fathom uses it’s intranet for things like sharing special thank notes to colleagues.

Check it out and see if you can better use your intranet.

According to the article, Internet users in America engaged in over 6.2 BILLION video viewing sessions in June of 2011 – the largest amount of viewing ever recorded - with the definition of ‘engagement’ in a viewing session as “a period of time with continuous video viewing followed by a 30-minute period of video inactivity.”

Leaving all the granular stats to your own reading pleasure with the article itself, what this means for online video is continued massive upward growth. For producers of web videos, look for more new clients to jump on your bandwagons as they realize the reach and ease of web video as an advertsing and marketing vehicle. For businesses especially trying to reach the 20-to-50 year-old consumer demographic, your best shot at listening ears and watching eyes for your brand messages and commercial pitches is through Internet video. It’s that simple.

Fathom makes great-looking and impressively priced online videos for commercial B2B customers of all types. Reach out and contact us today to discuss how our Internet video marketing can help your business reach new heights in leads and sales.

This week, a Fathom Video producer shares her insight on using YouTube promoted videos and the most important feature. This feature allows you to measure success on YouTube past the view count; it allows you to calculate the impact of the video on site traffic.

Check it out to discover this key YouTube feature!

Stay tuned for the next “Fathom That?!” on how to make the best of your company’s Intranet.

An email campaign can now strategically display HTML5-ready messages to those on your mailing list with HTML5-capable email services. The impact of this integration is huge, as the Hotmail web mail client displays HTML5 video in Chrome, Firefox, and IE9. IE8, which does not support HTML5, still can only show an animated GIF video.

Below is our Email Campaign Service testing HTML5 in Hotmail. Surprisingly, this player also works in a few other clients, such as Outlook 2011 for Mac. Hopefully, this is the start of what will become a large adoption of some form of video into email!

This week, Brittany talks to us about how to leverage Twitter Promoted Accounts to help build your following. She also mentions promoting individual tweets and how you can draw more attention to certain tweets most important to your business.

Listen along and tweet away!

Don’t forget to check back next Friday to learn about YouTube Promoted Accounts! And in case you missed it, check out Episode 1 – “How to Optimize Content for Your E-commerce Site.”

This week, Matt Messenger, our resident E-commerce expert, discusses 5 simple tricks to optimize your e-commerce site content.  These tips can help your business build itself as a credible vendor on the Internet and increase online sales.

Take a look! And Check back next week when Brittany, a PPC and Social Media specialist, will talk about building a Twitter following using Promoted Accounts.

We chose Page Plus Cellular – a long-standing video client who’ve enjoyed numerous online video pieces from Fathom in the past few years. The video, introducing a nefarious and diabolical madman of cell phone fees-overcharging destruction, is “Bill Shock,” played with utter abandon and wreckless enthusiasm by one of Fathom’s professional acting talents. The script, videography and action-packed special effects are all courtesy of Fathom’s cosmically college-spawned video squad – resulting in a video so excellent and original that it prompted Denny Scher of Page Plus Cellular to comment, “This is awesome! I love it! It is far and away the best video you guys have done for us…Congratulations, and thank you!”

And so, true believers, without further ado, check-out Bill Shock: Volume 1. Then, once you have placed your eyeballs back in your head, contact Fathom to learn what our cadre of cool creators can do for you through online video production and marketing. Nuff said!

So what is this “cone-ing” fad? As odd as it sounds, “cone-ing” is simply ordering an ice-cream cone at a drive-thru and, when served, picking it up from the ice-cream end (the top) instead of the cone (the bottom).

Right now, you may be asking yourself, who in their right mind would do this for fun? His name is Alki Stevens, and he has attracted over 3.5 million viewers in less than two weeks! According to Richard Smith in his Gather.com technology blog entitled “Popular Drive-Thru Fad Hits YouTube”, Alki Steven’s cone-ing video has made it to the top 10 finalists of the Unhatched Viral Video Competition; a competition run by an Australian radio network, resulting in a grand-prize of $10,000 – not a bad pay-off for the disposal of a few 50-cent vanilla cream cones – not to mention the YouTube advertising revenue he is sure to bring in.

At Fathom Online Marketing, we love staying up on the current fads and trends as well! Being an online marketing company, we’ve had quite a few trends sweep through our office: inner-office planking, full-staff Nerf-wars, life-sized Angry Birds levels, burrito-eating competitions (those usually don’t have a positive outcome) – the list goes on. This time around, we couldn’t let Alki Stevens have all the fun. We sent two of Fathom’s finest – Director of Photography Phil Hoyt, and Digital Media Specialist Chad Paul - out to experience the thrill of the video world’s newest (and possibly weirdest) viral trend. Check it out!

Indeed, since YouTube popped on the scene, viewers get delighted every now and again with a viral video that sweeps the Internet and is funny, touching, creepy, hilarious, poignant, etc. And then businesses want to somehow duplicate that video’s formula and make a video that helps them do more business. But ask yourself this, oh wise viewers and readers – how many viral videos have YOU seen that tout a product or service you can buy from a company? That’s really not what the nature and modus operandi of viral videos are about, capiche?

Instead, as Mr. Massey lays out in alchemical, formulaic glory, business owners who want to benefit from Internet video need to think about a different kind of video altogether – the conversion video. I’ll save all the details for those of you who wish to read the article in its entirety, but suffice to say, the use of a video landing page is required if you really want your video to work for you as a sales and lead-gen tool.

At Fathom, we believe in viral videos for the fun of it, and conversion videos for the practicality of it. Our Internet video division makes beautiful, well-edited online videos for websites and video portals, while other departments in the company provide design expertise for landing pages and conversion strategies to get viewers buying or participating. It’s a winning equation of teamwork, online marketing best practices, and technical expertise that gives us the formula to help our clients succeed in the digital marketing age.

Contact Fathom today if you’re interested in a winning marketing formula involving web video and the Internet for your company’s business interests. We’d love to hear from you, really.

Chief among the evolutionary details is that YouTube is presenting more and more “professionally produced content” on the video portal, which seems to suggest that production values once-heralded as “low-fi” and “Indie” are slowly becoming more polished. This may be attributed to the growing sophistication of YouTube amateur content creators and better technology tools for filming and editing.

It also suggests that more and more companies, agencies and organizations are using YouTube to spread their messages online and to take the industry-leading website seriousy as an advertising channel.

Lastly, YouTube is working harder to cultivate their content providers so that they produce original and fresh material that brings viewers back again and again, like a television program would do. YouTube clearly recognizes the value of quality production values, despite its ‘broadcast yourself’ slogan.

Fathom also recognizes excellence in production values, and the huge opportunity YouTube offers freely to its content providers. We develop branding, product & service videos for our clients and then distribute them on YouTube for the whole world to see – through our Internet video production & marketing services that feature remarkably affordable pricing and great visual aesthetics. Contact us today to learn more about what we can do for you via Internet video marketing, and read the entire BBC article on YouTube here.

This hardly seems unfathomable. Given the same phenomena in the world of print journalism, where the once-mighty newspaper medium has had to scamble to remain relevant amidst decreasing circulations and the accompanying decrease in print ad revenues, it’s just logical that younger consumers would gravitate towards Internet-based video viewing as they have with online journalism consumption.

What’s the message here? Simply, as loyalty to traditional television as an entertainment and information source decays with time and new technologies, companies will need to spend more of their money reaching potential customers where they can now be found – on the Internet. Video portals like YouTube offer free advertising by simply uploading your videos – a far-cheaper route than the astronomical fees associated with broadcast TV commercials. And since Google owns YouTube and indexes new video uploads continuously, video content there has the best chance of showing up in Google’s search results.

You can read the entire ClickZ article on ad-spend migration towards online video here. After that, you’ll want to contact Fathom to learn more about what we can do for your business through the persuasive power and reach of affordable Internet video for today’s Web-viewing world.  Feel free to check-out our growing portfolio of online video samples too. We think you’ll like what you see.

Fathom has secured the fourth rank on this month’s list of the Top 10 Video SEO Firms. The monthly rankings list published by TOPSEOs is a guide to the “cream of the crop of internet marketing vendors in the industry.”

TOPSEOs naming Fathom as the fourth leading Video SEO firm amongst online content creators nationwide really reflects the hard work and dedication that our team puts in to each and every day.

At Fathom, we are constantly working to improve our video production processes, as well as our video marketing efforts. We are very pleased that our efforts to better the quality of our firm have been recognized!

Fathom has been included in this list of top video SEO companies for our consistent performance and the superior services rendered to our clients. TOPSEOs seeks out the leading online video firms in the industry through a rigorous evaluation criteria that includes:
o Competitive advantage
o Superior services and pricing
o Customer and technical support
o Response to client problems
o Innovations that set it apart from the competition
o Overall efficiency
o Overall performance

“The whole industry looks to us to identify reliable and accurate benchmarks and Fathom has proven by its performance that they deserve to be on this coveted list”, shared Jeev Trika, partner at TOPSEOs.

Fathom Online Marketing is proud to be recognized on TOPSEOs.com list of top Video SEO firms in the nation, and we will always continue to strive for industry recognition such as this!

In a recent online piece in their Small Business section, the Times lays bare some great reasons and strategies for jumping on the Internet video bandwagon – including  creating a free brand channel on YouTube, showcasing your best and brightest products as demos, and making instructional videos that help viewers learn more about your products and how to use them correctly.  The article focused on a small company named Ceilume and chronicles how web video played a big part in their marketing efforts, to much success.

The New York Times piece is just one more voice crying out for common sense in the Cyber Age. What television was to the Fifties, Internet video is to the Twenty-Tens. But don’t take our word for it – read the NY Times article in its entirety right here. Then get ahold of the creative marketing mavens at Fathom and allow us to help you show the world what you’re all about through online video production & marketing.  We’d love to help you succeed, with style.

This makes sense, as Internet video marketing saves a viewer time compared to reading lengthy website content, is often more entertaining,  involves more of the senses and is a more holistic learning tool. You can read about  Juneau’s exercise in video marketing here in more detail, sponsored by Visual Website Optimizer.

We continue to tout the exceptional advantages of Internet video marketing as a way of advertising your company’s products & services on the Web. Afterall, Internet videos are inexpensive, appeal to all generations of viewers, and basically give your website ‘wings’ since the videos can be seen on YouTube and other video portals as well as on your website in strategically placed locations. We’d like you to think about Juneau’s findings….Internet video marketing is definitely not an exercise in futility!

Coincidentally, Clickz.com reported only last week that Nielsen Company data indicates online video use in America is up by 45% compared to where it was last year at this time. Now, admittedly, it’s been a rough winter in parts of the United States and a lot of folks have been home-bound, but we at Fathom don’t think that explains this very large jump in web video viewing. Rather, between Netflix, Hulu and YouTube, more and more consumers are “tuning-in” to the convenience of Internet video as their viewing resource. And with YouTube now featuring more commercials before their video content, advertisers are “getting it” about reaching this growing Internet generation with their products and services messages.

If you “get it” too, we’d like to work with you. Fathom Online Marketing produces and distributes web videos for branding and marketing purposes for clients across the spectrum of the business world in North America. Contact us today to learn more about our Internet video marketing services. And check out the full Clickz.com article here to learn more about the growth of online video in the U.S.A.

• Average daily unique viewers of web video grew from 67.3 million in December of 2009 to 88.6 million in December of 2010
• Average number of videos watched per viewer grew from 187 in December of 2009 to 201 in December of 2010
• Viewers spent an average of 12.7 hours watching videos in December of 2009, but watched 14.2 hours in December of 2010

Fathom Online Marketing recognized long ago that the ease of creation & use, sharing & access, and worldwide audiences would make Internet video production a very hot marketing tool in the 21st century. We’re not sure if that makes us visionaries or mavericks, but we’re surely prepared to help our clients grow their business with Internet video production & marketing expertise for branding, product & service sales, and industry awareness in the Information Economy. Contact us today to learn more about what online video can do for your business.

And watch this video from comScore about the state of online video currently. You’ll be glad you did.

This week’s Fathom Minute includes:
- Fathom Video’s awesome new screen capture software
- Conference room demolition derby
- Canal Road flood
- Recording phone calls
- Search and Social Media
- Kool-Aid Man Mazzone

One of the nice things about YouTube – besides the free uploads and viewing privileges and the amazing selection of videos possible on the massive video portal – is that viewers have not been subjected to pre-roll ads except within some of their channel partners’ video offerings. That’s changing now, as YouTube has just unveiled their “TrueView Video Ads.”

Here’s how the new advertising system will work:

Advertisers will purchase an ad through their AdWords account, and the ads can be any length. There’s a bidding process involved that takes into account budgetary constraints. Advertisers will only be charged for the ad at the 30-second viewing point, or when the ad completes (whichever is shorter) or when a viewer clicks-through to the website. For viewers, the ad can be skipped after 5 seconds of viewing time, and there can be only one ad every 7 minutes, after which time a mid-roll ad could then present itself.

All in all, the new system seems pretty painless, and especially in longer videos, there’s opportuity to show several advertisements. If the ads are good, consumers will watch them; if they’re not so good, they’ll skip them after a few seconds. In terms of Internet video marketing, it’s another way to get your message seen and heard by the target audience you’re looking to reach. It’ll just cost you, but you already know that you have to spend money to make money, right?

Graham’s video on Using YouTube Channels to Drive Site Traffic is a great little tutorial on leveraging the power of YouTube, and heartily recommended to anyone who posts on YouTube for professional reasons. Check it out and then pass it along to others “in the know.”