In today’s web-driven visual world, video marketing is everything. Videos are a powerful medium. A well put together video knows no bounds; a video’s reach is limitless, and its message never wavers.
Getting that awesome, final product that we call a “great video” — well, that requires great tools. As children of the Internet age, we are fortunate to have a tremendous number of tools at our disposal. So far we’ve touched on the various image tools and sound tools that you can be using.
When you consider how popular video editing is in this day and age (everyone’s an editor…), it only makes sense to cover the best video editing tools.
Today, we’ll take a look at the tools that can help you easily create videos to use towards your online marketing. These tools will take your videos from zero… to hero. Watch out!
Popcorn Maker
Popcorn Web Maker is a nifty tool made by Mozilla. This web-based app allows you to put your creative touch on existing videos already hosted on the web.For instance, simply drag / drop a YouTube video link in the Popcorn Maker and begin effortlessly remixing it. You have a editing tool, completely real-time, from within your browser.With Popcorn Maker, you can also create:
- Animated images (GIFs) with sound
- Dynamic videos with no shortage of links
- Video profiles
For something that’s purely web-based, Popcorn Maker packs a serious punch.
Screencast-O-Matic
Another particularly handy and effective web-based application is the Screencast-O-Matic.
The Screencast-O-Matic is a free tool that records what's on your screen. Yep, it's a screen recorder, and it's beyond simple to use.
With just a few short clicks, you can use this screen/webcam recorder to capture and share anything you want other people to see.
It's extremely versatile; you can run it in your browser or download it for future occasions.
Drag / position the screen recorder where you want it, and record away!
When you're done, you can preview what you just captured. If you like what you see, the Screencast-O-Matic allows you to publish and share your captured video either directly to YouTube or you can of course save the file to your computer in multiple formats.
It’s a great tool to have since you never know when you'll need to share something with someone. (It's great for tutorials!)
Google Docs Story Builder
Oh, how we love Google! It’s already part of our daily lives for so many reasons... sharing documents, sending emails, peer production, finding the right itinerary and - most importantly - it’s our own personal and private Mr. know-it-all.
Powtoon
Speaking of good marketing strategies… if you want to captivate, engage, and explain your product, site, or venture to an audience really, really well— PowToon will help with that. … At least, according to the company’s mantra.
PowToon brings a certain "Awesomeness" to the videos that you make. It’s a tool perfect for presentations. One might typically use a free tool like this for Product demos, social clips, tutorial videos, or any miscellaneous video that might appear on your very own website or blog.
And here’s the icing on the cake - It’s REALLY easy to use. Want proof? Here’s a little video we made in less than half an hour:
VLC
The VLC media player powered by VideoLAN Organization is without doubt the most known tool we’re covering in this article series. Almost everybody already uses this multimedia player on a daily basis to watch videos of all formats: MPEG, DivX, MKV, streaming, and so on…
However, fewer people are aware of all its features. For example, did you know that you could use this web freebie as a video cutting tool in only 4 simple steps? If you want to explore all the possibilities of this device, here’s a useful VLC guide made by the Guiding Tech team.
Freebies garden
“Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.”― Einstein
.... And that’s especially true on the web. The moral of this story is that, sometimes, you don’t need to pay full price for tools that can help you earn a lot of money. That’s a nice thought isn't it?
However, as powerful and efficient as they are - all the media tools we’ve talked about in the last few weeks are worthless without a good marketing strategy. They’ll help you reach your audience and look professional, but make sure to use them with wisdom along with a good message and call to action that will give your users the last push he or she needs to trust your site, want what you’re offering, and take out that credit card.
We'd love to know how you've used these various tools in your campaigns. Be sure to let us know!
