Animoto have added some useful new features to their super-cool video creation program. If you’re not familiar with Animoto, you simply upload your photos, select your music from several supplied genres (or upload your own), click a few buttons and the program then creates a stunning presentation of your photos. Animoto calls it the “death of slide shows”…and it’s an apt description. I guarantee you ‘ll have a smile on your face after watching your first completed video.
The basic service is free, but if you’re a serious marketer you’ll want to upgrade to “Animoto for Business”. Several new features have been added for business users which make the program much more attractive. The best of these features are…
Add Text to Your Videos
It’s no longer necessary to create special graphics to brand your video. Simply click the text button and add your business and domain name wherever you want. Couldn’t be easier!
Add a CTA (Call To Action) Button
You can now add a button with your desired text and a link to your URL at the end of the video. Besides the Animoto video itself, the button is only included if you use the Post/Embed feature. This posts your video to popular social networks such as MySpace & Facebook.
If you want to post the video to your blog click the Embed tab, select Other Sites and copy the code. Then just paste the code where you want the video to appear. You can see a sample video below. This was created for our friends at Saga Central who sell Star Wars Games, Toys, Movie Characters etc.
Note: if you use the “Post to YouTube” feature the CTA button is not included, which you can see in this YouTube version of the Star Wars Games video. Neither is it included if you download the video and then upload it to other video sites such as Yahoo! Video, Google Video, Dailymotion etc.
To add the CTA to your video click the Features tab when you reach the “Finalise Your Video” section. This was a bit hard to find…we had to search the Animoto blog to find out how to do this.
Animoto is a great way to promote your site, add interest and generate links. Check it out…
