A guest installment by Tony Jones, ISS Store Manager, Self-Storage Talk Community Manager
In todays enormously competitive online-marketing environment, brand messages, useful content and peoples random thoughts all battle for Web-page real estate long enough to catch a target consumers eye. Messaging flitters past eyeballs in a flurry of 140-character blips and endless Facebook news feeds. This can become the visual equivalent of white noise, and breaking through the clutter can mean the difference between going viral or getting lost in cyberspace.
Among the most captivating online tools being used today is video. An engaging, informative, humorous or thought-provoking video can be capable of capturing our fleeting attention and quieting the white noise long enough to make a lasting impression. Many self-storage operators and vendors have been using video as a marketing tool on their websites and through vehicles like YouTube to try to win business from their target audiences, but much of the best content gets fragmented between thousands of websites and millions of general videos.
Inside Self-Storage decided it was time to try to consolidate some of the best examples of self-storage video, as well as create a place where we could share some original educational content for our readers. Launched this week, Self-Storage TV is your online stream for all flavors of industry video. Through SSTV, we will house video featuring expert insights, product and maintenance demos, facility and industry events, facility tours, commercials and much more.
While we have a few videos up at the moment, ranging from humorous and silly to serious and informative, the idea is to create a central spot where self-storage professionals can easily find and filter through videos that are relevant to them, whether looking for maintenance tips or needing an example of creative and effective marketing.
In order to do that, we need your help and participation. If you have created a video for your self-storage business that you would like to see showcased on SSTV, we encourage you to submit it for consideration. Similarly, if you know of an industry-related video you found particularly enjoyable or useful, please let us know about it. Ideal length is between one and eight minutes.
For video submissions, our preferred video format is mp4. If your video is in another format, we can convert it for you, but please understand video quality may be compromised. For videos that are 4MB or smaller, simply attach it to an e-mail and send it to [email protected]. Larger videos, between 5MB and 325MB, can be submitted through our content-upload system:
- Visit http://editorial.vpico.com/editorial.aspx.
- Click the "Start" button.
- Enter your name and contact info, and choose "Inside Self-Storage" from the "Purpose" drop-down menu. Feel free to add any relevant comments. Hit "Continue."
- Upload your file.
- Hit the "Submit" button.
If your video is larger than 325MB, please e-mail [email protected] for special upload instructions.
The videos currently on SSTV are a fraction of the great content that is out there. Whats the best example of a self-storage facility commercial youve seen? What is the most useful maintenance video youve watched? What video of a community event made you cry? All of these are examples wed like to showcase at insideselfstorage.tv. I know youve seen them. Its time for video show and tell.