Lots of pundits and prognosticators are predicting the rise of video advertising, which makes logical sense for many reasons. eMarketer is very bullish on it as a broad online advertising vehicle:
And the Kelsey Group has made bullish predictions about SMB online video ad spending — although as we’ll see later that revenues are a moving target with downward price pressure.
Putting aside ad revenues, online video is an important medium that has tremendous SEO value as well as “local branding” impact where SMBs are concerned. (SEL today discusses online video tactics for SMBs.)
The bottom line is that video is increasingly affordable for SMBs and can convey a lot more information and value than text ads, enhanced profiles and so on. Every SMB should be utilizing video online.
Here are some recent findings from Opus/Allbusiness on SMBs and video from a survey (n=1,089) in August. Roughly 15% of respondents overall said they had an “online video ad” while 11% of SMBs with 0-4 employee respondents said they did. If one were to generalize to the entire population of US SMBs, the numbers would need to be discounted somewhat. Here are two slices of data re video from a larger data set.
The “other” here turns out mostly to be “me” or “myself.” Notice also how reliance on “professional service” grows with headcount/firm size, which makes sense.
Source: Opus Research/AllBusiness.com (8/08) SMBs here are defined as >100 headcount
I’ve argued before that there’s a major and important opportunity to be developed in terms of online video distribution for SMBs. As you can see from the chart above most of the video among these respondents is running on “our website,” which is of limited help to SMBs. YouTube is also of limited help as a marketing vehicle; although it does help with SEO and provides a hosting service.
Jivox is ahead of the curve in building out a local video network of relevant sites. Recently it added another partner (Examiner.com) to its growing local network.
Screenwerk 
December 18, 2008 at 11:26 pm
[…] IYPs to add video but didn’t really push it for users or SMB advertisers. This is what I was alluding to in my earlier post about downward price pressure on video ad […]
December 20, 2008 at 5:57 pm
I don’t agree with the fact that having video on one’s website is of limited help. If anything, I think it is a main driver of traffic to a website. The issue really is syndication and how a website can syndicate it’s video to relevant audiences. I’m not familiar with Jivox, but I’m not necesarily sure video ad serving to a network of sites is the answer.
December 23, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Agree that video is valuable on one’s site for many reasons. The real issue is getting video to the right places online. Most people put video on YouTube and for SMBs that’s not particularly meaningful except for SEO. Jivox has a relevant network at least.
There may be things that emerge that are better.
January 2, 2009 at 5:19 am
Please check out http://www.bizshortz.com, we have created a hip and fresh way to show off SMB’s.
November 16, 2009 at 5:43 pm
Brightcove, the leading online video platform, now offers plans from $99/month. Ten years ago we saw a shift from offline brochures to website marketing. Every company needed a website. Today we’re seeing a shift from static websites to dynamic websites. Video lets you communicate directly to your customers and audience in a way that text falls short. Every organization will find video a valuable vehicle of communication. Why not start today?
http://www.brightcove.com/en/video-platform/editions-and-pricing