If marketers had a zodiac calendar, we might call 2017, “the year of the video.”
Why is that? Online video is enjoying the spotlight, due in part to its increasingly crucial role in social media. Online video consumption is also at an all-time high, and that is a definite plus for video marketing.
There’s never been a better time for businesses to take advantage of video’s popularity. In January, eMarketer estimated that 62 percent of the world’s internet users would view digital video in 2017. That staggering number should pique any business owner’s interest in video as a persuasive marketing tool.
Let’s consider three of the most common reasons consumers engage online. People are curious creatures and seek to engage with media for inspiration, information and innovation. Take a moment to let those three desires sink in. Now, let’s look at online video marketing applications that deliver on each.
Our desire for inspiration includes not only motivational stories but stories that are purely entertaining. A 2017 article in The Huffington Post reports that businesses are “embracing online video as a more personal and engaging way to connect with audiences.”
Videos that weave together a compelling story through testimonials from satisfied customers who are passionate about your brand and willing to be bonafied spokespeople are a perfect example of how you can leverage video to gain some inspirational marketing traction.
Since well-crafted video boosts brand awareness and trust, then the opportunity to provide information to your market about your services or products with video is a great move. A corporate identity video relating the story of your company’s history, core values, goals and future plans is a great way to provide information that inquiring customers want to know.
Innovation is a constant craving of the online audience and a great marketing opportunity for your business. Which of your new or upcoming innovations lend themselves well to video? Has your company produced an interesting new product or process that eases customer frustration?
Once you’ve created your video, be sure to invest enough in the promotion of it to ensure you generate ROI on the overall investment. Too many marketers focus too much on the video and little time on how they intend to promote it – whether that be through purchased media, email marketing, social marketing, etc.
Like many things, less is more when it comes to the total length of your video. You’re seeking a balance in effective storytelling and likely viewership; the longer the video, generally the lower the viewership. Consult with your marketing firm to find the right-targeted length for your purpose and audience.
Video marketing is effective, persuasive, wildly popular and in-demand. It should, however, be a part of an overall marketing investment and a plan that you make with a trusted marketing partner to ensure video viewership brings the results you deserve.
President Donald Trump acknowledges the crowd as he takes the stage to give the commencement address for the Class of 2017 at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. on May 13. | AP Photo
The president’s speech at Liberty University was uplifting and defensive at once.
LYNCHBURG, Virginia — President Donald Trump avoided directly attacking the media on Saturday but took on what he called a “chorus of critics” as he appeared to defend the controversial firing of FBI Director James Comey in a commencement address here at Liberty University.
“The fact is, no one has ever achieved anything significant without a chorus of critics standing on the sidelines explaining why it can’t be done,” Trump said. “Nothing is easier or more pathetic than being a critic. Because they’re people that can’t get the job done.”
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Trump’s speech, his first commencement address as president, at times seemed like a message to graduates and critics alike that the commander in chief himself also needed to hear.
“Following your convictions means you must be willing to face criticism from those who lack the same courage to do what is right — and they know what is right, but they don’t have the courage or the guts or the stamina to take it and to do it,” he said.
The comments appeared to be a veiled response to the swift backlash he faced this week after terminating Comey, who was overseeing an investigation into potential collusion between Trump associates and Russian officials.
Trump said the first months of his presidency have shown him “the system is broken,” calling Washington a place where “a small group of failed voices who think they know everything and understand everyone want to tell everybody else how to live and what to do and how to think.”
The speech was at times conventional and unpredictably bizarre. He shared an uplifting message with the students, paid homage to the late founder of the university, Jerry Falwell, and shouted out Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly, World War II veteran George Rogers and mothers, ahead of Sunday’s holiday. He also unveiled the Liberty football team’s upcoming football schedule.
“As of February of this year, the Liberty Flames are playing in the FBS, the highest level of competition in NCAA football,” Trump said to applause. “Don’t clap. That could be tough. Don’t clap. That could be tough.”
But Trump also offered up more typical inspirational fare in a speech in which he largely stayed on script and avoided his frequent attacks on the « fake » media.
He urged graduates during his 32-minute speech to do what they love and never quit. “Nothing worth doing ever, ever, ever came easy, » Trump said, telling the graduates that a future president or two could be among them. He told the crowd to “embrace the label” of outsider.
“The more people tell you it’s not possible, that it can’t be done, the more you should be absolutely determined to prove them wrong,” he said. “Treat the word impossible as nothing more than motivation. Relish the opportunity to be an outsider. Embrace that label … because it’s the outsiders who change the world and who make a real and lasting difference.”
His remarks capped a rough week that was dominated by his abrupt firing — and subsequent threatening — of Comey and contradictory statements from the president and his top aides in the aftermath about what exactly occurred and why.
Trump declared on Twitter on Friday that it’s “not possible” for his spokespeople to communicate his message “with perfect accuracy” because he is “very active.” He suggested ending the tradition of daily White House press briefings and told Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro that, “in all fairness” to press secretary Sean Spicer and deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, “they don’t know me.”
Saturday allowed Trump to speak for himself. His first commencement address as president came just days after his education secretary, Betsy DeVos, was booed and heckled Wednesday during her speech at Bethune-Cookman University, a historically black college in Daytona Beach, Florida, where some graduating seniors turned their backs on her in protest.
It was unclear if Trump would face similar protests inside the stadium on his return to Liberty. Some students had participated in a small protest outside the arena when Trump last spoke here in January 2016. He was mocked then for citing « Two Corinthians » during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day convocation speech.
But the president was well received Saturday by the record crowd, including some graduates who donned the president’s trademark “Make America Great Again” hats in lieu of the traditional cap.
“It’s been a little over a year since I’ve spoken on your beautiful campus, and so much has changed. Right here, the class of 2017, dressed in cap and gown, graduating to a totally brilliant future,” Trump said. “And here I am, standing before you as president of the United States. So I’m guessing there are some people here today who thought that either one of those things — either one — would really require major help from God. Do we agree? And we got it.”
Trump himself, who was awarded an honorary degree, did not don the traditional academic regalia of commencement speakers, delivering his address in a suit and tie.
Saturday granted Trump an opportunity to engage with a largely supportive crowd of thousands, giving the president the semblance of a much-needed campaign-style rally after being holed up in the White House all week. Trump thanked the graduates for their votes — “boy did you come out and vote,” he told them — and pledged to defend their conservative values as long as he occupies the Oval Office.
“America is better when people put their faith into action,” Trump said. “As long as I am your president, no one is ever going to stop you from practicing your faith or from preaching what’s in your heart. We will always stand up for the right of all Americans to pray to god and to follow his teachings. America is beginning a new chapter.”
He added, in a line that, by far, received the biggest applause: “In America, we don’t worship government. We worship God.”
The president spoke before some 50,000 people in 55-degree weather under cloudy, gray skies here inside the university’s outdoor stadium, which is tucked under the scenery of the voluminous Blue Ridge Mountains.
Liberty, which bills itself as “the world’s largest Christian university,” said more than 18,000 students graduated on Saturday. Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University who endorsed Trump during the GOP primary, greeted Trump upon his arrival and introduced him back at the campus.
Ordering federal prosecutors on Friday to crack down on drug offenders, Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions made clear he wants the Justice Department to turn the clock back to an earlier, tougher era in the four-decades-long war on drugs.
In a memo, Sessions said federal prosecutors should “charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense” in drug cases, even when that would trigger mandatory minimum sentencing.
Mandatory sentencing laws for drug users have been controversial for years, and many Republicans as well as Democrats now oppose them as unfair, ineffective and too costly.
The new Justice Department policy cancels the Obama administration’s attempts to pull back on harsh sentencing strategies, which had produced a huge growth in prison populations. It restores some language from a 2003 memo written by then-Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft.
President Trump’s promise to keep America safe,” linking drug trafficking to increased homicide rates in some cities.
“We are returning to the enforcement of the law as passed by Congress — plain and simple,” Sessions said.
Sessions rescinded policy memos signed in 2013 and 2014 by then-Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. that instructed prosecutors to reserve the toughest charges for high-level traffickers and violent criminals.
Since then, the number of drug offenders given mandatory minimum sentences has dropped dramatically, contributing to a 14% decline in the total federal prison population, with 188,797 inmates this month.
Holder slammed Sessions’ policy Friday, calling it “ideologically motivated” and not supported by facts.“The policy announced today is not tough on crime,” Holder said. “It is dumb on crime.”
A bill winding its way through the Legislature proposes a creative way to fund early childhood education: imposing a tax on companies that do business with California’s prison systems.
A tax on the “privilege” of such contracts, as Assemblyman Tony Thurmond (D-Richmond) puts it, is an unorthodox…
A bill winding its way through the Legislature proposes a creative way to fund early childhood education: imposing a tax on companies that do business with California’s prison systems.
A tax on the “privilege” of such contracts, as Assemblyman Tony Thurmond (D-Richmond) puts it, is an unorthodox…
(Melanie Mason)
The new policy threatens to halt a push for bipartisan criminal justice reform that has been led by some of Trump’s closest advisors and embraced by key Republicans on Capitol Hill, including House Speaker Paul D. Ryan.
Sen. Rand Paul, (R-Ky.) criticized the new policy Friday, arguing that mandatory minimum sentences disproportionately targeted minorities because of how different drugs are categorized under the law.
The “new policy will accentuate that injustice,” Paul said in a statement.
“Sessions is an outlier in his own party and even among many of his own colleagues in the administration,” said Inimai Chettiar, a director at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law in New York. “A lot of Republicans support reductions in sentencing.”
Indiana, for example, implemented a comprehensive criminal justice reform package when Vice President Mike Pence was governor.
“I would say that we need to adopt criminal justice reform nationally. We have got to do a better job recognizing and correcting the errors in the system that do reflect institutional bias in criminal justice,” Pence said in a campaign debate last year.
As governor of Texas, Energy Secretary Rick Perry guided his state through a major shift in sentencing away from the kind of harsh penalties that Sessions seeks to restore in federal courts.
In those states and others, alarm at the escalating cost of incarceration helped drive calls for reform.
But Sessions, a former federal prosecutor in Alabama, was never on board with the push.As a U.S. senator from Alabama, he helped kill a proposed sentencing reform bill, warning the legislation could lead to more felons on the streets. He also helped block a 2016 bill that would have eased federal sentencing for marijuana use.
Since joining the Trump administration, Sessions has reversed an Obama administration attempt to phase out federal contracts with private prisons, saying the cells will be needed for the boost in inmate population he sees coming.
Under mandatory sentencing laws, judges have little discretion on how to sentence drug offenders. Prosecutors’ decisions on charging often determine how long offenders will spend in prison.
For example, if federal prosecutors include the amount of drugs in their written charges, that can trigger a mandatory minimum sentence.
They also can file motions for so-called sentence enhancements, which can effectively double drug sentences for repeat offenders, or put them in jail for life.
Some prosecutors use these tough tools as a hammer in plea negotiations, or to force offenders to cooperate.
In his memo, Sessions said prosecutors must disclose “all facts” relevant to a sentence, like drug amounts. He also canceled a Holder policy that said prosecutors should not use sentencing enhancement motions to coerce guilty pleas.
“Drug trafficking is an inherently violent business,” Sessions said. “If you want to collect a drug debt, you can’t file a lawsuit in court. You collect it by the barrel of a gun.”
He said heroin is cheaper, purer and more easily available than ever. Advocates of sentencing reform say that the opioid crisis is evidence that tough policies of the past have failed.
But Sessions said that tougher enforcement could “reverse that trend.”
One former federal judge from Tennessee said he was forced to sentence a low-level drug dealer to life in prison. The defendant refused to take a plea deal for 20 years in prison and was convicted at trial.
“Under no circumstances was this sentence justice,” said the former judge, Kevin Sharp, who has become an advocate for sentencing reform. “We ruined his life.”
In drug cases, Sharp said, the judge’s role in sentencing is dramatically reduced. “I have yet to talk to a judge who says mandatory minimums are a good idea,” he said.
Caption
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Comey: ‘Was he fired? You’re kidding’
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Comey: ‘Was he fired? You’re kidding’
Caption
Students at Bethune-Cookman University booed and turned their backs while Donald Trump’s education chief Betsy DeVos gave a commencement speech on Wednesday.
Students at Bethune-Cookman University booed and turned their backs while Donald Trump’s education chief Betsy DeVos gave a commencement speech on Wednesday.
Caption
Sen. Dianne Feinstein called for a special prosecutor to investigate Russian meddling in the presidential election at Wednesday morning’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein called for a special prosecutor to investigate Russian meddling in the presidential election at Wednesday morning’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
Caption
Former Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper explains unmasking.
Former Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper explains unmasking.
Caption
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer responds to reports that President Obama had warned Donald Trump about hiring Michael Flynn two days after the election.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer responds to reports that President Obama had warned Donald Trump about hiring Michael Flynn two days after the election.
LONDON/MADRID A global cyber attack leveraging hacking tools believed to have been developed by the U.S. National Security Agency has infected tens of thousands of computers in nearly 100 countries, disrupting Britain’s health system and global shipper FedEx.
Cyber extortionists tricked victims into opening malicious malware attachments to spam emails that appeared to contain invoices, job offers, security warnings and other legitimate files.
The ransomware encrypted data on the computers, demanding payments of $300 to $600 to restore access. Security researchers said they observed some victims paying via the digital currency bitcoin, though they did not know what percent had given in to the extortionists.
Researchers with security software maker Avast said they had observed 57,000 infections in 99 countries, with Russia, Ukraine and Taiwan the top targets.
Asian countries reported no major breaches on Saturday, but officials in the region were scrambling to check and the full extent of the damage may not be known for some time.
China’s official Xinhua news agency said some secondary schools and universities had been affected, without specifying how many or identifying them.
The most disruptive attacks were reported in Britain, where hospitals and clinics were forced to turn away patients after losing access to computers on Friday.
International shipper FedEx Corp said some of its Windows computers were also infected. « We are implementing remediation steps as quickly as possible, » it said in a statement.
FROM ARGENTINA TO SPAIN
Only a small number of U.S.-headquartered organizations were hit because the hackers appear to have begun the campaign by targeting organizations in Europe, said Vikram Thakur, research manager with security software maker Symantec.
By the time they turned their attention to the United States, spam filters had identified the new threat and flagged the ransomware-laden emails as malicious, Thakur added.
Infections of the worm appeared to have fallen off significantly after a security researcher bought a domain that the malware was connecting to, by chance undermining the malware’s effectiveness.
Making the domain active appears to have stunted the spread of the worm, Thakur said on Saturday.
« The numbers are extremely low and coming down fast, » he said, while cautioning that any change in the original code could lead the worm to flare up again.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said late on Friday it was aware of reports of the ransomware, was sharing information with domestic and foreign partners and was ready to lend technical support.
Telecommunications company Telefonica was among many targets in Spain, though it said the attack was limited to some computers on an internal network and had not affected clients or services. Portugal Telecom and Telefonica Argentina both said they were also targeted.
Private security firms identified the ransomware as a new variant of « WannaCry » that had the ability to automatically spread across large networks by exploiting a known bug in Microsoft’s Windows operating system.
The hackers, who have not come forward to claim responsibility or otherwise been identified, likely made it a « worm », or self spreading malware, by exploiting a piece of NSA code known as « Eternal Blue » that was released last month by a group known as the Shadow Brokers, researchers with several private cyber security firms said.
« This is one of the largest global ransomware attacks the cyber community has ever seen, » said Rich Barger, director of threat research with Splunk, one of the firms that linked WannaCry to the NSA.
The Shadow Brokers released Eternal Blue as part of a trove of hacking tools that they said belonged to the U.S. spy agency.
Microsoft said it was pushing out automatic Windows updates to defend clients from WannaCry. It issued a patch on March 14 to protect them from Eternal Blue.
« Today our engineers added detection and protection against new malicious software known as Ransom:Win32.WannaCrypt, » Microsoft said in a statement on Friday, adding it was working with customers to provide additional assistance.
SENSITIVE TIMING
The spread of the ransomware capped a week of cyber turmoil in Europe that began the previous week when hackers posted a trove of campaign documents tied to French candidate Emmanuel Macron just before a run-off vote in which he was elected president of France.
On Wednesday, hackers disrupted the websites of several French media companies and aerospace giant Airbus.Also, the hack happened four weeks before a British general election in which national security and the management of the state-run National Health Service (NHS) are important issues.
Authorities in Britain have been braced for cyber attacks in the run-up to the vote, as happened during last year’s U.S. election and on the eve of the French vote.
But those attacks – blamed on Russia, which has repeatedly denied them – followed a different modus operandi involving penetrating the accounts of individuals and political organizations and then releasing hacked material online.
On Friday, Russia’s interior and emergencies ministries, as well as its biggest bank, Sberbank, said they were targeted. The interior ministry said on its website that about 1,000 computers had been infected but it had localized the virus.
The emergencies ministry told Russian news agencies it had repelled the cyber attacks while Sberbank said its cyber security systems had prevented viruses from entering its systems.
NEW BREED OF RANSOMWARE
Although cyber extortion cases have been rising for several years, they have to date affected small-to-mid sized organizations, disrupting services provided by hospitals, police departments, public transport systems and utilities in the United States and Europe.
« Seeing a large telco like Telefonica get hit is going to get everybody worried. Now ransomware is affecting larger companies with more sophisticated security operations, » said Chris Wysopal, chief technology officer with cyber security firm Veracode.
The news is also likely to embolden extortionists when selecting targets, Chris Camacho, chief strategy officer with cyber intelligence firm Flashpoint, said.
In Spain, some big firms took pre-emptive steps to thwart ransomware attacks following a warning from the National Cryptology Center of « a massive ransomware attack ».
Iberdrola and Gas Natural, along with Vodafone’s unit in Spain, asked staff to turn off computers or cut off internet access in case they had been compromised, representatives from the firms said.
The attacks did not disrupt the provision of services or networks operations of the victims, the Spanish government said in a statement.
(Additional reporting by Jim Finkle, Eric Auchard, Jose Rodriguez, Alistair Smout, Andrea Shalal, Jack Stubbs, Antonella Cinelli, Dustin Volz, Kate Holton, Andy Bruce, Michael Holden, David Milliken, Rosalba O’Brien, Julien Toyer, Tim Hepher, Luiza Ilie, Patricia Rua, Axel Bugge, Sabine Siebold and Eric Walsh, Engen Tham; Editing by Rob Birsel and Mike Collett-White)
At this year’s annual Infusionsoft user conference, ICON, I had the opportunity to speak to the finalists for the 2017 Small Business ICON award. The finalists include:
African Leadership University
Dierks Farm
Kickstagram
While each of their stories are unique and compelling, they all share a commonality of how marketing automation positively impacted their business success. Which is why we’ll share some of their stories here, starting with the eventual contest winner, Dierks Farms.
Dierks Farms’ Marketing Automation Success Story
Pam Dierks, VP of Dierks Farms, discussed not only how using Infusionsoft’s marketing automation platform enhanced their 137 year old farming businesses, but it created a path that allowed their sons to follow in their family’s tradition of cattle farming. Below is an edited transcript of our conversation. The full conversation can be seen in the embedded video below.
* * * * *
Small Business Trends: Maybe you could tell us a little bit about you, your background, and a little bit about the business.
Pam Dierks: Our farm has been in our family since 1881. We farm and raise cattle on the same land as my husband’s great grandfather who came over from Germany. He also raised cattle, so cattle have been raised on this same land. We raise grass fed cattle, and we just feel like we raise them the way our ancestors did; We don’t give any antibiotics. We feed no grain. No steroids. It’s just completely natural, clean meat.
About two years ago, we had sat down with our son who was in college, and we said, “Lane, what do you want to do with your life?” And he said, “All I want to do is farm.” Well, you know, Mom and Dad we want our kids happy, so we really wanted him to farm too. We want the farm to go on.
We decided that we were already growing grass fed beef, and people were so interested in knowing where their food comes from and interested in our product because grass fed beef is very high in omega three and six. It’s got great cardiovascular effects, things like that. So we just started marketing direct to the consumer, and it took off like wildfire.
We have an online store that we ship anywhere in the continental US, and we use Infusionsoft for our online store, our eCommerce, all our follow-up emails, all of our opt-in process for our database. It’s just pretty well the back end of our whole business.
Small Business Trends: Now before you got to that point, did you have any experience with automation? Any experience with online eCommerce?
Pam Dierks: We also own an advertising agency, so we’ve owned that for about 22 years. So I did have a marketing background, and that really helped, and that was probably another good thing about making the decision. But one of the best things is when we got into Infusionsoft, we were using it just to the bare minimums really, and any small business owner knows, you’re busy, you just don’t have time to do everything.
So we attended Infusionsoft Accelerator, which was a great experience. It set up all of our campaigns. While we were at Accelerator, we were paired with a great certified partner, Daniel from In The Mix Marketing out of San Diego, and he set up a lot of campaigns, started our indoctrination campaign which we still use now, and launched it while we were there. We got our first order from it before we left, and we got 12 orders on it that week, which was amazing because before we went to Accelerator our online was pretty nonexistent, but we set up follow-up campaigns, all kinds of different things; it just was the turning point for us.
Small Business Trends: I got a chance to hear you onstage, you were telling a little bit more of your story. Talk a little bit about the campaign you guys ran around the holiday season.
Pam Dierks: We started planning our Black Friday out about six weeks before, and we started with Facebook ads to add to our database. We upped our database by about 33 percent, and then we started sending out feeler emails saying, “What would you like to see on sale?” And some people would send back, “Well, we like rib eyes. Put your griller’s bundle on sale.” “Put your ground beef on sale.” We took all of those and incorporated those ideas into our sales, and then we sent out a series of emails of saying, “It’s coming.” “Mark your calendars.” “Go out and enjoy your Thanksgiving with your family, and at seven o’clock our specials will be live.” And we ran those specials all weekend. We didn’t do just Black Friday.
Then we came back with another complete set of specials on Monday for Cyber Monday, and ran those, and our orders were up about 1,000 percent over the previous week. So it was very monumental to our farm. It made a big difference in our holiday season, and then going into the next year, and it also built our database, and we also sold several subscription programs of buyers clubs which people can subscribe and have an order sent to their house every month. We still have several of those that are going out every month. We haven’t had any cancel since that time, so it’s just been ongoing income for us.
Small Business Trends: It sounds obvious that automation has changed your business, but just how much did it change it, and did it meet expectations?
Pam Dierks: Oh, it exceeded. Even being in marketing, I didn’t really realize how much Infusionsoft can do, and I’m actually getting some of my other customers involved in it now. It is a huge difference. For years and years, I preached not one ad, you need a series, and all of that. Well, that’s exactly the same way with emails. You can’t send out one email, you have to have several. It has to have the follow-up, and things like that, and that’s what Infusionsoft is based on.
So it’s made a huge difference, and it has helped us reach customers from New York to California. We shipped a whole beef to Texas. It’s amazing really. Here we are a little family farm in middle America, and we’re getting known from coast to coast. So that’s all thanks to the Internet and Infusionsoft, and to be able to get our name out there.
Small Business Trends: But it also has a special role, because like you said before, it allows you to have your sons grow and work in the business.
Pam Dierks: It made a difference of if they were going to work on the farm or work off of the farm, because the way our farm was structured, there was no way we would have enough income to have them both work with us on the farm. So this made a huge difference.
I mean, that’s a big problem with farms nowadays of even surviving and if they do survive, the generations move off of the farm. And once they move off the farm, very seldom do they ever come back, and I’m so happy to have my children close to me. I have a new granddaughter, she’s four miles away from me and is with me every day. That’s also thanks to Infusionsoft that I can have her there and still run a successful business.
Small Business Trends: So where can people learn more about Dierks Farm?
Pam Dierks: You can just log into dierksfarms.com. It has our story, it has pictures of our family, it has our video, and we have a complete online store and can ship anywhere coast to coast; an insulated box with dry ice, and it will be frozen at your door.
This is part of the One-on-One Interview series with thought leaders. The transcript has been edited for publication. If it’s an audio or video interview, click on the embedded player above, or subscribe via iTunes or via Stitcher.
While YouTube has emerged as a marketing juggernaut for security dealers, many are also discovering that the free video-sharing service has scores of other uses – all of which are also free for the taking. Employee recruiting, client communications, product/service how-to’s and dissemination of news are all increasing in popularity on YouTube, as security dealers and transform the medium into a Swiss Army Knife of business communications.
“If you’ve never visited YouTube, you have missed out on the hottest thing on the Internet today,” says Michael Miller, author of ‘YouTube for Business,’ an excellent guide.
Unquestioningly, one of the major reasons security dealers and others are flocking to YouTube is its unbridled popularity. Just a blip on the Web a half-dozen years ago, the video-sharing service has rocketed to one of the most visited sites on the Internet.
Unprecedented Reach
YouTube currently boasts “more than a billion users,” according to former Google CEO Larry Page, who is now the CEO of Alphabet, which is described as “a collection of companies…the largest of which, of course, is Google.” Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion in Nov. 2006, and it now operates as one of Google’s subsidiaries.
Three hundred hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. Plus, the online video-sharing service has been localized in 75 countries and made available in 61 languages. Moreover, half of all YouTube views now take place on mobile devices, according to the company. More than a million user-created channels in dozens of countries are generating ad revenue from the service.
Indeed, among consumers ages 13-24, online video is now more popular than traditional TV, according to a recent study by Hunter Qualitative Research. The group studied – also known as Millennials – spends 11.3 hours/week watching free online video, as compared to 8.3 hours week watching traditional TV.
Besides its unquestionable popularity with young people, YouTube’s ease of entry and low cost makes it hard for security dealers to resist. Virtually anyone with basic PC skills can upload a video to YouTube at no cost in a matter of minutes.
Since YouTube’s videos are generally watched on a relatively small viewing screen, there is no reason for security dealers to endure painful budgets for video production costs; in fact, the subtleties of high-end video production are generally lost on YouTube, according to Miller.
Cost Savings
Security dealers can save significant coin using YouTube by shifting hosting responsibilities for their online videos to the service. Ordinarily, a security dealer needs to pay bandwidth transmission charges any time a Website visitor views a video hosted on the dealer’s website.
When that same video is uploaded to YouTube’s servers, a business never pays a bandwidth transmission cost – no matter how many times that video is viewed.
All told, it is a frothy mix of remarkable popularity, ease-of-entry and virtually non-existent costs that have the wheels of innovation spinning for security dealers as they continually find new uses for YouTube that go beyond traditional video marketing.
10 Ways to Leverage YouTube
Here are the top ten uses security dealers have forged leveraging YouTube:
1. Marketing: This is without doubt he most popular business use of YouTube, and it can be wildly successful. Security dealers with shoestring promotional budgets have become overnight stars on the service, often with zany and off-the-wall marketing pitches.
Besides using humor, security dealers can also use YouTube for marketing purposes to give video tours of their facilities, or to feature video interviews with key staff members to reassure current and prospective customers that they are going to be doing business with a highly professional, highly people-friendly staff – and to position the firm as a thought leader.
2. Recruiting: Given that many security dealers already have videos touting their businesses as inviting places to work, posting those same productions on YouTube is a no-brainer. “Don’t limit yourself to a single, long puff video,” Miller says. “Produce separate videos for individual departments, as well as to illustrate company values, employee benefits, facilities and the like.”
3. Company FAQs: Any security dealer can leap well beyond the image of a faceless, industry player with on-the-fly videos, which feature charming customer service people answering frequently asked questions. Sure, many businesses already have written FAQs on their websites. But there is something to be said for going the extra mile and offering the personal touch that is inherent in the video medium.
4. News clips: The beauty of posting your company’s news to YouTube is that the information is not sliced, diced or in any other way whittled down to a mere shadow of its former glory. Plus, by leveraging a Facebook or Instagram site, a company can cross-promote the two online presences by posting company news on Facebook with a link to the supporting video on YouTube.
5. Focus groups: Many sophisticated users of YouTube are using the service as a free testing ground for commercials they plan to run on cable and broadcast TV, and elsewhere on the web. Specifically, they use YouTube’s free analytical tool, YouTube Analytics (www.youtube.com/analytics) to test the marketing punch of their commercials. The tool’s metrics include the overall popularity of a video, who is viewing the video, where those viewers are coming from on the web, and what keywords they are using to find it.
6. Customer communications: When an email or friendly phone call simply does not cut it, many businesses are posting YouTube videos to connect with business partners concerning project updates, personalized descriptions of new products or services and the like. Such communications can be easily made private on YouTube by selecting the “private” option under its “broadcast options” variable. This ensures only selected viewers can see the video.
7. Employee-to-employee communications: As far as Google is concerned, videomail is poised to become the email of this decade. Makes sense. Why not zip off a response to a thorny problem or challenge using video if it is easier than doing so in another medium? At the very least, videomail is a trend worth experimenting with and monitoring – either on YouTube or via Google Apps.
8. Product/service how-to videos: These videos can of course serve a dual purpose for a business, offering detailed instructions for novice customers, while serving as a promotional spot for others who find the video.
9. Employee training: Any security dealer with multiple locations across town, across the country, or even across the world can immediately see the benefit of posting training videos on YouTube, and having the appropriate employees access it.
Again, by using YouTube’s “private broadcast” option, a business can ensure the training videos stay internal. “Many companies find that YouTube is a fast and effective way to disseminate all kinds of employee information,” Miller says. “Done right, it gets information out there in near-real-time, with all the benefit of face-to-face communication.”
10. Savings on business travel: All the videos sent to employees and clients are enabling many security dealers to rack up substantial savings on business travel. Granted, there are plenty of instances where true face-to-face interaction is irreplaceable; however, in many situations, a video overture is a bulls-eye compromise between basic email and an all-expenses paid business trip for one or more employees to multiple cities.
Joe Dysart is an Internet speaker and business consultant based in Manhattan. Contact him via email at joe@joedysart.com; on the web at www.joedysart.com; or please call (646) 233-4089.
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A shooter opened fire inside an Ohio nursing home Friday, killing two employees and the town’s brand new police chief, police said.
Dozens of law enforcement officers were dispatched to Pine Kirk Care Center in Kirkersville after panicked 911 calls.
Kirkersville Police Chief Steven Eric Disario, 36 — who had only led the Kirkersville Police Department for about three weeks — was killed by the shooter and two nursing home workers were also found dead, Licking County Sheriff Randy Thorp said.
The gunman is also dead, authorities said, but how he died was not immediately clear. He was not identified by police, but family members identified the gunman as 43-year-old Thomas Hartless, NBC affiliate WCMH reported.
Disario responded to a report of a man with a gun around 7:45 a.m., Thorp said during a press conference. After spotting the suspect, he engaged with the alleged shooter, Thorp said.
In his final radio communication, Disario reported that he had the suspect in his sights.
When deputies arrived on scene, they found Disario unresponsive in the street.
« It’s a real hard day for all of us, » Thorp said. « The deputies who pulled him to safety, if you will, are having a real hard time. »
Disario was a father of six with a child « on the way, » according to Thorp.
Hartless isn’t new to law enforcement, according to Knox County Prosecutor Chip McConville. « We had two cases with him about six or seven years back, » McConville told NBC News in a phone interview. Knox County is just south of Licking County.
McConville said Hartless spent time in prison after facing domestic violence and criminal damaging/endangering charges. Before that, Hartless completed 15 months in prison for aggravated assault and aggravated menacing — which had been knocked down from kidnapping and felonious assault charges. He successfully fulfilled a three-year stint on probation in 2014, McConville said.
« I remember this guy. He wasn’t one of our frequent fliers, » McConville said. The prosecutor said the abduction case involved Hartless allegedly holding a woman against her will inside a vehicle during county fair week.
Thorp said approximately 23 residents were in the building when the shooting occurred. They were removed so the scene so they could be processed, he said.
People in nearby houses were told by law enforcement to stay inside while authorities handled the situation.
A witness told WCMH that he heard gunshots and saw people fleeing from the building. People shouted that they needed police, the witness said.
At approximately 9:30 a.m., officers said the situation had « been contained. »
Students who were en route to Kickersville Elementary School, which is near the nursing home, were diverted to Watkins Middle School, according to local reports.
The elementary school — about a quarter of a mile away — was on lockdown as a precaution while the police investigated.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich sent his condolences to the officer’s loved ones.
« Ohio mourns the loss of Kirkersville Chief Eric Disario, who died in the line of duty. Join me in praying for his family, friends and colleagues, and for the others injured in this tragedy.
It was first reported in England — hackers gained access to the National Health Service computers, effectively shuttering the entire system. Patients were told to stay home; doctors and nurses were unable to access email or medical records and had to take notes by hand. The hackers demanded a ransom, to be paid in bitcoin.
By Friday afternoon, though, it was clear that this was not a limited attack. Businesses in at least 11 other countries reported similar cyberattacks. Many were paralyzed.
Once your computer is infected, the attack can do a couple of things. One common approach: Your files will be encrypted or converted into a different language for which only the hacker has the cipher. Often, you won’t even know you’ve been targeted until you try to open a file.
Another, more damaging version is what happened Friday: The ransomware locks you out of your entire system. During the attack in England, computer screens showed a message demanding $300 in bitcoin in exchange for the decryption key that would unlock the files. Victims had three days to pay before the fee was doubled. (Something very similar happened to a hospital system in Los Angeles a couple of months ago. The hospital ended up paying about $17,000. The hackers even set up a help line to answer questions about paying the ransom.)
Here’s the screen that comes up on hacked computers.
This attack relies on something called the Wanna Decryptor, also known as WannaCry or WCRY. These kinds of attacks are particularly hard to spot, especially because hackers are always tweaking them. The Wanna Decryptor being used is just weeks old, and it was just updated.
The NHS ransomware looks like WannaCry – the same malware that has hit Telefonica and other big orgs today in Spain #nhscyberattack
Hackers can get ransomware on your system if you download an infected piece of software or a PDF. They can also use a phishing email to direct you to an infected website. Here is a closer look on how it’s done:
In this case, hackers sent a zip file attachment in an email. When victims clicked on it, their computers were infected. But the attack didn’t stop there. The ransomware spread through the hospitals’ and businesses’ computer networks. “Once you get a foothold in the system, other users will start to run those pieces of software,” explained Clifford Neuman, who directs the University of Southern California’s Center for Computer Systems Security.
Though we don’t know for sure, it looks like the hackers exploited a vulnerability in the Windows operating system. Microsoft knew about this many months ago and put together a patch, but many businesses are slow to update their operating systems because they have to evaluate the updates’ impact on other software. (Or, like most of us, they just keep running old versions of software forever.)
Microsoft knew about this vulnerability because it was exposed as a technique used by the National Security Agency by hackers.
Who’s behind the attack?
Investigators are pursuing a lot of leads, but so far they have very little concrete evidence. They do think it’s the work of criminals, not a foreign power. They know the original hacking tool was leaked by a group called the Shadow Brokers, which dumps stolen NSA tools online. But they don’t know who the Shadow Brokers hackers are or whether they perpetrated the attack.
Who’s been hit so far?
Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) was a major victim. More than 40 hospitals and health facilities across England were affected, and many staff members were locked out of their computers, unable to access patient medical records, appointment schedules and internal emails. It was so bad that officials warned people to stay home unless they were having a medical emergency. Hospitals in Scotland and Wales were affected, too.
But investigators quickly discovered that the NHS was not the only, or even the intended, victim. The attack was wide-ranging and affected organizations across the country.
Meanwhile, Spain’s National Cryptologic Center, part of that country’s intelligence agency, reported a “massive ransomware attack” against Spanish organizations. At Telefonica, in Madrid, security department officials ordered employees to switch off their computers and disconnect from WiFi.
This is much bigger than that, though. According to Britain’s Independent newspaper, these attacks may stretch around the globe, from Portugal to Turkey, Indonesia, Vietnam, Japan, Germany and Russia. It “is much larger than just the NHS,” Travis Farral, director of security strategy for cybersecurity firm Anomali Labs, told the Independent. “It appears to be a giant campaign that has hit Spain and Russia the hardest.” (Here’s a live map tracking the malware.)
What are investigators trying to do to catch the attackers?
It can be hard to track down the perpetrators in attacks like this, but it’s not impossible.
One method: follow the money. It’s possible to trace where a bitcoin payment ends up. “Despite what people tend to think, it’s highly traceable,” said Neuman, of USC. “You can see the flow of funds through the bitcoin system.” That doesn’t mean, however, that you’ll know who actually ends up with the money, especially once it’s pulled out of the system. Hackers are able to hide that in lots of different ways.
Experts will also be searching the code itself for clues. Hackers each write codes in different ways, leaving identifiable traces of their work, like a signature.
What can I do to stay safe?
First, back up your hard drive. You should be keeping frequent backups anyway, in case your computer dies on its own. But if your computer gets hacked, you’ll be able to retrieve your data without paying a ransom.
If you run a business, back up every computer in your office and have a plan for what to do if your system goes down for a while. Be smart about setting up your network, so that most users don’t have complete access to the system. This makes it harder for a ransomware attack to infect everything. And make sure your users are educated about the common kinds of attacks.
Avi Rubin, a Johns Hopkins professor who studies computer hacking, has one other piece of advice: If you or your business get attacked, don’t pay. “You’re funding the bad guys and giving more incentive,” he said. You also don’t know whether your files will really be restored.
Update: An earlier version of this post suggested that Edward Snowden’s leak was the source of the information that led to the hack. This is inaccurate.
With his own words over the past two days, President Trump has vastly escalated the stakes and potential consequences of his decision to fire James B. Comey as FBI director, provoking questions about whether his motivations and tactics may have run afoul of the law.
The president also suggested via Twitter that he may have “tapes” of private conversations with Comey, evoking echoes of Watergate and demands by Democrats that he produce what could be critical evidence.
All of that undermines Trump’s credibility as he seeks to name a new FBI director whose independence will be under intense scrutiny and whose most critical job will be to lead the probe into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
The point of greatest sensitivity raised by Trump’s decision to fire Comey is its potential connection to the former FBI director’s role in investigating what he described as “the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts.”
In a television interview and on Twitter, the president has given ammunition to arguments by some legal experts that his actions constitute a possible case of obstruction of justice — a central charge in the impeachment proceedings against two presidents in the last 43 years.
Obstruction is “a very mental-state-based crime,” said Duke University law professor Samuel W. Buell, a former federal prosecutor. “It’s all about the purpose with which it’s done. In theory, trying to intimidate, silence, or even influence someone who is investigating you could be obstruction of justice.”
But whether the unfolding controversy ultimately puts Trump’s presidency at risk is more a question of politics than law.
Given that both houses of Congress are in Republican control, it would take an enormous public outcry for lawmakers to begin the process of attempting to remove the president from office. The same, it appears, probably would have to happen before the Justice Department that reports to him would be compelled to appoint a special prosecutor, much less actually bring charges.
Democrats have escalated the pressure for a more vigorous probe amid statements by Trump that contradict his White House’s initial contentions that Comey’s dismissal was based on the recommendation of Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein.
In an interview with NBC News’s Lester Holt on Thursday, the president said: “I was going to fire regardless of recommendation.” He also said that he had pressed Comey during a private dinner to tell him if he was under investigation.
Trump further revealed that the ongoing probe into questions of Russian influence on the 2016 election, which includes a look at the possibility that Moscow was coordinating with the Trump campaign, was one of the factors he considered before firing Comey.
“In fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won,’ ” he said.
On Friday, the president created another stir with a flurry of tweets, one of which warned that Comey “better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!”
In an interview with Fox News, Trump declined to say such tapes actually exist, even as congressional Democrats demanded that he produce them.
Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), the second-ranking Democratic senator and a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, said that Trump’s tweet was a “thinly veiled threat” that “could be construed as threatening a witness in this investigation, which is another violation of federal law.”
In an interview, Sen. Richard J. Blumenthal (D-Conn.) added that “there is so much that smacks of obstruction of justice that is swirling around this dismissal and the meetings that preceded it. The exchange that took place with Comey, whichever version you believe, raises very, very serious questions about attempts to pressure an FBI director investigating wrongdoing potentially implicating the president.”
The issue is not Trump’s legal authority to dismiss Comey, which he possesses with or without cause.
“From a constitutional perspective, Trump can make whatever demands of his principal officers he wishes, and can fire them at will,” said Josh Blackman, a law professor at South Texas College of Law Houston.
Comey wrote in a farewell letter to his former colleagues: “I have long believed that a President can fire an FBI Director for any reason, or for no reason at all.”
That decision in Comey’s case, however, becomes legally problematic if it is done with the intent of circumventing an investigation.
“If shown that Trump removed Comey to avoid being investigated? Yes impeachable: abuse of power, corruption, undermines rule of law,” Harvard University law professor Noah Feldman tweeted Friday.
The questions about Trump’s motives are being fueled, increasingly, by his own words in interviews and on Twitter.
“The fact that Trump is saying these things in the midst of all of this is proof positive that he is not listening to counsel — in fact, he may not even be talking to counsel,” Buell said.
Then again, he added, the many contradictory statements by Trump and top officials may have served to “muddy the waters” enough that it is impossible to determine his actual intent.
Whether all of this could jeopardize the survival of Trump’s presidency is another question, and one whose answer is much farther down the road.
The Constitution specifies that the president can be removed only for treason, bribery, or “other high Crimes and Misdemeanors,” the definition of which it leaves to Congress.
Obstruction of justice, however, was deemed to be one of the infractions meriting impeachment proceedings both in the case of Richard M. Nixon in 1974 and of Bill Clinton in 1998.
Nixon, having lost the support of his own party, resigned after the House Judiciary Committee passed three articles of impeachment in connection with the Watergate scandal; Clinton remained in office after being acquitted by the Senate in articles that stemmed from his alleged efforts to cover up an extramarital affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
Thus far, only a handful of the more strident Democrats have engaged the possibility of impeachment in Trump’s case.
The better strategy at this point, party leaders have decided, is to pepper Rosenstein and others at the Justice Department with letters of inquiry, call for hearings and pressure Republicans to get on board with a more aggressive investigation.
Asked if he thinks that the controversy could be leading to impeachment proceedings, Blumenthal said: “Prejudging the results of any inquiry now is premature. Right now, the important point is to follow the evidence, to pursue every investigative lead and every potential witness diligently and promptly, and — I just might add this point — providing the resources that are needed.”
Democrats are also coalescing in their demand for the Justice Department to appoint a special prosecutor — something they are certain to press when Rosenstein visits Capitol Hill to brief the full Senate next week.
With Trump’s approval ratings already at record lows for a president at this early point in his term, public opinion will be an important factor. Republicans are already bracing for a difficult midterm election next year — and some fear that their control of the House may be at risk.
In the end, public perceptions may matter more than the letter of the law in determining if and how Trump weathers the most severe storm to hit his turbulent young presidency.
“This remains, I think, a political problem only,” Blackman, the law professor, said. “What will take Trump down is not the Constitution, but public opinion polling and the ballot box.”
Robert Barnes, Ed O’Keefe and Elise Viebeck contributed to this report.
