Well, I can safely guarantee you that millions of internet users have great video intentions. They’ve been planning for months or even years to begin making videos and submitting them to online video sites. Maybe you’re one of those soon to be famous filmmakers. Some want to make videos for fun, for family, or just for laughs. Others want to promote a cause, whether it be their own cause or some other charity or organization. Then, a third group have their own business or are online affiliates who want to push a product or service. But there are always terrific excuses for why you’ve never done it. You need a face lift first, or you want to take speech lessons from Adolf Hitler, you fired your last scriptwriter, or you need a new teleprompter. What’s your excuse, pal?

Well, I’ve got a solution that will wipe away all your excuses in one fell swoop. It’s called Article Video Robot. It’s the easiest and quickest way ever to make a video. You just copy and paste your words into a box, select a backdrop, choose a font, select some background music, and then choose a voice or voices that will read your text on the video.

That’s all there is to it. It’s so easy, a caveman could do it. Oops, sorry. You’re probably sick and tired of that line. Anyway, not only will the website produce your video, but it will automatically send it to multiple video sites online. I’m telling the truth, Ruth. This is for real, Neal. So, reach for the crank, Hank, and get up and go. Article Video Robot: the coolest video maker online.

What about you? I know you’ve been yearning to create videos since sometime immediately before the invention of color TV. And maybe you’ve given it a timid try here and there. But you expected to look like Elizabeth Taylor or Tom Cruise and, on screen, you looked more like an ordinary bumpkin stumbling through a poorly written script as if you just got home from a German beer fest. So now you’re considering acting lessons at one hundred and fifty dollars a shot. It ain’t rocket science, junior. You need more than a few acting lessons and a two thousand dollar face lift.

Have you ever heard of Article Video Robot? Well, if not, you must have been hiding under a rock somewhere. Article Video Robot is the coolest way to make your own videos. I’m serious as a heart attack, girlfriend. Using this service, you can actually place your best article content on video within minutes. Not only that, but you can select a musical background, and you can choose from a wide variety of actor’s voices. Now, my voice, the character named Heather, sounds incredibly natural. The words appear on screen with special effects.

Plus, Article Video Robot makes it possible for you to submit your video with one push of a button to up to 17 video websites as well as social networking sites. You need to get up off your hindquarters and sign up for Article Video Robot. Imagine the added promotion you could get if you transformed all your ezine articles into sharp, zippy videos.

What is the Advanced Editor?

The Advanced Editor is a full-fledged flash editor developed by our subsidiary company Toufee. The Advanced Editor’s commercial name is Toufee as well. The Advanced Editor, as the name suggests is a comprehensive flash editor program that lets you customize the properties, effects and timings of every flash object to a high level of detail. The Advanced Editor comes with a truckload of effects, animated backgrounds, text styles, shapes and support for granular timing control that could help you tweak your ArticleVideoRobot to make sure you get the best of both worlds, i.e. the ease of use of ArticleVideoRobot to quickly create videos while using the Advanced Editor to add the finer details.

Behold though, the Advanced Editor is available only in the Business Account only. Ofcourse, it is a premium feature hence only available with the Business Account.

Opening a Video in Advanced Editor

You could open only existing ArticleVideoRobot videos in the Advanced Editor. What it means is that you cannot directly create a new video using the Advanced Editor – you need an existing ArticleVideoRobot video that you could work wit the Advanced Editor. To launch a AVR video in the Advanced Editor, follow the steps below:

1. Login to your ArticleVideoRobot.com account
2. Click on the Full AVR Editor button. This will open a new window. Click on Open Existing Projects button
3. Select the flash video project and click Distribute this movie button
4. In the following screen that opens up, click the Advanced Editor button.

An important point to note is that when an existing AVR video is opened in the Advanced Editor, a copy of the video is created. The Advanced Editor then works with this newly created copy. All changes that you make in the Advanced Editor are made to the copy of the video that was created when you opened the video in the Advanced Editor. Why is it designed that way? The Advanced Editor uses a different format and structure when compared with the regular ArticleVideoRobot wizards to store and work with videos. It is for this reason that a copy of the video is created the first time you edit a AVR video in the Advanced Editor. When you launch the Open Existing Projects, you will notice that ArticleVideoRobot appends the text (Advanced Version) to it.

Note: A word of caution – when you wish to open a video that is edited in the Advanced Editor, strictly follow the steps listed above. Do not click the Edit in Advanced Editor from the existing AVR video to open the video in the Advanced Editor – this overwrites any existing “Advanced Copy” of the same video and you risk losing your existing work done in the Advanced Editor for the selected video.

Previewing Advanced Editor videos

To preview a video that is edited with the Advanced Editor, you would have to use the Advanced Editor itself. Use the Movie -> Play option from the main menu or use the click blue eye-like button on the top right. This opens the preview window within.

How To Download Advanced Editor Videos

You would have to use the Advanced Editor again. Select Publish -> Export to YouTube (AVI, FLV, MOV) option from the main menu. Then click Add your movie to the queue button. You should then receive an email momentarily with the download link.

How Do You Distribute Advanced Editor Videos to Video Sites?

The next logical question, obviously. This is a two-phase process. You would have to first download the video using the Advanced Editor as described above. Once you have downloaded the video, you could use ArticleVideoRobot’s video submission wizard to submit the video to the video sites. The following KB article discusses this in detail:

http://www.webmarketingrobot.com/support/index.php?page=kb_view&id=45

More Resources on the Advanced Editor:

The buck doesn’t stop here. The Advanced Editor has numerous features that one could make use of.  We have useful video tutorials on the Advanced Editor which can be accessed below:

http://www.toufee.com/support/index.php?page=tuts_view&id=12

http://www.toufee.com/support/index.php?page=tuts_view&id=4

I would also recommend that you go through the official Toufee blog that has useful how-to articles on most of the features that are available in Advanced Editor. You could access the blog from the following URL:

http://www.toufee.com/moviemaker/

I hope that the above information helps. Should you have any more questions, you may raise a ticket to Support Desk (http://www.articlevideorobot.com/support) and I’d be glad to assist.

Ganesh Sathyanathan
ArticleVideoRobot Support

Anyways, getting our attention back to ArticleVideoRobot let me share a quick workaround that should help you fix this issue with voice-over skipping text. As some of you might have noted and have already reported, the voice-overs skip the last word in the first paragraph of the video article. Sometimes you might experience this behavior in other slides (i.e. paragraphs) of the video as well. The fact that this happens only sometimes might somewhat take you by surprise when you least expect it. Thankfully, there is a workaround and the good part is that it was suggested by our customer named Veselin.

The fix is to add a space, a period and a space at the end of the paragraph where the voice-overs skip the last word. It should look like this (without quotes)

” . ”

Note that the quotes are shown only as a placeholder. In the image below, note that there is a space character before and after the period, however, it is visually not distinguishable due to the white background of the textbox. Nevertheless, it does exists.

Once you update your voice-over text with the above change, click the Turn Text to Speech button to have the voice-over regenerated for the new text. Once the re-generation is complete click the OK button to close the Voice Library window.  Click the Save Project button to save the project.

Hope this workaround is useful. Thanks once again to our customer Veselin for having shared this tip.

Till the next time,

Ganesh Sathyanathan
ArticleVideoRobot Support

Today, let me share a quick tip that should is particularly for users who publish their AritcleVideoRobot videos to their blog or to their markeitng websites. As a default setting, when you publish an ArticleVideoRobot video to your blog or to a website using the HTML code, the published video starts playing automatically when the page is viewed. This “auto-start” setting could be inconvenient when you regularly publish the videos to your blog  and you have possibly dozens of videos “loading” when a user visits the homepage of your blog (or the video page of your website). This is a potential bottleneck as there is an increased load time (of the blog or website)  resulting in inconvenience to users. To fix the issue, one could set their ArticleVideoRobot flash videos to not start automatically. This way, users could click the play button on the individual videos to start watching the video.  Here is how you do it:

1) In the Members Area, click Start Full Editor editor button available under the Full Article to Video Editor option. This would open the ArticleVideoRobot wizard

2) Click the Open Existing Projects button. The wizard will list all your videos

3) Select a video and on the right panel you’ll see the buttons Edit Selected movie and Distribute selected movie. Click Edit Selected movie option to continue editing the video.

4) Click Next until you reach the Select Your Movie Background page of the wizard.

5) Click Edit Player Settings button. This will open the Paused at Start radio button adjacent to the Movie Starts Playing and click OK

6) Re-publish the video by copying the HTML code and pasting it to your blog or website. You should now have the pause button on the video that should prevent the movie from playing automatically.

Hope this helps. Until my next post, wishing you all good luck and great success with your video marketing efforts

Ganesh Sathyanathan

Why Redirect to a Squeeze Page?

The idea behind video marketing is to ensure that your target prospects (or viewers) get the maximum information to the prospect so that they turn into a successful buyer of the product or a service. With video marketing and with a compelling video as a marketing medium, you must ensure that you complete the sale or atleast make sure the customer is presented with the opportunity to buy the product or service when the impression about the product or service is fresh in the mind of customer.

Quick Steps

Below are quick steps that shows how you could enable the option to activate redirection. Note that this option would work only when you publish your video to your website using the embed HTML code. Refer the steps below that shows how you could do this:

1) Open your flash movie in the Full Article to Video Editor and click the Next button until you reach the Select Your Movie Background page

2) Click on the Edit Player Settings button

3) Click the Redirect my webpage once the movie is complete

4) Enter the URL that you wish to redirect to in the Redirection URL textbox

Hope this tip was useful. Though it is a very basic feature that goes unnoticed it can definitely help you improve your sales which gives you more reasons why you should consider using it.

Its all in the Video Title - Get it Right!

The YouTube Video Title is the first and the key factor that gets a user to view a video from the scores of videos that gets listed from his/her search. Let’s say I search for “How to Lose Weight” in YouTube. I get atleast 5000 videos listed and of the top videos that gets listed, you’ll very often that the Video Title always almost has the keywords “How to Lose Weight Fast” (yep, who doesn’t want to lose those pounds fast?). So what are we getting at? Let me put it this way – which video would I click from the list? I would click on a video that has the most descriptive Video Title. The Video Title that provides the most information wins.

Look at the following screenshot for an example. The Video Title of the third YouTube video (“How To Lose Weight Fast – Like 20 pounds in 3 weeks!”) is precise and provides a concise idea of the video content and what to expect from the video. Just the right dose of information to get the user to watch the video. The video views stands testimony to its success.

The bottomline – Word your YouTube Video Title such that it has a key fact or your most important tip/success mantra on the title  itself.  Its the deciding factor between your Youtube video being watched or being given a miss . Get the Video Title absolutely perfect – even if it takes a few hours, sweat it out. Think as to what is that you’re selling that others don’t and put this fact in your YouTube video title.

Video Description – The Double Bill

Having a perfect video title is just half the race won. You’ve almost dragged the user to read your video title, well done, however as your user reads the video title from the search results, the user eventually or probably would glance at the Video Description. Note that YouTube displays only the first 25-30 characters from the Video Description in the video search results so its vital that your Video Description starts with your most important information/tip that you’re sharing in the video. Below are quick tips for a sure-shot formula you should incorporate in your first few sentences in the Video Description.

1. The first sentence is your sales pitch – describe as you would to a customer who is likely to give you a sale.
2. The first sentence should reflect the central idea of your video so be generous to share a tip!
3. Put as much facts as possible instead of writing long sentences. This helps avoid using conjunctions  such as and, not, or, etc
4. Avoid your website address or your Company Name in the beginning – you are wasting space for valuable words that otherwise can make a sale

YouTube Related Searches – Use it Well

Related Searches is YouTube way of telling us what are the popular search terms that users are searching for. How do you use it? Make sure that your Video Title and your Video Description has the right mix of the maximum terms from those returned in the Related Searches.

Remember, though you incorporate most of keywords from those from Related Searches, your trump card to getting your videos viewed is to provide maximum information in the Video Title and Description so be generous to share a tip or two.

What is the ArticleReel SideBar?

The ArticleReel SideBar is the panel that is displayed on the right of all ArticleReel pages. Being a SideBar, it naturally suits Flash vertical banner ads,  Google AdSense ads, custom tracking code or even have a list of hyperlinks that you wish to have displayed in your ArticleReel video blog all time. Very quickly, below are quick steps on how to configure your ArticleReel SideBar:

1) Make sure you’re logged into your ArticleVideoRobot account.

2) Navigate to the URL http://www.articlevideorobot.com/videomarketing/articlereel.html?step=8.
This will launch the Configure Advanced Features page.

3) Now, click the SideBar / AdSense Settings button. The Configure AdSense Settings window opens.

4) Enter the AdSense HTML code and click Update SideBar Content

Thats it, you’ve configured your SideBar. The content that is updated in the Sidebar, i.e. Google AdSense code  or your custom HTML code will start to show up within 24-48 hours in the SideBar.

Rebuilding your ArticleReel

Just to give you some background, when you host ArticleReel on your own server, ArticleReel creates a temporary cache folder called ar_cache. The first time ArticleReel is launched from your domain, ArticleReel stores a copy of all the videos, images in the ar_cache folder. Next time on, ArticleReel will load the flash videos, images and the associated HTML/CSS files from the cache (hosted locally on your server) rather than having to load the data from ArticleVideoRobot servers. However, when you update your flash movie or make changes to your SideBar and when you do not see the changes in your ArticleReel website, you would need to refresh your cache, i.e. delete all existing files and have ArticleReel load the videos from our server. This process is called rebuilding ArticleReel.

To rebuild ArticleReel, one has to simply pass on the rebuild parameter to the ArticleReel URL. For example, if your website address is http://www.yourwebsitename.com/videoblog/ then the you would use the following URL to rebuild:

http://www.yourwebsitename.com/videoblog/?rebuild

It might take a couple of minutes to rebuild and your ArticleReel would then load your latest ArticleReel website.

What is ArticleReel?

If you’re maintaining a blog of your videos yourself, you would know the mundane tasks of putting the HTML code for each and every video and tweaking them to make sure that it fit your posts. If you’re that type that uses the New One Click Ezine Wizard,  which takes only seconds to create a video out of your article and thus end up creating hundreds of video articles, then it is a daunting task if you plan to put all those videos in your website or blog. ArticleReel is a real game changer. ArticleReel is your ready-to-use video blog  that is generated automatically from your ArticleVideoRobot videos. You no longer have to put the HTML code of each video, ArticleReel takes care of it. As soon as you create a new video in your ArticleVideoRobot account, a new video blog entry is created in ArticleReel.  Very quickly, here is a live demo of how an ArticleReel video blog looks like http://articlereel.com/?go=85. ArticleReel is a full-featured video blog equipped with interactive features such as comments, direct publishing to social bookmarking/networking sites using the Gigya widget while offering an easy to navigate gallery of your ArticleVideoRobot videos. ArticleReel video blog provides RSS feeds as well as is fully compliant with Google Sitemaps ensuring that all your updates are picked up by Google which is valuable if you are serious about SEO and search rankings.
Why ArticleReel?

Why do you do need a video blog such as ArticleReel? For one, its saves huge amount of time (if you’re used to maintaining your own video blog) and makes all your ArticleVideoRobot videos organized and easy to access from anywhere. You don’t have to remember the entire URL of your video article; simply open your ArticleReel site and naviagate to your desired video.  Second, ArticleReel is a full-featured video blog – blog equals content, content which is latest and thus keep your website updated and current. Video blog is a double scorer – its your interactive ArticleVideoRobot video + your content delivered as a rich interactive blog-style website. Third and the most important of all, ArticleReel is a real SEO goldmine as it could seriously generate traffic to your website and improve the   search engine rankings.

Creating your ArticleReel

To create your ArticleReel video blog, follow the steps below

1. Login to your ArticleVideoRobot account
2. In the Members Area, click on the ArticleReel logo  (under the New Members Bonus section) on the left panel. Alternatively, navigate to the following URL:http://www.articlevideorobot.com/videomarketing/articlereel.html
3. The ArticleReel wizard starts up. It would prompt you for basic information. Complete it and click Next until you get to the page which says Your ArticleReel is getting ready!. When you reach this page, please be patient as the wizard starts creating your video blog from the videos in your ArticleVideoRobot account.  You will also notice a message that says Updating and Converting Existing Projects. Hang on till the wizard finishes. You would need to do this one time only so have a coffee break and leave the wizard to complete.
4. Once the wizard completes converting all your video articles, your ArticleReel is pretty much ready.

Accessing your ArticleReel site

Once your ArticleReel is created, you should see a button that says Launch my ArticleReel Preview!. Clickcould also  this button to open your ArticleReel video blog. You also acccess your ArticleReel video blog anytime by simply navigating to the below URL:

http://www.articlereel.com/?go=<your_AVR_User_ID> (e.g.) http://www.articlereel.com/?go=85 (thats mine!)

Remember to note down your  AVR user ID when you click the  Launch my ArticleReel Preview! as clicking the button actually launches your ArticleReel URL with your user ID. If you missed out to note your AVR User ID, open the URL http://www.articlevideorobot.com/videomarketing/articlereel.html?step=6 and then click on the FAQ  that reads What is the URL for my current ArticleReel? to find out your ArticleReel URL

Uploading ArticleReel to your website

All ArticleReel websites are hosted on our servers by default, however, ArticleReel is most effective when you upload it your main website that you’re targetting to increase traffic. Once you upload ArticleReel to your primary website, ArticleReel any videos that you create in your ArticleVideoRobot account is automatically updated in your ArticleReel video blog hosted on your website.  To upload ArticleReel to your website, follow the steps below:

1. Login to your ArticleVideoRobot account
2. Once logged in, open the URL http://www.articlevideorobot.com/videomarketing/articlereel_ftp_setup.htmlThis launches the Publishing via FTP window that directly FTPs the ArticleReel files to your website.
3. Follow the on-screen instructions in the Publishing via FTP window and you should be pretty much done. Remember to create the ArticleReel folder in your web server as ArticleReel does not create this automatically.

Ready, Set and Go

That is all. What next step do you do to increase backlinks and traffic to your website? Nothing. ArticleReel takes on from your here and starts working to generate traffic and backlinks to your website. If you wonder how ArticleReel does this, check out this article that discusses in detail how ArticleReel can be a great SEO tool for your website.

More to come…

ArticleReel is a big tool in itself and a single blog post is just not enough . In my next post, I will cover how to configure ArticleReel settings, how to customize the SideBar, instances when to rebuild and/or regenerate your ArticleReel, etc. So folks, get ready and get going with ArticleReel if you already haven’t checked it out.