ImpactWatch Blog

I discovered (AKA fell in love with) Vimeo about a year ago (despite the site existing months before YouTube).  Like many other casual Internet users, I didn’t know that something existed for uploaded videos more than YouTube and perhaps ZShare.  Like other video sites, Vimeo allows users to sign up for an account and upload videos for online storing, viewing, and sharing.

In 2007, Vimeo became the first video sharing site to support HD video, allowing regular users to upload one HD movie per week.  In 2008, Vimeo went through more changes, the biggest of which occurred in July 2008 when Vimeo announced that they would no longer allow gaming videos on the site due to their lengthy nature which resulted in longer wait times for user uploads.  Vimeo has already differentiated itself by allowing only videos created by the user and disallowing anything commercial or that could be considered pornographic.

The main way Vimeo differs from other sites comes down to attitude.  As Martin Paling said, Vimeo “doesn’t suffer from some of the idiots [on YouTube]”.  Vimeo’s main goal is to foster a community of filmmakers who can critique and discover videos.  Below is an incredible time-lapse video that I found while exploring the Staff Picks section.

The Longest Way 1.0 – one year walk/beard grow time lapse from Christoph Rehage on Vimeo.

Some other advantages of Vimeo include support for MOD files, unlimited movie length, HD support, and a very clean look to the site.  A very thorough comparison of most of the available current video sharing sites can be found here.  Vimeo goes the Twitter-design route be making the interface clean and bright with large buttons and menus.  A user would be hard pressed to get confused with the navigation.  I also generally prefer the way that stats like likes, comments, and other metrics are displayed.  Check out this example screenshot.

Should you switch over to Vimeo?  The answer depends on what you want to do with online movies.  If you want them to be seen by more people and they’re mostly unedited videos of you and your friends, I’d stick with YouTube.  But if you are editing things that can be considered “films” in some way, shape, or form, go with Vimeo.  In short, YouTube is the popular little brother with the high-paying job, but Vimeo is the older art school bro whose parents secretly prefer at Thanksgiving.

• Social Media Measurement Isn’t Hard if You Know the Right Steps – Chuck Hemann via Radian6

• Measuring Social Media Marketing – Chris Brogan

• Social Media Monitoring Grows Up: Analytics for Big Boys – Customer Think

• 2009 How To Select A Social Media Monitoring Vendor Partner – Alterian

• What Are Your Public Relations Efforts Worth? – Forbes

• Social Media Measurement & ROI: New Tricks for Old Dogs, But Still the Same Old Dogs – Content & Motion

• How to Monitor Your Brand on Social Media – Freelance Folder

• Online Reputation Management for Health Plans – Kevin J Dean

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Media Monitoring Tools and Product Reviews

• Online brand reputation or social media listening software – a review of 26 tools – Dave Chaffey

• Top Tools for Social Media Monitoring – Social Media Today

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Slides and Presentations

• The Business Case for Social Media Monitoring – Our Social Times

• Beyond Social Media Monitoring – Robin Hamman

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SEE LAST WEEK’S TOP POSTS

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comScore says ‘yes’!  In a recent press release, the company released information and data about holiday e-spending in an attempt to show that social media and online purchasing is on the rise.  Earth-shattering news? No.  But interesting nonetheless.

Below is a chart of the various social media channels that respondents to their survey claimed they had used when gift researching this year.

I find it interesting that user reviews influenced purchases more than expert reviews.  Consumers obviously value recommendations from others, but the expertise level of the source doesn’t matter quite as much.  Also, don’t the numbers for Twitter seem kinda…low?  I would have expected the amount of those following a company and those influenced by a friend’s tweet to be at least a combined 10%.

The release also contains a graph showing the amount of online purchases by week leading up to New Year’s Day.  The recession doesn’t seem to be affecting online holiday shopping for 2009, although this may be due to consumers hoping that the Internet will provide them with better deals than stores.  The week beginning with Cyber Monday (November 30th) sees a huge jump in online spending, although as this Focus article explains, Cyber Monday is never the biggest online shopping day of the year.  It typically begins about a week or two later, though still on a Monday.

• Social media measurement: a 10-step guide – eConsultancy
  

• Social media monitoring is easy; it’s what you do with it that counts – The Customer Collective

• Social Media Analytics: Twitter: Quantitative & Qualitative Metrics – @avinashkaushik

• By monitoring comments on Twitter, companies can predictnext week’s sales – Wall Street Journal

• Want to know about ROI? The Writing’s on the Wall… – Digital Tonto

• Social Media Metrics – Information Today

• Understanding the Big and Small of Social Media Measurement – Voce Comm

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TOOLS AND REVIEWS

• 46 Free Social Media Monitoring Tools – DreamGrow

• 9 Professional Social Media Monitoring & Reputation Management Tools – Stay On Search

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Slides and Presentations

• #SMTW – Social Media Monitoring – The Strategic Imperative – Smart Selling

• Best Practices for Social Media Monitoring ROI – Connie Benson

• Social Media Monitoring: your data with destiny – Alan XMLXL

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SEE LAST WEEK’S TOP POSTS

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Follow Hannah on Twitter.

Follow ImpactWatch on Twitter. (Really, everything SMMM is there).

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