Higher Education

Podcasting and online video have created a new standard for online training and education. Educational online videos and podcasts are exploding and this is driven by the world’s hunger for knowledge. Apple has started iTunes University which offers entire college courses from 42 institutions, including UC Berkeley, Stanford, MIT, and Yale. UC Berkeley alone has over 100 courses on iTunes consisting of over 4200 lectures and has announced plans to make full courses available on YouTube. MIT’s courses receive over 1 million hits per month (source). MobileCast Media provides consulting services to higher education to assist in implementing best practices.

How does the explosion of university courses help corporations? First of all, corporations need to understand that online education is a trend for knowledge hungry people and corporations can gain competitive advantage by offering online education. It brings people to your website, exposes your brand and establishes you as an expert. Secondly, corporations need to realize that the main iTunes search field is no longer just being to find and purchase music, but it is being used as a multimedia search engine by people who are looking for education on specific topics. Searches on “information technology” will reveal college courses and a number of thought leadership podcasts.

Product Demos and Customer Education

Demonstrate your products or services to your customers through online video and podcasting. These pieces can highlight product benefits and results. Beauty, health, fitness, auto care, and small appliance manufacturers are just a few examples of product and service categories that can benefit from rich media.

Companies do well by educating their customers and prospects on areas that relate loosely to their products and services. This way you can expose your brand without pitching to them which would turn them off. For example, a company that sells accounting software could offer a basic accounting course. By offering such a course, the company can place their logo in the lower corner of the video screen, furthering brand exposure and establishing themselves as experts.

Online Demonstrations

Video is very effective for showing techniques, results, and processes. Chiropractors can show back exercises, doctors can show self examination procedures, and biotech companies can show 3-D pictures of cellular level interactions. In addition to “live action” video showing people and places, we also can also show live computer footage, demonstrating software in action.