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HTG Launches New Peer Group for Companies with 50+ Employees

Posted Jun 7 2011 by in Arlin Sorenesen, ConnectWise, HTG Peer Groups with 0 Comments

HTG has done it again. Longtime friends of Varvid, HTG has always led the way in bringing IT professionals together in peer groups to discuss issues, solve problems, and act compassionately. Now, HTG is launching a new kind of peer group: HTG50+ powered by IT Nation. HTG50+ is engineered specifically for IT companies with more than 50 employees.

“Larger firms have distinct advantages as well as challenges in strategic planning, finance, corporate culture, human resources, marketing and business development,” said Arlin Sorensen, founder and CEO of HTG Peer Groups. “At a time when our industry is evolving rapidly, HTG50+ powered by IT Nation, backed by the expertise of ConnectWise and the support of colleagues, provides these members with all the benefits of the peer group model.”

What makes HTG50+ even more distinct from its predecessors is its meeting structure: The CEO-level executives will meet quarterly, and twice-yearly the HTG50+ peer group meetings will be attended by the member companies’ whole management staff, rather than a single representative. This new model of peer management team to management team interaction will create a more effective way of transferring ideas between companies rather than expecting one person to carry all the ideas back to their team for execution.

Also in recent HTG news, Cisco, Intel, and Varvid have joined HTG-V1, HTG‘s first peer group for vendor executives, which was formed in early 2010.

The Internetageddon Approacheth – In the Meantime, Let’s Make Good Video

Posted Jun 6 2011 by in SEO, Varvid Team, VENUE Packages, Video Delivery with 0 Comments

The year 2012 is prophesied to be our last. But for those with their ears to the ground, a different sort of apocalypse looms, and a couple of great blog posts over at ReelSEO in the past few days are truly signs of the times. The first, which breaks down Cisco‘s recent Visual Networking Index, tells us that global bandwidth use is increasing at a frightening pace. It’s increasing so quickly, in fact, that many analysts think the rise in online video consumption will eventually break the Internet. Just look at these graphs:

Clearly, we don’t have much time. Fortunately, film writer and director Steve Stockman has stepped forth and written a book of of tips and tricks for making video worth watching in the precious moments we have left – Video that Doesn’t Suck. In his post at ReelSEO, Stockman laid out some great starting tips. Here are a few of his suggestions as they appear in the ReelSEO article:

1) The Audience Comes First.

Think about your video in terms of the experience it’s going to provide for them. If it isn’t going to take them on a fun, emotional ride, maybe your project should be a memo instead. Give the audience a good time and they’ll love you. And vice versa.

2) Keep Your Video Short.

That movie trailer you hated because it showed you the whole movie? Two minutes and thirty seconds long. Your favorite Superbowl TV spot: 30 seconds. Average time spent looking at a web page? 15 seconds. A sales video longer than 3 minutes? Unless it’s for Victoria’s Secret and directed by Martin Scorsese, don’t even think about it. Take the length you intuitively think your video should be, and cut by 2 thirds. That makes your ten minutes sales video about 3 minutes. Which will still be too long if it isn’t great.

3) Bad Sound, Bad Lighting, and Bad Photography Will Kill You.

It’s disrespectful to ask your audience to suffer through dark scenes, hollow, echoey audio, or brain-hurting camera bounces. Worse: they’re instant tune-outs. If it looks bad on camera’s little screen, it won’t get better when you look at it later. Cut it from the finished video.

Here at Varvid, we’ve always held that video – particularly video for businesses – should not suck. That’s why we try to provide all the essential tools our clients need to make great videos – videos that potential clients and business partners will want to watch. With our VENUE packages, we’ll handle the editing, music, graphics, and social media integration. We’ll even train you to abide by Steve’s suck-less rules with our webinars and online video tutorials. To learn more, follow this link or call us at (360) 738-7168.

Varvid Produces Live Webcast from the Ingram Micro Cloud Summit 2011

Posted Jun 1 2011 by in Aaron Booker, Ingram Micro, Ingram Micro Cloud Summit 2011, Travel, Varvid Team with 1 Comment

On June 1st, Varvid shot, produced, and provided live streaming video through our webcasting service offering for the Ingram Micro Cloud Summit 2011 in Phoenix AZ. “The focus of this summit is the monetizing of the cloud,” stated Ingram Micro’s VP of Managed Services Renée Bergeron, who kicked off the events with her Executive Presentation titled Managed Services and Cloud Computing. Joe Paneterri (the VAR Guy and Talkin Cloud) was the emcee.  Great event with nearly 300 resellers and 200 other guests attending the presentation and almost 1,000 Ingram Micro partners and staff from 11 countries who were able to tune in to the opening session via Varvid provided streaming video.  Ingram announced a website for all their cloud partners and vendor parters – http://www.ingrammicrocloud.com – the webcast was embedded in this site.  Your Ingram Micro Login is all you need to access a tremendous amount of information on the cloud, now and in the future.

Ingram Micro announced 8 new cloud service partners: VMware, BMC Software, N-able, Seimens, SherWeb, Symantec, Cisco, & Trend Micro and revealed their plans to serve as the channel’s leader in all things cloud by providing cloud business services, establishing a cloud community, and offering an immense portfolio of cloud services.

Here are some pictures and screenshots from the live webcast that highlight the event:

Aaron Booker at his Webcasting battlestation

Varvid's Webcasting equipment in operation

Guido Jouret of Enterprise Video & Cisco Systems

Joe Panettieri - The VAR Guy, talkincloud.com, and mspmentor.com

A shot of the Cloud Summit 2011 audience with Guido Jouret in the bottom right

The closing slide for the June 1st Cloud Summit 2011

 

 

Equus Launches New Comprehensive Managed Services Solution

Posted May 26 2011 by in Managed Services, Varvid Partners with 0 Comments

At the recent Autotask Community Live! event, Equus Computer Systems officially launched its new Complete Managed Service package. In addition to the staggering lineup of outside vendors contributing to Equus’ offering, Equus is incorporating its own long history as a hardware supplier by including a Hardware-as-a-Service component. This new, totally comprehensive solution makes it possible for channel partners to provide a single monthly price for hardware, software, and services, with zero investment. We at Varvid are proud to say that Equus has chosen to include us, along with Kutenda, as part of their E-Marketing offering.

According to their press release, the Equus Managed Service Solution includes a web-based e-commerce portal that allows partners to custom-configure any and all of the products and services provided by Equus. Not only will all configurations be displayed with the monthly price and suggested retail price, but the portal will also show users their recurring revenue profit, summarizing the profit potential of their entire service offering to their clients.

Other channel heavyweights included in the offering are Level Platforms for Remote Monitoring/Management, Live Virtual Help Desk, Reflexion for Web Security, Exchange Defender for Email, Intronis and Symform for Backup, and an as-yet-unannounced Network Operations Center component.

HTG Peer Groups Announces Hands That Give

Posted May 4 2011 by in Aaron Booker, Arlin Sorenesen, Hands that Give, HTG Peer Groups with 0 Comments

As many of our clients know, Varvid began as a Technology Services firm delivering outsourced IT (aka Managed Services) to firms in Bellingham and the Seattle Region under the name Hardlines Company.  Almost five years ago Hardlines was invited to join the HTG Peer Groups organization which involved meeting with a peer group quarterly to work on our business every quarter for 2 days. Three years ago, my peers suggested we start delivering video for VARs and their vendor partners for the “IT Channel.” So we did. At the time we called ourselves VARvid – we were that focused on IT firms. A year ago I sold Hardlines to focus exlusively on Varvid – but HTG has remained near and dear to my heart and we volunteer our services to the organization several times a year.

This morning HTG announced a wonderful new solution called “Hands That Give” which will allow peers that are having disasters to get help from their peers. It’s a little bit like insurance – with everybody paying in, but more importantly everybody participating has to have an updated Lifeplan and an updated Disaster Recovery Plan – so that the HTG members that come to help have a plan to work with. This will help those in times of emotional or physical turmoil in their lives (and therefore their businesses) or even if the principal passes away. It’s a wonderful thing to bring to the HTG Peer Groups – very forward thinking. This video features Arlin Sorensen, founder of HTG, speaking about Hands That Give.

HTG Honors Varvid with “Friend of HTG Award”

Posted May 4 2011 by in HTG Peer Groups with 0 Comments

Varvid is in the business to help companies tell their stories through the use of video.  If those stories are happy clients singing praises, an introduction of a new offering or even a piece that shares insight about the new hire, when an organization succeeds, it feels good. That’s why we do what we do.

Imagine our surprise when HTG Peer Groups presented us with the Friend of HTG award at their Summit in Dallas Monday night. HTG founder Arlin Sorensen, along with HTG President Scott Scroggin, called us to the stage and despite all the boos and hisses, handed over a very heavy award. As we returned to our table, Aaron looked at both Mike and me and said with a smile, “How cool is this.”  We are honored to have received this recognition and look forward to continuing to assisted in sharing their story.

Where in the World is Varvid?

Posted Apr 28 2011 by in Event Coverage, Varvid Partners, Varvid Team with 0 Comments

For those of you who don’t know, we have a page on our site titled “Where in the World is Varvid” which keeps you all up to date as to where Varvid is traveling. While it might not be as accurate at tracking the Varvid team as the iPhone and iPad appear to be it does display all the events we’re attending, and it’s a great resource to use if you’re interested in an on-site professional video shoot, and want to save money on travel cost.


We’re currently in the midst of an insanely busy couple of weeks. Right now our team is in San Antonio Texas covering the Xerox Fusion Summit April 26th-29th, which is a meeting for the Xerox Channel Partners where Xerox offers opportunities for partners to optimize their sales and revenue. On April 28th, we’ll also be at ASCII’s Success Summit in Washington DC, where Drew Graham will be giving a presentation titled “How to Make Video Impact Your Sales” to all the attendees of this coveted event hosted by the ASCII Group.

On the first of May, the entire Varvid crew will be reunited in Dallas Texas, where they’ll be covering the HTG 2011 Q2 Summit. This year’s event will focus on growing businesses by means of sales and marketing, operations, partnering with vendors, service management, and other areas of interest to HTG members. Special Interest Groups (SIGs) will meet to talk about healthcare, managed services, application development, cloud computing and business-specific topics such as social media, marketing, compensation and hiring. Check out the HTG Peer Group’s Facebook Page, Twitter Page and their LinkedIn Page to keep up to date with next week’s peer group shenanigans.

Death of the Flip, Birth of the New VENUE

Posted Apr 26 2011 by in Cisco, Varvid Team, VENUE Packages with 0 Comments

Earlier this month Cisco announced that they are discontinuing the production of the beloved HD Flip camera. Cisco stated that they’re strategically realigning their business to focus on core products by putting less investment into the consumer market and reinvigorating their network-centric platform strategy. The reception from the online community has been quite diversified, with voices like NASDAQ praising the decision from an investors perspective, while many average consumers feel like they’re being left in the dark.

Here at Varvid, this couldn’t have come at a better time. We’ve already been eying other video products in order to diversify the potential of the VENUE program and to offer an element of versatility to our clients. So, while many are mourning the death of Cisco’s Flip, we’ve been given the opportunity to finally move ahead with our new business model. We’re still working together to put the finishing touches onto the overhaul of the VENUE offering, and we’re excited with what we’ve been coming up with. Until we have the details worked out, we’ll still be supplying new VENUE clients with HD Flips. But stay tuned, because we’ll be making our announcement soon.

How Keywords Influence Your Video’s Rank in Universal Search Results

Posted Mar 25 2011 by in SEO, Video Delivery, YouTube with 0 Comments

In a recent post on the ReelSEO blog, Jeremy Scott wrote about ways to get your videos seen on the first page of universal (Google, Bing, non-site-specific) search results. Using data from a study performed by Manny Rivas and the aimClear team, Jeremy identified three major factors influencing video rankings:

  • Video upload platform
  • Ranking factors within the platform
  • Keyword Intent

Those first two bullets are easy to understand, and easy to use. Essentially, videos uploaded to YouTube have a better chance of showing up in a Google search than videos uploaded to DailyMotion, MetaCafe, or even Google Video. Even in Bing searches, 38% of videos retrieved are YouTube videos, beating out Bing‘s 37%. For maximum universal search ranking, host your videos on YouTube. That second bullet point means that the better your video ranks in your platform’s internal search engine, the better it will rank in universal searches.

The third bullet point is the really important bit: Keyword Intent. In their study, aimClear identified three categories of keywords: Informational, Navigational, and Transactional. The keywords you use in your video’s description and tags determine which category the search engine places your video in. Informational keywords are phrases like “learn,” “how to,” “history of,” or “what is.” They denote an educational or instructive video. Navigational keywords direct readers to other parts of the web, and they usually appear as a website address, brand name, or brand description. Finally, transactional keywords, as the name implies, are words like “buy,” “cheap,” “sale,” or “free.” According to aimClear’s study, informational keywords rank nearly three times better than navigational and transactional keywords combined.

aimClear's Keyword Intent data

So pay attention to your keywords. Be deliberate in the word choice of your titles and descriptions so that your potential viewers will not only see your video on their results page, but actually feel compelled to click on it. Avoid transactional keywords and the temptation of slick, snake-oil-salesman phrases.

Or you could let us handle it. Not only will we handle the equipment supply and editing for your next web video, we’ll handle the uploading (to YouTube, naturally), tagging, and posting of the video to your social networks. If you want web video to work for you, you want VENUE. Watch the video below for more information.

New York Times Highlights Advantages of Online Video for Small Businesses

Posted Mar 21 2011 by in New York Times, Online Video, YouTube with 0 Comments

On March 16th, the small business page of the New York Times published an article titled Online Video Offers Low-Cost Marketing For Your Company. The piece focused on the small businesses Ceilume, BBQguys.com, GoPro.com and Directfix.com and explained how they’ve each used online video to leverage their online presence, boost business, and attract new customers.

A few years ago, Ceilume was a small California manufacturing company making a transition from custom jobs, to the production of vinyl ceiling tiles. The business model was set into place, but they needed a cost effective way to publicize their new services. In 2008, President of Ceilume Ed Davis decided to set up a YouTube page and began posting videos varying from how-to instructional shorts, product demonstrations, and advertisements. Since then their channel has had over 99,000 visitors and their uploaded videos have been viewed over 500,000 times, meaning they’ve reached tens of thousands of potential customers with marginal cost compared to what pre-YouTube video distribution solutions would have demanded.

Based out of Baton Rouge La. BBQguys.com began posting videos of tantalizing bbq dishes being prepared on their manufactured grills and, as the videos became more popular, they hired local chef Tony Matassa to be their on-camera personality. This has turned their channel into a quasi web-series/infomercial, and to this day, Matassa is still hosting their videos. BBQguys.com now have close to 400 videos posted on their channel, all of which have a total of 1.4 million views.  NY Times writer Kermit Pattinson explains that BBQguys.com is an exemplary case where “online video has helped the company recover its human touch virtually,” and they’ve done this by creating engaging videos which show how their products function in real life, while connecting with the audience by providing professional recipes, culinary advice and mouth watering video footage. Please note: watching their videos while hungry is an excruciating experience, you have been warned!

Read the article here to see how GoPro.com and Directfix.com used online video to propel their businesses, and to get an idea of how you could use video in your own company.

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