It’s quite obvious that 360 videos have caught the attention of businesses and end users alike. Major platforms like Facebook and YouTube have been promoting it heavily and you can see everything from real estate ads to movie trailers using this technology to stay ahead of the competition curve.
Being such an in-demand technology, surely there must be many efficient ways to incorporate it into your advertising/marketing strategy, right? When we tried to ask people what they did once they shot their 360 video, an overwhelming 90% of them knew ONLY of YouTube and Facebook as the potential places to showcase their videos.
This begs the question, are YouTube and Facebook the only ways you can market your 360 degree videos? The simple answer to that is no.
There are several publishing platforms that allow you to upload your VR videos, but they essentially function in a format similar to the YouTube experience. In most cases it can only be viewed within the confines of that particular app and you will have to rely on people stumbling on your content for discoverability. Additionally many of these platforms are restricted to either a mobile app or desktop viewing, which means that only a portion of your potential audience can be targeted at a time.
Now since we have already talked about how important 360 videos and VR ads are going to be for your content marketing, this is by no means a scalable solution. There are several questions you need to ask yourself when you are thinking of marketing your VR Videos.
How is your target audience going to find this content, especially when VR tech is still in its nascent stages and often needs invitations for viewing?
Often you also need to direct your audience away from your website to a different app to view the 360 videos, creating some inherent branding challenges. When this happens there are chances that with such third party apps, the related video suggestion may show something your competition is doing. While good competition is great, it’s probably not the wisest decision to make your marketing efforts also expose your audience to competition actively.
So it’s very important to keep asking yourself if your content is available to your target audience using multiple platforms like a mobile app or website for content consumption?
That is when a solution like OmniVirt enters the picture.
OmniVirt is not only a complete solution for 360 video advertising, it makes your videos accessible on multiple platforms and allows you to embed the video in your own website or app completely eliminating any branding struggles you may have faced elsewhere.
And when the 360 video is present on your own website or app, you will also be able to track and analyse the traffic and determine what kind of storytelling is appealing to your audience. This is what will really help you understand the value of 360 video for your content marketing strategy and could even become the focal point for driving your online business forward.
At OmniVirt we believe that Publishers should be able to power VR experiences right on their own media property as they have been investing in this space and need to benefit from the campaigns they have created.
The video above is an example of how publishers can use OmniVirt to power their VR videos on their own properties with the branding completely intact.
If you were beginning to wonder how complicated this process is going to be, here’s the step-by-step guide on how to use OmniVirt to enable 360 videos on your own website or app.
- Go into www.omnivirt.com. You will be taken to the landing page shown below.
2. Click on Upload Now. This takes you to the Signup page.
3. Once the account is created, you can upload the 360 video you have created. Omnivirt supports 360° photos (equirectangular images), 360° videos, 180° 3D videos, and 2D videos. Accepted file extensions include: .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .mp4, .mo. Maximum file size allowed is 512MB.
4. Once the file is uploaded fill in the necessary information. . Then click on Publish.
5. After publishing the video/image, you can now use the first link to embed in your website or share on social media.
6. To add this to your website or app follow the instructions under “Learn how to embed to your site and app”.
7. If you wish to edit the video and add Hotspots or HTML code, click on the Edit button below the video. Then click the Edit the Video button.
8. Once you have added the Hotspots or HTML , click on save and then publish.
It’s that simple! Within minutes you can distribute this content on your owned digital properties exposing it to your target audience.
You can also customise the video, add interactions, insert logos and make it a compelling branding experience.
Now if you simply want to use the 360 video directly on your own website or app the process ends here. But if you are also looking for a network to distribute your 360 video content, then you can also Promote your 360° VR ad across the web.
This can be a great way to get your 360 video’s visibility and discoverability enhanced considerably. Since 360 video is still at a stage where there is some curiosity and excitement around it, these are ideal platforms to leverage that interest and build a bigger audience for your product or company.
So, to come back to the questions I said we should be asking ourselves when using 360 video content for our marketing strategy, OmniVirt has looked at what brands really need from 360 video content. And we all know the struggles of creating lasting brand recall. Forcing your audience away from your medium of communication, is not a great idea. So to grow your engagement with immersive 360 content, check out OmniVirt and let us know what you think.
