TOOL TUESDAY: Seriously Easy Videos With Animoto (and a nice nonprofit discount)

June 28, 2011 by Kerri Karvetski

Video is awesome. Video is powerful. Video can deliver amazing results.

But it ain’t easy.

Yes, smartphones and Flip video cameras have made it easy to capture video. The gobs of videos uploaded to YouTube every minute attest to that.

But many nonprofits and businesses shy away from video because they know a good video is not just about capturing video. A good video is about telling a story and having a purpose, i.e. capturing leads, raising awareness or soliciting donations. It’s also about knowing the medium and editing your footage to create a coherent and compelling message.

Making a good video entails both storytelling and technical skills. No one wants make a bad video, so a lot of us just don’t try.

Animoto Helps You Make Stunning Videos

If you’ve got photos, you can have a good video. Very few technical skills required. Really.

Animoto is a web-based service that sets your photos to music and turns them into videos. Check it out.

Animoto thinks like a director and an editor, combining your images and music with the same sophisticated post-production skills and techniques used in television and film. The technology takes into account every nuance of a song – the genre, song structure, energy, rhythm, instrumentation and vocals.

Animoto is a tool, not a magic bullet. You still need a compelling story structure, decent photos and solid copy.

Make and share an Animoto video and I guarantee someone will ask you how you did it.

Thirty-second Animoto videos are absolutely free. Pick an animation style, choose your music, add some text, upload your photos and Animoto makes it stunning.

Pull in images from Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, Photobucket or SmugMug. When you are done, share your video easily via email or on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace or Tumblr.

Animoto comes with about a dozen animation styles and music in a variety of genres. Paid accounts give you more options – download videos, produce videos without the Animoto branding baked in and add a link to the end of your video, a feature that’s a must if you are going to use the video to make an ask (sign up, donate, etc.).

Pro accounts with all the bells and whistles are just $249 per year, or $39/month. Click here for Animoto pricing.

Free Animoto Pro Accounts for Nonprofits & Educators

Here’s the best part – nonprofits and educators are eligible for free Animoto Pro accounts!

Here’s a video that volunteers at Amnesty International US put together recently in support of Iranian student leader and prisonor of conscience Majid Tavakoli.

To qualify, nonprofits need to submit a charity registration number and to register with a nonprofit email address, not a personal email address. The Animoto website states that it will take about 14 days to process a nonprofit application. Click here for Animoto for a Cause.

Educators must provide school, grades and subjects taught and class website/blog. Likewise, educators must submit the application using an official school email address. Click here for Animoto for Education.

I highly recommend the Animoto blog for tips and tricks, webinars and tutorials. Definitely read 5 Ways Animoto Can Help Your Cause and Animoto For A Cause 101.

If you end up using Animoto, share your video here and I’ll share it on the Company K Media Facebook page and Twitter feed.

Tool Tuesday blog posts feature products and services I’ve actually used, like and recommend to nonprofits and small businesses.

Animoto & Instagram: Perfect Together? (gigaom.com)
5 Facebook Apps for Getting More From Your Photos (mashable.com)
YouTube Good Work Helps Non-Profits Find The Video Help They Need (googlefornonprofits.blogspot.com)

photo credit: PearlsandaCardi

Posted in Creativity, Grants, Photos, Tools, Video | Comments

TOOL TUESDAY: Get a Smarter Signature With Wisestamp

June 14, 2011 by Kerri Karvetski

Is your email pulling its weight?

Every message you send is an opportunity to let people know what you do and what you’re up to. The email signature accomplishes this nicely.

Wisestamp puts your email signature on steroids.

Before I get into the details, I must mention that Wisestamp is available for Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and AOL email services, and with the Firefox, Chrome and Safari browsers. It is not available for Outlook and other desktop email programs.

Back to the steroids. Wisestamp does everything your garden variety signature does – bolding, links, even logo files. What sets Wisestamp apart is this bit o’ magic called Email Apps.

Here’s their promotional video:

WiseStamp Demo from wisestamp on Vimeo.

Email Apps are smart. They pull your latest activity into the email, so it’s never stale. And by activity I mean your latest:

Blog post
Tweet
Bookmark in Delicious
Product you are selling on eBay
Digg
StumbleUpon
Cause
Music (Last.fm, Pandora and Blip.fm)

With Email Apps, you set it and forget it. Fresh stuff, in your signature, for no additional work!

You may choose more than one activity to pull in, but I recommend just one. You want to offer a taste, not the full meal.

What To Include In Your Signature

Name
Title
Company or org
Phone (office and mobile)
Website
Wicked short description of what you do (or a tagline if you’ve got a good one)
Email address (not all email programs will show this easily, so might as well include it)

What Not to Include In Your Signature

Fax
Full address
Random quotes (why promote someone else?)
Crazy mixtures of fonts
Every email address, phone number, website, social network and instant message network you’re connected with
VCard

Wisestamp is free for basic accounts and quite affordable ($24/year and up) for some extra bells and whistles. Here’s my Wisestamp. Show me yours!

Posted in E-Mail, Productivity, Tools | Comments

TOOL TUESDAY: Free, Easy, Anywhere Photo Editing With Picnik

June 7, 2011 by Kerri Karvetski

If you want to manage a website, publish an e-newsletter or participate in social media, you need to know how to prep photos. The good news is, you don’t need Photoshop and you don’t have to spend a dime on photo editing software.

The tool that I recommend to beginners is Picnik, a free online photo editing service. It’s super easy and browser-based, which means you don’t need to download software. You can edit photos from any computer connected to the Internet.

Picnik is the official photo editing tool for Flickr and Picasa (photo sharing sites) and MailChimp (email service provider), among others. Google thought it was so nifty it purchased Picnik in March 2010.

Before going into Picnik as a tool, we need to cover a few techniques.

Make Your Photos Light

Photos taken from digital cameras are usually too fat to be used online. If you see “mb” (megabytes) as the file size, it’s way too big. You want “kb” (kilobytes), preferably something under 100kb. The fatter the file, the slower your web page or newsletter will load. A lot of readers will just move on.

Save Your Photos Right

Save your photos as .jpg or .png, and for graphics with limited colors, such as logos, use a .gif.

Get To Know Pixels

Pixels are the smallest unit of a picture on a screen. You measure height and width of digital photos in pixels.

For websites and email, you will need to resize photos so they fit properly on the page or in the column. This column is about 580px wide, so I need to make my photos no wider than that or it’ll make this webpage look funny.

Here’s a photo saved in three different pixel sizes (isn’t she cute):

DIMENSIONS: 580px wide x 440px high

DIMENSIONS: 300px wide x 227px high

DIMENSIONS: 150px wide x 114px high

Social media sites such as Facebook will resize photos for you.

Get Cropping

Learn how to crop properly and a whole world of opportunity will open for you:

Focus on the most visually interesting sections of a photo
Get rid of unnecessary or undesirable parts of the photo
Make thumbnails for previews and excerpts
Prepare photos for defined spaces, like a homepage slide show (like on my homepage)

For example, I took these photos of a daycare center mural, and really just wanted to zoom in on the boy on the tire swing for the center’s web page:

Tire swing before cropping

Tire swing after cropping

Now Go Picnik!

I highly recommend Getting Started With Picnik, a quick guide designed to get you started on the path to photo-editing awesomeness.

Practice those crops, and then move on to red-eye, filters and overlaying text. Have fun! And, be productive without being frustrated.

Posted in Photos, Tools | Comments