I love stats. Well, good, fun, informative stats that is. Check out the video below that I caught from a Mashable post.

Among the more fascinating statistics in The Economist’s Fall 2009 “Did You Know?” video on media convergence include that 40 million people have been rick-rolled, 95% of all downloaded songs last year weren’t paid for, there are 2 million TVs in bathrooms in the U.S., and 90% of some 200 billion emails sent per day are spam.

When you can take stats like those listed above, and drop them into a fun and entertaining video… you’ve got gold Jerry, Gold!

What did you think of this video? Good stuff, eh? Now… what kind of simple video like this can YOU make? I know you can do the research and find good stats. Then you simply have to find a video editor to put it together for you. Search your local colleges for a video department and find a student who has some time and who wouldn’t mind a few extra hundred bucks. Or look on Craigslist. Believe me, there are tons of people out there now looking for extra work.

When you make your video… post about it here. I’d love to see it.

You’re not going to find a better example of a viral type video built specifically to drive an action than this one.

Go watch this now and come back.

Notice how smart this was done? A powerful, emotional story, told without voice, in music and images.

Also notice how smart the call to actions are at the end of the video? They don’t interrupt. They are relevant. They help you easily share it.

This video will go viral because it’s that good. And frankly, this is something you could make over at www.Animoto.com for free.

Use emotions and tell stories.

One of the best things you can do in video that you can’t do in text, or even audio, is explain things. You know, like a tutorial. Guy Kawasaki has a great article about tutorials here.

This week I sat through eight hours of companies pitching themselves to a panel of experts at SXSW. It was a challenging experience because the companies had two minutes to explain what they do, and very few could. Indeed, in most cases the first question that the panelists asked was, “What exactly do you do again?” The same thing happens hundreds of thousands of times every day as people visit company websites. How many websites pass this simple test: “People can understand what the company does in two minutes or less”?

One of the video tutorials he talks about is this one below.

Here’s another tutorial video below that talks about the credit crisis.

You should watch for two reasons. 1. Because it’s a good video that explains how the USA got into this financial mess, and 2. Because it shows an effective way to explain something in visual form.

Of course, Lee over at CommonCraft.com is the master of these types of videos as well. Here’s a video on investing in what they call “plain English”.

These types of tutorial videos are an extremely effective way of getting your point across about a complex issue. Try it.

I should point out that making these types of videos is not easy. Many of them require effects that need to be done by a professional video editor or animator. It’s not going to be cheap to get this done. Contact me if you need a resource.

I do a weekly podcast called “Video Ninjas” over at Geekcast.fm with my friend Steve Rosenbaum who owns Magnify.net. I think you might like the show so I’ve included our latest podcast below. The show is all about the business of online video. Trends, business models, stats, etc…

In this week’s show Steve gets me all fired up about how there is no real “place” for business or marketing videos on YouTube. It’s true. YouTube doesn’t want our content (business/marketing) it seems. They want music videos and skateboarding videos. Fine.

But why not have a business section that’s walled off from that content? Steve really got me going in this episode. I think you’ll enjoy this show and future shows. Subscribe over at Geekcast.fm.

Oh yeah, I forget to mention how Steve coins the term “promiscuous posting”, which means posting your videos to multiple sites using Tubemogul. Give Steve credit for that if you ever see it used. Love it.

In part one of this series, we got five amazing tips on how to promote your videos from video expert Jake Ludington of JakeLudington.com. Part two, below, is the final five tips to promoting your videos on YouTube and beyond.

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Jake Ludington helps over 500,000 people answer their video and audio questions every month. From detailed tutorials on complicated video editing scenarios to finding useful tools for isolated problems, Jake provides ongoing research on the best methods for making Internet delivered video.

Also watch at:
YouTube, Yahoo, Metacafe, Google, Revver, DailyMotion, Blip.tv and Veoh

If you aren’t watching sXephil on YouTube yet, you should be. His main site is PhillyD.tv. The guy does a daily show that is one of the best I’ve seen. No, not as good as ZEFrank (who is?), but he’s close which is a pretty big compliment in my book.

The other day Phil talked about the things you need to know if you are trying to make videos for YouTube. Watch his video first, then my video response below.

YouTube link: How to be a YouTube Star?.

TheDailyFlip.com is a web show about online marketing and being an entrepreneur. Jim Kukral is an award-winning and long-time blogger, as well as speaker, writer, online marketer and web entrepreneur. You can read more about Jim Kukral here.

Subscribe to the rss feed for a chance to win your very own Flip Ultra video camera.

I just finished writing up a piece over at ReveNews about how online video converts… well. I’m sure you’re getting the point I keep driving in, over and over, and over?

Online video is where it’s at. Check out this chart.

As I said at ReveNews…

So first look at the left pie chart on the left. 59% of the people surveyed admitted to having seen a video on the Internet. Not sure what planet the “I don’t know” 14% live on.

Now to the right. Of those 59% who watched an online video…

22% requested information, 18% went to a store, 15% made a purchase, 9% signed up for a trial, 3% ordered a subscription

Would you call those conversion goals? Would you kill for those off-the-chart conversion numbers? I sure as heck would!

Let me tell you a story about video conversion. I created these five simple videos with my home camera earlier this year. I shot them in my office, with lights I bought from the Home Depot for $50.

Each short video was done without a script, in one take, and took me about 10 minutes to shoot. Here’s one of those videos.

These simple videos promoting my online marketing consulting business consistently generate about 3-5 consulting phone calls A WEEK! No advertising at all.

People are finding my videos on YouTube. Yes, I said they are searching in YouTube and finding me, and then calling me (converting). The best part is, they call me and say, “Your video talked “to” me. I watched it and immediately felt that you understand my problems and could help me, so I called.”

Powerful? I think so.

Make a video today. You won’t regret it.

As Beet.tv is reporting, YouTube overlay ads are beginning to appear all over the place. Want to see it in action? Try this video from Tim Carter. You’ll notice the little yellow bar in the player… that shows where the ad is going to play (if there is one, you may have to refresh as the ads don’t load every time).

Here’s a screen grab of an ad on that video.

Relevant ad for some kind of DIY network.

So why is this important to you?

If you’re not making videos yet, you should be. This is just another reason for you to get started. High-quality videos uploaded to a YouTube channel you create are going to be chosen by advertisers.

Video is wide-open. It’s like Google 5-years ago. Don’t believe me? Go to YouTube and search for any phrase, and do the same search in Google. I’ll do it for you.

I just searched for “debt”. That’s a HUGELY competitive term, right?

On YouTube, there are 5800 results for videos marked with “debt” in tags, titles and description. In Google, there are 185 MILLION results.

Which one do you think is going to be easier to climb to the top of?

A high-quality, well tagged video can get onto the first page, and sometimes the top listing on YouTube in 24-hours or less. I do it every week, for highly competitive search terms. Nobody else is doing it yet… nobody.

I’m telling you now… you’re either going to do it today, or wait until everyone else does it first, than play catch up… again. Get your video camera today and start making videos.

If you read this “guide to viral video” at Techcrunch, there are actually some really good tips in there about tags, and other tips about how to create videos that people want to watch.

But in the end, the article is crap for you and me… why?

Because viral videos are a waste of your time, just like traffic.

You tell me something. How do you monetized a viral video? Seriously, I want you to explain to me how to do it? That article didn’t explain it. In fact, that article specifically points that “they make money by taking other people’s videos and making them get viewed a lot”.

A. That’s not viral really. Views aren’t viral per say. Sharing is what really makes something viral.
B. That’s a good model if you can sell it and find clients, but is that really your thing?

Again, that article tells you nothing about how to make money from your “viral” videos. Why? Because it’s really, really hard to do, unless you’re a porn site.

People, stop chasing b.s. dreams like “viral” and “traffic”!

I’m here to tell you, that it’s a complete and utter waste of time. The odds of going viral are extremely low, and even if you do, it’s hard to monetize it.

Now, let me just say that if your goal is to become famous… then you should absolutely attempt to make videos that go “viral”. But to monetize… forget it.

More from Mathew, the dudes at Commoncraft chime in as well, and Centernetworks writes a great headline.

A JimKukral.com blog commenter pointed me to an interview with the marketing director at Blendtech, and creator of the Willitblend.com campaign, George Wright.

Every episode of the series contains “Tom Dickson”, CEO of Blendtec, destroying an interesting house-hold item(s). Some past blended items include: video camera, tape measure, can of EZ-cheese, and glow sticks.

In their 50+ videos, Blendtec makes sure they reach people with their message while entertaining. It is hard to forget the brand or ignore it, at the same time the branding is in no way alienating.

Great interview. Bold emphasis mine.

How long has the campaign been running?
GW: The first five videos were posted on the web on November 1 2006.

How successful is the campaign?
GW: The campaign has been incredibly successful. Our main objective of this campaign was brand awareness. We wanted people to know that our product existed. Millions of people all over the world have now viewed a product demonstration of our blender.

What inspired you to create the campaign?
GW: The inspiration for this campaign actually came from actual business-related testing. I happened upon some wood shavings in our lab – and discovered that Tom Dickson, CEO of the company, would blend a 2 x 2 board as a way of verifying that the bearings, motors and blades would withstand heavy use. Not only would the blender withstand the abuse, the blender would actually blend the board. The campaign was simply an extension of actual events.

Did you think concept would take off like it has?
GW: I knew that the videos were awesome…. I believed that there would be significant interest for this type of promotion among our customers and business partners. The additional appeal to people outside of our target demographic was a wonderful bonus.

Does Tom get recognized on the street?
GW: Yes… Tom has several stories about being recognized by his fans. He was even interviewed by a National News Network and identified by them as a “Star of the Internet.”

What kind of website traffic does willitblend.com receive?
GW: Numbers have been significant. We have logged more than 870,000 hits in a day. This is even more impressive when you consider that Willitblend.com only records a portion of the traffic for the campaign. Total traffic is significantly higher.

Does the campaign have an end date?
GW: Obviously there will come a day that we will end filming new editions. We have actually taken extreme blending on the road and demonstrated these amazing feats in front of many live audiences. The concept of extreme blending will likely never go away.

How well is DVD doing?
GW: Great! We have had brisk sales on our first 50 episodes. One thing that is making the DVD popular is that it includes some out-takes and some un-released episodes. Every fan should have one!

Is there any chance of seeing Willitblend on TV?
GW: Absolutely. We have done some blending on live TV. This has mostly been associated with news related stories. We are working with several global entities on some concepts.

How much research and planning went into the campaign?
GW: Great question…. We have been very strategic in how this campaign was handled. The campaign is managed, produced and published by a small internal marketing department, we have been very deliberate about the campaign strategy. This is no accident, it is a carefully executed marketing strategy.