Cinchcast: Tips for Effective Online Engagement Through Rich Media Content

NEW YORK, July 25, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --

MULTIMEDIA:  Cinchcast logo

Cinchcast, a company that provides solutions for businesses to create, share, measure and monetize audio content, today releases tips to empower marketers to best incorporate rich media into their online content plan. Rich media is an important, yet often overlooked part of content strategy that can elevate the impact of any social media program.

"While many organizations realize that unique, branded audio, video and other multimedia can be an asset to their marketing and social media efforts, they are skeptical of the time and monetary investment that this type of content often requires," said Dan Kashman, president, Cinchcast. "The rise of web-based technologies, such as Cinchcast, make it easy for businesses of all sizes to cost-effectively create and distribute rich media content on demand. Businesses can take advantage of every day opportunities within their organization to create compelling content that helps extend the reach of their brand and resonates with customers and prospects."

It's critical for corporations to remember that today's customer responds to easily digestible content in multiple formats.  To help organizations understand how to successfully and simply create and incorporate rich media into their social media content and engagement strategy, Cinchcast offers the following tips:

• Creating Audio is Easy and Cost Effective – Audio content can often be created on a budget without the use of professional equipment or editing services.  With web-based tools like Cinchcast, creating, publishing and promoting branded audio content can be as simple as having access to any phone and a web browser, and social media promotion can be done with one click.  Every employee with a mobile phone can create audio content on demand. Instead of writing blog posts, consider recording them as podcasts that can be promoted across social media or conduct a phone interview with a customer to turn a product or service testimonial into shareable content.  

• A Picture is Worth a Thousand Clicks – Photos and images are an easy way to increase clicks and views across your brand's social media presence.  Syncing your mobile phone to upload directly to Twitter or a Facebook album can make photo sharing simple.  In addition, with platforms like Cinchcast, you can easily use your mobile phone to record an audio comment to post along with your image that will help further engage audiences.

• Offline Events Lead to Online Engagement – Events, conferences and tradeshows are perfect opportunities to generate rich media content and extend the reach and participation of your offline efforts to your online audiences.  Live-streams, call-in sessions, on-demand audio of keynote speeches and pictures of event activities will help those who were unable to attend follow along and interact in real time.

• Video is Not Always Viral – Producing video content is often time consuming and expensive and doesn't always guarantee ROI.  In fact, marketers are often challenged to ensure that their branded video content goes "viral" in order to make their investment worthwhile.  One way to experiment with video content before committing to high production value, is to use low-cost video cameras to record training sessions and events that can be uploaded directly to YouTube or similar video-sharing platforms. A simpler and more cost-effective option is to recreate the 'experience' of a video presentation by pairing audio content with a slide show.

• Use Interactive Content to Increase ROI – If your primary goal is to engage your audience and motivate them to take action, interactive content can elevate your social media efforts. A simple way to add interactivity to your content is to enable comments, add a chat forum, conduct dial-in Q&A sessions or allow users to upload content.

• Turn Your Community into Content Creators – More and more companies are turning to their customers and prospects for user-generated content that supports their ongoing social marketing initiatives. You can launch a contest to encourage customers to create the content for your next advertising campaign.  Providing simple ways for customers to upload images, audio and video on how they use your product and why they love it can build community engagement and strengthen brand advocacy.

Kashman continued, "Marketers are competing for customer attention. Audiences are demanding information in real time. They want convenience – at work, at home, on their mobile phone – and compelling content. Leveraging an organization's existing talent to turn authentic conversations into content will resonate with customers and can generate significant ROI."

Rich media content is an important enhancement to a traditional text-based social media strategy. Empowered with tools and technologies, like Cinchcast, that make creating and publishing rich media easy and affordable, social media marketers now have the opportunity to more effectively engage their audience to build strong relationships and improve the overall value of their online marketing efforts.

About Cinchcast

Cinchcast was developed to provide businesses with a simple and powerful solution to produce and share original audio content. Headquartered in New York City, Cinchcast powers audio content strategies for companies such as United Business Media, Business Insider, SAP and Sears, and is the technology behind BlogTalkRadio. For more information, please visit www.cinchcast.com.

SOURCE Cinchcast