Serious Fun with Video Animation

(To view this video click on the photo above.)

This morning after reading some interesting tips on the Social Times, I decided to break into my Monday computer work day with a little fun, based on an article describing YouTube apps. We all know that having content on YouTube helps with our search engine rankings right? But not all of us have the time or hard drive space to handle video content. That is where apps like Animoto, and Goanimate and many others can be a quick and easy way for you to get some content onto your YouTube channel thus increasing your brand exposure.

I decided to try Goanimate a cartoon based animation application. Youtube has a free version where you can create a short animation and instantly upload to your YouTube account.

I decided to create a series of short promotional “videos” for an upcoming event we’re having at our church. And since the event’s purpose is mainly to promote friendship and give the ladies in our church a night out to have fun, it seemed like a perfect fit.

We had already done a bit of promo for this event, so I though maybe the story in the animations could center on the “behind the scenes fun” in planning an event such as this. I was inspired in part by Oprah’s behind the scenes content on her new network OWN.

While I realize that an animated cartoon may not work for every business, its use might find a niche and maybe even a following. And, while I’m not claiming to be a master storyteller or animator, I did manage to easily put together a funny (to us) video that encourages the audience to have a little fun along with us.

In this case I don’t need to improve any SEO for a group of ladies at church planning an event but we did need a little fun factor to help advertise our event so I put together a little animated video about the “behind the scenes” drama surrounding the planning of a big event at church.

There are a couple of drawbacks to this application. First, if you use the app within YouTube, you can’t go back and edit the video. Once you’ve saved it, that’s it. However you can login into the Goanimate application to edit your video. But then if you want to export the video again to YouTube you must upgrade to a paid plan. The video is still accessible with the free plan on the Goanimate site and you can share it by using a link or embed code.

The second drawback is that this application uses flash so your created content that is viewed from the Goanimate site will not be viewable on many mobile devices. But, if you use the YouTube route, your content can be viewed on your ipad, iphone, or other mobile device that doesn’t used flash. Here’s the other version on YouTube.

It’s a tossup I guess. For me though, it worth the fun and effort in creating some new video content without having to use a video camera. On to episode two!