Category Archives: Social Media

Kelsey Media Productions Receives 2022 Best of Burlington “Media Services” Award.

Burlington Award Program Honors the Achievement BURLINGTON February 10, 2022 — Kelsey Media Productions has been selected for the 2022 Best of Burlington Award in the Media Services category by the Burlington Award Program.

Each year, the Burlington Award Program identifies companies that we believe have achieved exceptional marketing success in their local community and business category. These are local companies that enhance the positive image of small business through service to their customers and our community. These exceptional companies help make the Burlington area a great place to live, work and play.

Various sources of information were gathered and analyzed to choose the winners in each category. The 2022 Burlington Award Program focuses on quality, not quantity. Winners are determined based on the information gathered both internally by the Burlington Award Program and data provided by third parties.

About Burlington Award ProgramThe Burlington Award Program is an annual awards program honoring the achievements and accomplishments of local businesses throughout the Burlington area. Recognition is given to those companies that have shown the ability to use their best practices and implemented programs to generate competitive advantages and long-term value.

The Burlington Award Program was established to recognize the best of local businesses in our community. Our organization works exclusively with local business owners, trade groups, professional associations and other business advertising and marketing groups. Our mission is to recognize the small business community’s contributions to the U.S. economy.

SOURCE: Burlington Award Program

CONTACT:Burlington Award ProgramEmail: PublicRelations@selectionstown.com

Visit company website at KELSEY MEDIA PRODUCTIONS

How Long Does It Take To Make An Animated Video?

February 10, 2022 /by Karolina Szot

Each stage of the production process takes a different amount of time. The length of your video and complexity of the illustrations and motion design also factors in. This outline presents a breakdown of what to expect during the explainer video production process. You’ll also learn how long each stage of the production process takes.

Explainer Video Production Process Timeline:

1). Pre-Production

2). Script

3). Storyboard

4). Voiceover + Auditions

5). Concept Art

6). Illustrations

7). 3D Animation

Pre-Production

Before you start looking for an animation studio or freelancer to make your custom animated video, spend some time getting clear about what kind of animation you want to create. Once you’ve spent some time identifying the important criteria, you’ll be better prepared to pick out an animator that can produce the video you want, within your desired budget and timeline.

While you’re in the pre-production stage, you should also spend some time organizing files like fonts, logos, icons, branding documents and more.

Not sure which animation style is right for your video? Read out our pros and cons list to learn what’s involved with producing different styles of animated videos:

Script

Under a normal production timeline, the script writing phase takes about 1 week for an animated video that’s 1 minute long. After the animator learns about your video idea, they will take 1-3 days to create the first draft of the script. Take a day or two to review the script and organize your feedback for the production team. Once the writer receives your feedback, they can typically turn around a revised script in 24 hrs or less. Scripts typically take 1-3 rounds of edits to get to the final draft.

If you are writing the script yourself, allow 1-2 weeks for your team to review it and contribute their feedback. Ensure everyone has approved the script before you share it with your production team.

Storyboard

The next step of the explainer video production process is to turn the script into a storyboard. A storyboard is a document that explains what visuals and what motion design needs to happen during every sentence of your script. It’s essentially a blueprint for the design and animation teams so that they know what to create.

A storyboard for a 1-2 minute video typically takes 1-4 days to produce. Then, it takes about 2-3 days to review the storyboard with the client and incorporate their edits.

You can save money on your production budget by creating your own storyboard. We also have a free storyboard template and storyboard creation guide which you can download by clicking on the image below:

Voiceover + Auditions

Once your storyboard is approved, the next step of the explainer video production process is to get voiceover auditions for you to review. It takes about 1-3 business days to get voiceover auditions recorded and delivered from multiple artists. You should take a day or two to review the options with your team. Then, notify your animator about which audition is your favorite option. Tell your animation team if you want the voiceover artist to modify their tone when recording the full voiceover.

Your animation team will then get the full voiceover recorded in 1-3 business days. When the VO is ready to review, give it a detailed listen with your team. If you love the voiceover as is, let your animation team know. Otherwise, send them detailed feedback so that the voiceover artist will know which parts to rerecord. Provide specific instructions about how you want them to change the timing, energy or inflection used. It is also helpful to list what time in the recording the changes need to be made

Concept Art

After your storyboard is approved, the next phase of the explainer video production process is to create the concept art for your video. Depending on the size of your budget, you can expect to receive 1-5 different visual concepts showing how one scene of your animated video can be designed. This typically takes 2-5 days depending on the # of samples being created and the level of detail used in your animation.

Once you receive your concept art, take a day or two to review the concepts with your team. Let your design team know which style you prefer. If you want to make visual refinements to the styleframe, now’s the time to speak up. If you like design elements from multiple concepts, tell your design team. They can combine the best design elements into a single visual concept for you to review and approve. This typically takes another day or two for the designers to create and then run by you for approval.

Illustrations

Now that your concept art is approved, the designers will create the rest of the art for your video. It takes about one week to create all of the art for a one minute animated video. Give your illustrations a thorough and detailed review. It’s important you are happy with the art before animation begins. If you love it as-is, let them you know you approve the art. Otherwise, submit your feedback to the design team and wait 1-3 days for the update. It’s not uncommon to do a 2nd round of edits on the illustrations for an additional layer of polish.

Animation

When the art, soundtrack and voiceover are approved, the animation team will start animating your video. One animator can animate about one minute of 2D or 3D animated content in one week. Revisions can typically be turned around in 1-2 days after the animator receives your feedback. When you receive the first draft of their video, circulate the first draft among your stakeholders. It’s a good idea to get different people’s impressions and feedback. This way, when you come back with your list of edits, all the ideas are consolidated and can be addressed at once. Going through multiple rounds of revisions at this stage will likely increase your final production cost and the amount of time it takes to get your animation completed.

Post-Production

The final stage of the explainer video production process is called, “Post-Production.” Post-Production includes adding little details like sound effects, or rendering out multiple versions of the video with slight variations (perhaps you want to show a different business location’s address at the end of each video). These kinds of edits are typically simple and take 1-2 days to process after the final draft draft is approved.

At Kelsey Media Productions we can make your vision a reality! Visit us now at KelseyMediaPoructions.com or call 781-365-4800!

Instagram Marketing: Is It Right For Your Business?

For years, Facebook and Twitter have been the standard go-to’s for social media marketing. However, over the last few years there has been a palpable change in the digital landscape. The demographics of social media sites are starting to shift as new platforms begin to emerge. And as Facebook and Twitter invest more heavily in paid advertising, businesses are having a more difficult time getting organic exposure on these sites. All of this is leading many businesses to wonder if they should start casting their digital marketing nets a little wider. (Spoiler alert: most of them should.)

In a particularly telling sign of the times, in September 2015 Instagram surpassed Twitter in number of users, making it the second most used social media platform behind Facebook. Those kinds of numbers are hard to ignore and this stunning growth is part of the reason that people are starting to eye Instagram as the next great place to market their business. So how do you know if it’s right for you?

Instagram Marketing: Why It’s Awesome

While we’re firm believers that there’s no one-size-fits all answer when it comes to social media marketing, there are a few general rules of thumb that you can use to decide if Instagram is a good fit for your business. But first, let’s take look at a quick rundown of what makes Instagram marketing so great.

1. The Future is Mobile — and so is Instagram.

For years now the growing importance of mobile has been at the top of the list for every forecast of marketing trends — and we’ve finally reached the tipping point. As of 2015, not only is the time spent on mobile media (51%) significantly higher than that of desktop (42%), but there are now nearly twice as many mobile-only users (19.1%) as there are desktop only users (10.8%). Mobile is no longer just a growing a trend. It has become the primary way that Internet users are accessing online content.

This gives Instagram marketing a huge advantage over its top three competitors, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Unlike the other major social media platforms, Instagram was originally conceived as an app. Although the other social media heavyweights have invested heavily in their mobile apps, it’s difficult (if not impossible) for a platform that was originally created for desktop to have an app that functions as seamlessly and intuitively as a platform that is native to mobile. Just a quick side-by-side comparison of any of the major social media apps compared to the Instagram app makes this point abundantly clear. While other apps struggle with endless updates to more elegantly integrate multiple pages and menus, Instagram’s simple, stripped-down interface makes it easy and intuitive for mobile users.

Now that mobile is the primary digital media being used by consumers, it’s likely that emerging social media platforms will be mobile natives as well. While Instagram is perfectly positioned to take on that new competition, the platforms that were originally conceived for desktops are going to feel increasing pressure. In short, if you’re looking to invest in a social media strategy that will continue to have an impact over the long-term, Instagram should be a part of that strategy.

2. Your posts are more likely to be seen.

The great thing about Instagram marketing is that as you gain followers you know that they are actually following you. While Facebook and Twitter give users the ability to prevent posts from certain accounts from showing up their feeds, Instagram has no such functionality. If a user doesn’t want to see your content anymore, they have to unfollow you. This means that you can be sure that your content will appear in 100% of your followers feeds, greatly increasing the chances that they will actually see it.

Ensuring that your posts are being seen has become particularly difficult on Facebook. Not only does Facebook allow users to have a high degree of control over the content that appears in their NewsFeed, but the Facebook algorithm automatically curates each profile’s NewsFeed based on their connections and interactions. This means that if your followers don’t immediately and consistently engage with your content, chances are they will stop seeing it.

To make things more difficult for marketers and business owners, as Facebook increasingly invests in its advertising services, business pages are finding it more and more difficult to reach their followers organically (i.e. for free). While Instagram has introduced ads on the platform, thus far there has been no indication that they intend to treat the content posted by business profiles any differently than they have in the past, making Instagram marketing still your best bet for getting your content in front of your audience.

3. Instagram leads the pack for engagement.

It’s not enough to just be sharing your content — it needs to make an impact. Shares, likes, RTs, and +1’s are all indicators of how engaged your audience is with your content. The more you have your follower’s attention, the more opportunities there are to get your message out, build brand awareness, and engage in some killer PR. If leveraged correctly, these social signals can even pack a serious SEO punch. That’s why engagement is the Holy Grail of social media marketing.

Instagram’s clean, streamlined interface, judicious incorporation of ads, and focus on visual content creates an intimate atmosphere that is optimal for social sharing. So it’s no wonder why, when it comes to engagement, Instagram is the industry leader. While the exact numbers can be hard to quantify, estimates suggest that Instagram users are 58 times more likely to like, comment, or share a brand’s post than Facebook users and 120 times more likely than Twitter users. Those numbers are huge and they can make an equally huge difference for your business.

4. Businesses can brand themselves through visual storytelling.

Have you ever heard of an elevator pitch? The general idea is this: you’re the CEO of a startup or a salesperson trying to drum up new business and all of sudden you find yourself in an elevator with exactly the investor or the contact that you’d like to do business with. Basically, you have 30 to 90 seconds to tell this person what your company does and why they should want to work with you and you have to do it in a way that is interesting and compelling enough that the elevator ride ends with you getting a meeting and not an uncomfortable brush off. It’s as tricky as it sounds.

It’s also a great analogy for building your audience online, only instead of an investor you’re pitching Internet users and instead of 90 seconds you have 2 — maybe. This is where the visual storytelling aspects of Instagram marketing become a huge advantage. They say a picture is worth 1000 words and they’re right. You could probably sum up why the company you work for is so cool in 1000 words, but no one would stick around to read it. Or you could post a picture of your latest rooftop office party or your “workation” in Mexico and tell the same story in an instant.

How to Know If Your Business Should Be On Instagram

So you get that Instagram is awesome, but you’re still not sold on the idea that it’s right for your business. The truth is that despite the many advantages of Instagram marketing, it still doesn’t necessarily make sense for every business. Here’s a few rules of thumb that can help you know if it’s time for your business to take the plunge:

Your target audience is young. Approximately 90% of Instagram’s 400 million users are under the age of 35. Compare this to Twitter (where 55% of users are over 35) and Facebook (where 65% of users are over 35). The truth is that it doesn’t matter how great your product and your message are if you aren’t using the right channels to reach your audience. Trying to connect with young people on Facebook is like trying to text someone with a fax machine — it’s just not going to work.

Your product is visually compelling. Instagram marketing is all about visuals. Maybe you’re a travel agency that books luxury vacations or maybe you’re a company that builds sweet custom bikes. Whoever you are, if you are selling something that people are going to want to see, you need to be on Instagram.

Your competitors are on Instagram. If you haven’t yet, you should definitely check to see if your competitors are doing Instagram marketing. Even if you still think at this point that Instagram isn’t right for your business, if your competitors are already there and developing a following, chances are that they know something you don’t. Poke around in their profiles and try to figure out what it is, then get to work building a better version in your own profile.

If you think you can tell a visual story about your business — or you are trying to target a younger audience — Instagram needs to be part of your social media marketing strategy.

Are you ready to take the plunge with Instagram market, but looking to outsource social media? We’ve got a couple of pricing guides you might be interested in, both for professional social media marketing tools and small business social media marketing.

5 Advanced SEO Strategies You’re Probably Aren’t Using

BY PETER ROESLER

These simple but overlooked tactics can help boost your site’s traffic and revenue.

A lot of businesses have had their current websites for several years and while they may be functional, they may not be optimized for SEO in the current environment. SEO is a fast changing field, and even a site that was perfect a couple of years ago may be out of date when it comes to strategy and best practices. Many articles have covered simple things a business owner can do to improve their site’s SEO and internet marketing, this article will focus on a few advanced topics. Here are five advanced SEO strategies you probably aren’t using.

Optimize PDFs for SEO
Many people don’t realize that Google treats the PDFs on websites like webpages. Not just indexing the title of the file, but the contents within as well. For a start, this means that businesses should use keywords as they would on any other page on the site. Also, the PDFs on the site to promote can advance the company’s content marketing and SEO goals. Marketers should include keywords in their headings, give the file an SEO-friendly file name, and include all meta description options available when creating the file. Since, the links within the document count when clicked, be sure to include links back to the website in the logo (like you would on the website) and links to supporting content on the site. Finally, be sure to include as much text as possible and not rely too much on images. Google can read a pdf, but it still can’t assign an SEO score for a picture other than the information in the alt tag. So be sure to include a description to go with your graphics if you want the information to be easy to find through search.
Use Paid Promotion on Social Media to Boost Traffic
Business owners often want to improve their SEO rankings so they can increase their website traffic, but in some ways, that’s putting the cart before the horse. Google and other search engine algorithms take into account how much traffic a page gets when determining its ranking. So increases traffic to a site will boost its SEO, which in turn, boosts the traffic even higher. Social media is a great way to get the ball rolling. Most social media platforms have some form of paid promotion or ads that can be used to increase traffic. Business owners and marketers need to take advantage of these tools so they can find their target audience and lead them to their site. So long as the content is original and interesting to the audience and the targeting is done right, business owners can send a large amount of traffic for a small amount of money. And if people like what they see, they’ll come back to see more and share the link with friends. This sort of activity will boost a site’s SEO ranking.
Continuously Create Quality Content
There are a lot of ways that website owners can improve the structure of their site and SEO-friendliness of the content, but the one algorithm-proof method to improve a site’s search ranking is to continuously create content that’s useful to the audience. Though it may take effort and resources, businesses should endeavor to create blog posts and other forms of content for their site on a regular basis. This benefits the site in several ways. First, the SEO visibility of a site increases with the number of pages indexed, so continuously adding content provides more content for search engines to index. Secondly, creating blog posts that are topical, interesting or that answers a question takes advantage in the changes in the way people search and use the internet. People are searching for the answers to specific questions or looking for interesting things to share with their friends. Creating this kind of popular content will serve a business better than the most SEO-optimized traditional About Us page. Just be sure that the created content is SEO friendly.
Use Niche Directories
Many website owners are guilty of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. At one point, directories were a large part of SEO, but now being listed in the wrong kind of directory can lead to a Google penalty. Understandably, many website owners have avoided all directories to be safe. However, this is overkill and deprives businesses of a very useful tactic. Niche directories are small directories created to serve a very specific community. If you’re a maker of handmade goods or the producer of organic foods, there are people looking at niche directories trying to find these kinds of sites. As long as the directory is targeted and useful, it’s okay with Google. Do a local search for your industry and see what directories come up and submit your site.
Focus on Neighborhoods to Improve Local
Local businesses are getting better at using the internet to find customers and changes to the Google algorithm for local search rewards small local businesses. For example, Google now divides more cities into subdivisions instead of considering each city as one unit. This means that businesses that identify their location within the city can turn up in important searches for local businesses. Businesses should try to keep a consistent name, address and phone number. Changing the NAP of a business makes it harder for Google to accurately place the business in local search radii. Additionally, businesses should include their neighborhood in website copy and marketing. This helps if someone searches for something like “deli near Southside Pittsburgh”. Also, be aware of nicknames and other ways the neighborhood could be identified, such as the dozens of nicknames for the different areas within areas of Manahattan (e.g. The Diamond District in Midtown).

So those were five advanced tips for SEO you may not be using. I hope you learned something new. If you didn’t learn anything but read to the end anyway, thanks for sticking around. For a wide variety of services that can be helpful to your business contact Kelsey Media Productions.

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