The Fifth Network's director of marketing explains that every site has different video needs, and how to assess yours.

When it comes to setting a video strategy, there are a number of ways publishers can integrate video into their sites and instantly create powerful new revenue opportunities. As they begin to realize their potential in the video space, though, many publishers need to be careful in how they steward their audience towards understanding the implementation of video as an added feature, not a monumental shift in their sites experience. 

Like chocolate & cheese, everything tastes better with video, and aboard this cruise ship of online film clips, many publishers are rushing to the buffet of video content and haphazardly shoveling it onto their pages. Before they do this though, publishers need to know their audiences and determine if video is the right format for their content, how pervasive video should be and whether video should be an entrée or a side dish.

Video as an entrée
Sites like iFilm, AtomFilms, YouTube, Revver, Sharkle and Yahoo! Video all attract audiences that are suckling on the internet teat for online video. These sites were born out of an interest in viewing video online, and their audiences log on with the intent of watching and engaging.

MTV.com, one of the few sites with an offline incarnation, recently converted their site to a video-centric experience. They did this with the understanding that, just like ecstasy, their user base is constantly looking for more and more video.

This isn't the case for most sites however.

Video as a side dish
Recently I was media-tasking (watching TV, while surfing the web, while waiting for my mobile phone to download a ringtone, which I purchased as a reward for myself after beating a new level on my PSP, which I was only able to do thanks to cheat codes I learned about from a podcast.) and I came across a show on one of the big four TV broadcast networks.

Not knowing much about the show, I went to the network's website to learn more, only to find that the section dedicated to that show was a complete video experience.

What I needed was a paragraph or two about the show's plot, characters and recent episodes. Instead, I was offered clips of the director jubilantly waxing poetic on why he is excited to be directing, and interviews with the actors about why they're super-psyched to be part of this particular show. I was searching for non-video information that I could skim through for relevant information, and I couldn't find any. I didn't want to watch that week's trailer either, nor did I want to watch the show for free via the site's online video player (though I did anyway because I wanted to see if I could synch my TV to my laptop…)

This experience left me, the user, disgruntled. (Disgruntled user = bad). It would have been a much more pleasant experience if the site presented the most obvious information (synopsis & showtimes) in the easiest format (written text) and then presented me with the added functionalities, bells and whistles.

Internet video is a great asset and tool. It's engaging and emotive and can be both targeted and interactive. It should not, however, be a substitute for the great, and useful, non-video content many users have come to enjoy and rely on. In most cases, publishers should use their video, or syndicated video, to compliment their current content offering.

Publishers can compliment their movie reviews or sports predictions with dedicated movie trailer and sports highlights video players. They can enhance their sections about literature with videos of author interviews. Video can magnify the impact of a publisher's site, not just serve as a vehicle for transformation from a written experience to a visual experience.

The best part of using video as a side dish, though, is that, in addition to presenting publishers with revenue, it doesn't have to clutter the page or appear as if a publisher is cramming advertising into the eyeballs of its users. Publishers can avoid alienating their users with site and page redesigns by placing non-intrusive-but-noticeable "Watch Related Video" calls-to-action wherever video would serve to supplement the content.

Video as a $1.65 billion dollar snack
For sites that don't want to redesign and restructure around video, or beef up their site with a multitude of complimentary video players, the other solution to monetizing content is to invest $1,650,000,000 in a pre-established video site…but of course, that seems both cliché and obvious…

Portion control
Publishers deciding how much of their site they should focus on video, and how much should remain focused on their other traditional content, need to evaluate if video is the right medium to convert their content offering into. If not, utilizing video to augment their current non-video content is an easy-to-implement and beneficial solution not to be overlooked. Once publishers thoroughly appraise how video can best fit their needs, and best suit their users wants and needs, then can they efficiently strengthen their overall value proposition with it.

Bradley Werner is the director of marketing, The Fifth Network. Read full bio.