Getting consumers to pour themselves a nice fizzing glass of ice cold Coke, has never been easier…for Coke, that is. Recently, Coke has adopted a P&G favorite, the Pay-for Performance Model for agency work. This model ensures “value-based,” compensation, and is quickly becoming an advertiser favorite. This method allows for agency accountability, when something works, the agency sees some of the profit, if not they only recoup agency expenditures. ROI is coming to the forefront of brand advertising, something the direct response industry has held as a tried and true standard. Read more at AdAge.

Using video on your website is a powerful way to reach you audience.  A well crafted video with a catchy title can quickly go viral and is an excellent way to bring links to your site. In turn, links will help give your site search engine authority and ultimately higher search rankings.

The problem with video is you can have great content full of all the keywords you are targeting but search engines are going to have no idea what that content is.  Here are some tips to optimize your video content:

• Transcribe your video. Transcribing your video is a great way to let the search engines know what your video content is. There are many affordable transcribing services that will do this for you.
• Keep it short and sweet. Internet users have a short attention span. Keep your videos under 6 minutes. If you have a longer video that you just can’t edit down to a reasonable time, consider breaking the video into chapters.
• Use catchy titles. Using a catchy title will give you a much higher click through rate on your videos.  Even if your subject is dry, be creative in how you title your video.  For example if you have an instructional video on how to paint a room,  instead of calling it “How to Paint a Room” you could call it “Painting a Room: In 5 Minutes we’ll Teach you to Paint Like the Pros”
• Understand 3rd Party Hosting. Posting your video on video sharing websites like YouTube, Meta Cafe and Vimeo are a great way to increase your video views but understand that these sites will have very high authority and will likely out rank your site. If the video becomes popular, the links will point to the hosting site instead of your website. One way to combat this is to optimize the on page factors on your site using the desired keywords. If you decide to post the video on a sharing site, change the titles and tags as not to compete with your site. Also be sure to include a watermark of your website name  as part of the video being posted on hosting sites.
• Offer the option to embed your code. Offering the  code so visitors can post the video on their blog or website will help to make your video viral. Be sure to require a link back to your site for people who use the code.
• Use a good thumbnail image. Using  a compelling thumbnail will greatly increase the chances of your video being viewed.

Tribune Broadcasting acquired the off-net series Entourage (six seasons) and Curb Your Enthusiasm (7 seasons) from HBO and Warner Bros.  Both series are scheduled to air on all the Tribune stations in 17 markets (including WGN Chicago) and WGN America beginning fall 2010.  Both will be scheduled six times per week, airing M-F and one additional run on the weekend.