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Animoto introduces tools to make social videos

Jefferson Graham
USA TODAY

SAN FRANCISCO -- Attention small businesses -- you now have a way to make those Facebook videos with huge text that can be watched without sound.

Animoto, which has targeted photographers with simple tools to create instant videos for online viewing, is expanding to traditional small business, with a new offering to make marketing videos.

Animoto CEO Brad Jefferson at Animoto's offices in San Francisco

The “Marketing Video Builder” costs $22 monthly and is targeted to the DIY crowd who have “no previous editing experience.”

Users upload photos and videos, and from there, have access to custom branding, voice­over, text over images and video clips, photo collages, timing controls, and commercially licensed music.

“As social video has emerged as a must­have for online marketing, we wanted to meet that need head on with a view towards the next decade,” said Brad Jefferson, the CEO of Animoto.

Animoto has 17 million registered users--a small portion of those pay $9.99 monthly for the service, to eliminate the Animoto watermark and get the ability to make longer videos.

Over 1 million wedding, holiday and recap videos are created monthly.

To use the new service, you choose from a variety of different storyboards upload photos, and then revise the pre-written text that Animoto supplies.

The power of the 1.5 billion member strong Facebook social network “has changed everything,” for small businesses, who used to focus on a company website, but now have to pour resources into social media, says Jefferson.

“They’ve moved to being a video first company, and right behind is Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, Twitter. They’re ad companies, and the most lucrative ad unit is the video format. It behoves them to push video hard.”


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