Here’s an infographic by DreamGrow, which forecasts the growth in video traffic:

PC: Dreamgrow

However, videos are easier said than done

Producing high-quality video content can be a daunting task. Your videos need to be short, rich in content and deliver value that the audience can feel. Your video has a lot of competition too! It needs to capture and retain the attention of a distracted person.

Businesses need to use creativity to meet the growing demand for visual marketing. Most businesses have in-house professionals using Adobe tools to create such videos. However, this process is tedious and time-consuming. Sure, you can use several online tools to create videos. But most of those tools lack varied animation libraries and don’t perform up to expectations.

Enter Animaker

RS Raghavan and Loganathan K decided to help brands create high quality animated videos, in a fraction of the effort, time and cost it was taking them otherwise. That’s when Animaker was born.

Animaker is home to a vast collection of animated characters, backgrounds, icons, charts and maps. Animaker’s varied library allows you to create the ideal videos/images for marketing campaigns, business presentations, and even personal projects.

Here’s a teaser video by Animaker to understand how the platform suits your content creation needs:

How did it all begin?

Back in 2011, the CEO and Founder of Animaker, Srinivasa Raghavan noticed that many companies are spending a lot of time and money on expensive studios that depend on complicated equipment. He wanted to create a platform that equips companies with an in-house studio and internal creative tools that don’t take up all their revenue. Along with his college mate Loganathan, Raghavan started Bode Animation.

Bode Animation was just a team of two developers and one designer when it first started. Raghavan and Loganathan worked together towards developing the team by providing them with the right kind of resources and tools.

Today, their team is a 30-employee enterprise. Raghavan’s ever-increasing passion for innovation took Bode Animation on an upward trajectory. In 2014, the startup progressed to a do-it-yourself (DIY) video-making tool, we now know as Animaker.

“As leaders, we cannot motivate people; we can only create a context and an environment where people feel motivated. We need to be transparent because, in order to build a ship, we cannot simply order our team to collect wood pieces and report back to us,” says Raghavan.

Talking about their journey towards the formation of Animaker, Raghavan says – 

“During the earlier stages of our journey, handling media and video-making was always a tough challenge for us. Thus, we bridged the gap between tech companies and video studios, where companies wanted high-quality videos, but studios failed to meet their expectations.”

The market and company presently

Today, Animaker provides 100+ animated charts, 1000+ animated icons, and 3000+ animated maps. The company has served 1.5M+ people from across the world thus far. They are competing with companies such as Raw Shorts, Video Brewery, Powtoon, and Moovly for a share of the $1.81B digital video software segment.

Animaker’s easy integration with YouTube and ability to export videos to channels seamlessly from the platform leave it uniquely placed to capture a lucrative portion of this market, pegged by market research companies to be growing at a CAGR of 10.31%. As most of its competitors, the company runs on a freemium model. Unlike others, the free version allows users to make as many videos as they want of less than 2 minutes.

Animaker also allows you to give life to your videos by adding human voice-overs. Whether you want to add a soothing background score or use the ‘text to speech’ converter, Animaker makes it all possible.

To catch up with the growing mobile video trend, Animaker has introduced a new tool using which you can create vertically optimized animated videos. These videos fit perfectly into the mobile screen of your audience.

The company proudly proclaims that it is completely bootstrapped and has been profitable from day one.

Intrigued? Here’s where you can start. Watch this video on how you can exploit the Animaker platform to create amazing visuals:

The post Need Animated Videos? Don’t look beyond Animaker appeared first on Techweek.

Though Chicago’s tech start-up scene is rather B2B focused, Chicago Ventures (one of the investors in the platform) believes that Cameo has the potential to be the Windy City’s uniquely B2C startup success. In recognition of the same, Cameo was recently nominated for Chicago Inno’s 2018 Coolest Companies.

Zero Degrees of Separation

Co-founder, Steven Galanis, recognizes that we all aspire to hobnob with the stars and also that we live in an era of ‘if it’s not on Instagram, it didn’t happen’. Here, the key customer insight that the app’s value proposition is built on is exhibitionism & every individual’s desire to eliminate the six degrees of separation from their favorite stars. Simply put, Cameo helps the average Joe achieve contact with celebrities, which can then be splashed on social media as proof.

Athletes, celebrities, reality TV icons and social media influencers; make the bulk of the 1,400 stars on its roster. Since Feb 2017, over 26,000 celebrity videos have been created. Of these, the stars who have received the most bookings are musician Nick Colletti, YouTube comedian Evan Breen and star of the “The Real Housewives of New York City”, Sonja Morgan.

By linking fans to their idols, Cameo videos have also become real tools of inspiration for many. One of the satisfied Cameo customers even reviewed ESPN’s TV & Radio Host, David Kaplan, with the following comment, “Thanks Kappy! My buddy loved it, got him to laugh and it(sic) sure motivated him for his rehab.” This feedback is indicative of Cameo’s ability to get celebs to channel their star power on-demand to generate a feel-good moment.

The best part is that the celebrity video platform is intuitive and really simple to use.

Celebrity Video Bookings, As Simple as 1,2,3

Say, you want the backpack kid to bust out some sick moves, as a graduation present for your kid.  Here is how you can do so with Cameo:

Step 1: Find the celeb’s page on Cameo (in this case: Backpack Kid), which also features their reviews, recent cameo videos, and set rates.

Step 2: Fill in the form with the name of the person the video is dedicated to, and directives of what you would want to be said in the video. The request can be as creative and should be as specific, as possible.

Step 3: Submit the form and wait. Cameo promises to have the celebrity video dedication delivered within 7 days.

If the request is at all inappropriate or declined by the celebrity, the order will be cancelled and money returned.

The rates range from $5 to $2500. You could gift an NFL fan, a video by Terrell Owens, for $350; or commission a Disney star for just $39. But the memories that it will create will be priceless.

In case your favorite starlet is not on the list, all you need to do is ask. The Cameo team will reach out to the almost-star to see if they are interested in joining the database of talent. That’s it, it’s that simple.

What’s in it for the Celebs

This does not mean that the likes of Brad Pitt or Beyonce will be sitting around making videos for all their fans. “Our goal is really to help the 99 percent of talent monetize,” Galanis told the Chicago Tribune. With refreshing honesty, Cameo accepts that they primarily work with smaller celebrities (who are sizeable in number). The platform helps the mini celebs monetize their stardom while also forming a more personal bond with their fans.

A basic requirement of 20,000 Instagram followers is all one needs to get accepted onto the celebrity video platform.

Celebrities who wish to be part of this service can set their own price. What is interesting is that Cameo encourages them to figure out the true worth of their time by calculating their ‘earnings per minute’. This number can be achieved by taking a star’s annual income and dividing it by the number of minutes worked in a year. The calculation makes it easy for celebs to quantify the value of their time invested into making videos for fans.

On top of this, those wishing to pocket the extra buck can recruit other famous people to the platform to cash in on Cameo’s referral program.

Cameo of the Future

Cameo takes a 25 percent cut from the stars for each booking they complete. This means that the start-up has a built-in revenue stream for sustainable operations, with no need to focus efforts on earning from advertising on the platform.

The company plans to someday add new products such as live (video) fan interactions with the stars. They also hope to digitize interactions with a larger pool of talent, from everyday life. This could include your favorite football coach from high school, a religious leader from your state, and other such motivating personalities.

The post Star Struck? Order Celebrity Video Shoutouts with Cameo appeared first on Techweek.