Animoto The Online Video Slide Show Maker

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If your looking for an easy to use no hassle way to create videos then you might want to consider Animoto. Animoto is what can be best described as an online video slide show maker, which is very easy to use & as a bonus comes with a choice of hundreds of royalty free music tracks.

It’s a simple as picking your style ( from a choice of 6) and then adding your pictures/video/text & then choosing your desired music.

So whats the catch I hear you ask? Well as nothing in life comes for free, Animoto is much the same. With a free account you can create 30 second videos, which, if you havent got much to say might well do. To unlock the 30 second time limit you need to upgrade to an unlimited account at the cost of $30 a year or $5 per month – and of course there is a discount if you have a referrer ( shamelessly inserts referral link here) which is $5 off a yearly subscription bringing it down to $25 per year.

But upgrading to an unlimited package isn’t as exciting as it seems. There are still limitations such as videos are in Standard Definition (SD), Videos are still branded with the Animoto logo & your stuck with the same 6 styles – which, believe me, you will soon get very bored off.

The other available option is to upgrade to a professional account (pro). This gives you: Unbranded Videos, High Definition (HD) video, 8 more styles to chose from & a call to action button – meaning you can place a link onto the end of your video to direct your viewers to your Affiliate Link/CPA Offer/Blog or whatever your heart desires. It does come with a hefty price tag though at $249 a year, but if you are a mass video creator it can save you a lot of time & it is cost effective if you are going to use it to create at least 4-5 videos per week. Again another shameless referral link will get you an extra free month of Animoto Pro.. but hold your horses..

Although I like the concept of Animoto, the one draw back is that the videos (regardless of branding or not) are instantly recognisable as being ‘Animoto Videos’, which could turn the viewer to the ‘off’ button. But as a Video Marketer myself, I would say that, as I have seen many many Animoto videos in circulation. I think you will find the average viewer, that does venture into YouTube for 8 hours a day, will be fairly impressed to see an embedded Animoto video, & the same if you are catering for a small niche & google front page placement. But if you plan to market to the masses and aim for the high competition keywords I would steer clear of Animoto & create something unique that viewers will want to watch.

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