Baby Boomers Building Businesses
I found a fun site this afternoon and I made my first cartoon.
That’s right … a cartoon!
I saw a cool video on Facebook today and then I had to checked out how they had made it. My research led me to this awesome site that allows us to create our own cartoons.
Best thing, its free for videos under 2 minutes and there are a variety of templates to choose from. The dialogue, however, is what we enter as text.
It was so simple.
First, you choose the “setting” from some templates of a kitchen, an office, a restaurant, and many more.
Next, you choose the characters you want, male or female, young or old.
Lastly, you enter the text you want the people to speak. That’s it.
Told you it was simple to make a fun cartoon.
Let’s take a look at my first attempt:
So did you like it? Create your own fun videos at GoAnimate.com. I think I created this in about 20 minutes and then I had to open an account – for free – so I could save it. That’s right, this site even hosts the videos for us.
I think I’ll play with this for a while as I can see lots of uses for this. For now, it’s OK to start with a limit of 2 minutes, I don’t think I’m quite ready to start writing “movie scripts”. I’m not sure if there’s a limit as to how many we can create, but I’m sure I’ll get a warning if there is. Then I might just have to upgrade.
I see lots of fun videos ahead, don’t you.
Leave a comment and let me know what you think and then be sure to share the videos you create.
It tomorrow really already May? What happened to April?
I realized I haven’t been here for a while, not that I haven’t had things to say. It’s just the past few weeks have been so hectic that this update and journaling sort of ended at the bottom of the priority list.
I feel bad about that as it’s been a challenging month as I’ve journeyed into videos.
IMAGE ACTION
I’ve been studying even more .. and focusing all my energy into figuring out how to create video.
Actually, I’ve made several videos for a friend to use as a promo for their program. I’m not sure how long he’ll use it, but it was fun learning how to make the video. I made it using a PowerPoint presentation and an audio file. I lost track of how many different software programs I tried to make this into a video.
You see, I have PowerPoint on my computer and I’ve been using the free Audacity for just as many years to record calls and webinars – but I didn’t have any software that converted the two parts into a video. And I need something either free or very low cost so it fit my budget.
I tried lots
I finally found one called Wondershare and I loved it. I tried the free trial version first and then paid the really low cost to have the advertising be gone. It was verily easy to use and it made wonderful videos. I did a 5 minute video as a intro and invite and then after the person signed up for the complete package (part of the list building process) the site would take them to a complete 25 minute presentation.
I learned how to set this up as a webinar – so the person thought they were attending a live webinar, but in reality, it was a video play inside the webinar settings of a Word Press Theme called List Machine Pro. The Auto Webinar portion of this WP theme is amazing.
Some days the technical processes really challenged me. Video, PowerPoint, email campaigns, capture forms, Auto Webinars ... all steps to completing a project like this. Many different formats of copy writing. Lots of graphics to create and perfect.
Then in the middle of April I was introduced to email videos – so that added a new learning process. I made several live videos as I wanted to use them in a project at church. Our pastor was in Africa for 5 weeks, and I had volunteered to co-ordinate the prayer support for her. Members signed up to pray certain days, actually we had two on the list each day was we were reminded that Moses had two people support him when he was meeting with God… so we chose to do the same.
Once we had the list, it was my job to remind everyone the day before it was there turn and let them know what pastor would be doing or share specific requests. I decided to do this using the email format. I’d make a video and then each day send it to whoever was on the list for the next day.
The response has been amazing! People actually opened and read their emails – well – I should say listened to the emails from me. Last Sunday everyone raved about how impressed they were with my talents and how that email really reminded them of the importance of their prayer for pastor. Just the results I was hoping for.
Next week our youth group is having a fund raiser and I’ve already decided to sent everyone on email on Friday reminding them to come on Sunday prepared to participate and donate. I’m working on the PowerPoint already.
So you can see I’ve been busy – and enjoying life. Video has been my main focus and it’s consumed a lot of time but oh so worth it! I’ve also had to spend a lot of time working with my coach and I’ll report more on that next time. She has me creating a new website and I’m very much still in the planning mode. And yes, I’m planning to use video on the site.
Since it’s the beginning of May, I thought I should also take note of how my social media accounts are progressing. This is end of month 4 of the project.
I haven’t spent any time in the last month to find new follower, but I have tweeted on each account:
Feel free to leave a comment and tell me what you think of my progress.
I am so excited!
My video won! I can barely believe it!
All that hassle and I just kept on going and fighting through the challenge!
I won third prize!
I know, I was hoping for the coaching program but that’s OK! My God knows what I need at this point in time and He provides.
You’ll never guess what I won.
First prize was the coaching
Second prize was a course
Third prize was
Oh WOW!
A video camera. Remember how I said my dad was always the video man – well I have one coming now too!
I called my daughter – the one in the video – and she says this is a really great prize as several of her friends have the same camera and they all love it!
I will take a few weeks to get it to me as they have to ship it but I’m so excited right now!
I hope it’s here in time for Christmas – not just so I can take some video – my first ever – of my kids and family … but … I’m also sure that my photographer son and video camera man dad will be able to teach me how to use the thing!
I think I’m celebrating tonight! Not sure how yet – but I’ll think of something.
But first, I have to send some emails announcing my win to all the friends that helped me win.
Thanks everyone!
Just in case you missed it – this is now A WINNING VIDEO
Isn’t life grand!
Tomorrow at noon is the cutoff…
I’m still busy promoting my video in these last few hours …
and I’m still trailing by those same 200 views.
It’s been a fun week – and it’s been great because I’ve reconnected with some friends I haven’t connected to in months or even a year or so. Started some great conversations and had several phone calls.
Also found out many of my friends have changed their emails as probably 10 per cent of the emails I sent out came back with address unknown error messages. Hopefully I can find some of them on Facebook.
It’s been encouraging though to chat with many friends the past few days and see how they’ve all just been there to cheer me on.
I need more views so I’m calling out to everyone I know.
That’s what life is all about – relationships!
Admit it – without friends we’d all be a little less of who we really are. It’s friends who often shape us into who we are so that why it’s so important that we’re careful in who we choose as our best friends.
I sure love mine!
Marketing is like Roller Derby
Whew!
My video is finished and it’s up on YouTube.
I think it’s catchy and kind of fun.
I’m comparing marketing and roller derby. Who would have thought they are similar?
I have a daughter who just love roller derby and all the pictures I used were of her and her games. Great gals.
Next step for this contest is to get views. That’s part of the contest. Winner will be based on who gets the most views as well as the actual video. So I’m sending emails like crazy today asking people to help me win by viewing my video. Nothing to buy … no vote to cast. Just a simple click to count as a view. It’s great … many of my friends are posting it on their Facebook pages and asking their friends to help me.
I checked. I know I have competition. One gal already had over 200 views when I uploaded mine. Looks like she got her video up on Friday, the day the contest was announced. My wasn’t up until almost midnight last night. Too bad I had all the issues with my software and computer – but at least I entered.
Only focus I’m having the next 3 days is getting people to click for my video. This things not over yet!
Oh … you want to see the video …
Marketing is like Roller Derby
