But don’t just take our word for it. Jeanette Gibson and John Earnhardt from Cisco’s PR team (disclosure: Cisco is a Text 100 client) recently caught up with JD Lasica of the SocialMedia.biz blog to talk about how Cisco uses video. Earnhardt says:

“The return on investment for using video is a no-brainer. If you factor in the cost of the camcorders and training time, the ROI is 4 cents per video view and dropping. The real hurdle is just starting [the process]: getting the camera, teaching people how to get the video up on the Web. The real message is just to go out there and do it.”

Watch Alyssa Weir, a Textie in Rochester, share her thoughts on why video is a great PR tool as well as some of her favorite video blog examples. Lastly, don’t get bogged down with developing an overly-polished video strategy or waiting on professional production. As Earnhardt suggests, just get out there and start experimenting!

Celebrating at the Holmes Report Sabre Awards

When you put about 800 PR people in a room and throw in an open bar it makes for one noisy venue. Paul Holmes had a hard time getting folks to quiet down long enough to hear the actual winners. Luckily for us the crowd kept to a dull roar long enough for us to hear that we had won (!) a Silver Sabre award for our campaign “Cisco TelePresence: Be There Without Being There.”

If you haven’t seen TelePresence on the TV show “24” or heard of how dignitaries and celebrities (Al Gore, Yao Ming, Magic Johnson, etc.) the world over have experienced TelePresence firsthand – take it from me, it’s cool.

Now you may be asking yourself, Cisco? The networking company? Cool?! But it’s true, the tech bellwether continues to outperform most of its competition and move into exciting new areas. I for one am happy to be along for the ride.