^{Source: Adobe Holiday Predictions}

Consumers are ready to buy, but they’re going to be bombarded with emails and other deal-based marketing from every online store they’ve ever visited. You have to find a way to make your Cyber Monday campaign stand out to attract buyers to your sale. Animated video and GIFs can engage your Cyber Monday shoppers quickly and powerfully. Unlike a static promotion, an animated video or GIF uses subtle motion to attract customers. More specifically, animation comes with unique visual elements—colorful backgrounds, fun effects—that are perfect for grabbing buyers’ attention. We created this guide to break down how you can attract Cyber Monday shoppers with animated video and GIF marketing. We’ll cover how to craft your messaging, create your animation, and distribute your campaign to encourage as many purchases as possible with your video.

How to Frame Your Cyber Monday Video

To decide what your Cyber Monday campaign messaging will be, you have to think about what will motivate your shoppers to participate in the sale the most. A straightforward sale announcement might attract shoppers who are especially discount-driven, while a product-demo ad will encourage shoppers through education. We’ll break down how four different campaign messages drive customers to shop your holiday sale so you can decide which one is the best fit for your audience.

A simple sale announcement

For customers who are especially discount-driven, make your Cyber Monday promotion crystal clear with a simple sale announcement video or GIF.

What’s the best format for this message? GIF. There isn’t much content to share, so you only need the short, slight motion of a GIF to attract buyers.

A thank you video

Your customers are humans, and humans like to feel appreciated—so why not package your promotion as a “thank you” card?

Instead of sending a straightforward promotion, create an animated video or GIF that thanks customers for their loyalty and offers them a Cyber Monday discount as an appreciation gift. Framing the discount as a thank-you gift is more memorable than a typical promotion ad, and it makes customers feel happy and acknowledged.

What’s the best format for this message? Animated video or GIF works. Opt for a video if your thank you message is longer, or use a GIF for a shorter, one- or two-frame thank you animation.

A family-focused message

Spending time with family is what makes the holidays special. With a Cyber Monday event, you give customers more time to spend with their families during Thanksgiving week—they can easily shop online instead of spending Black Friday in crowded stores.

What’s the best format for this message? Animated video. While this message could fit into a GIF, a longer animated video gives you enough time to depict the idea a bit more. You can show characters spending time with family and shopping online for Cyber Monday.

How to Create Your Cyber Monday Video

You can create your Cyber Monday promotion video in minutes using Vyond. Our Studio allows you to create either a playable animated video or a GIF of your video that plays automatically.

Below, we’ll break down the top Vyond resources you need—templates, webinars—to quickly create an engaging Cyber Monday animated video or GIF.

Create a video in Vyond

An animated video is ideal for your Cyber Monday promotion if your message is going to be longer than 15 seconds or include audio. Besides being longer and including sound, a video gives you the opportunity to showcase more scenes and characters to illustrate your idea further.

People getting started with Vyond can quickly learn how to make a Cyber Monday video, even if they have zero production experience. Start learning with our introductory resources page, which includes webinars, tutorials, and FAQs.

With these resources, you can learn the very basics of creating your Cyber Monday video—check out the “How to Make a Video in Vyond” tutorial—and gradually advance to more complex topics, like scene transitions.

After you’ve learned the basics of navigating Vyond, the quickest way to create your Cyber Monday video is to use a template. Each one is prebuilt with backgrounds, characters, props, effects, and more, so you don’t have to spend much time editing. This post includes five video marketing templates for you to add to your own account and modify.

You have access to over 1,500 additional scene templates across all three styles in Vyond Studio.

With our “Getting Started” resources and Vyond templates, you have everything you need to quickly create your Cyber Monday promotion video, regardless of your film production background.

Create a GIF in Vyond

GIFs are the perfect way to grab shoppers’ attention for a brief Cyber Monday message. They have enough subtle movement and are short enough to engage customers without losing their focus.

One easy way to create GIFs is with Vyond Premium, Professional, and Enterprise plans. Once you’re done creating your video, simply export it as an animated GIF.

Keep in mind that a high-quality GIF is typically only 5 to 15 seconds long, so aim to keep your Cyber Monday clip this short before exporting. GIFs are also limited to 256 colors per frame, so it’s best to limit the number of colors you use and avoid gradient backgrounds.

How to Distribute Your Cyber Monday Video

It doesn’t matter how great your Cyber Monday video is—if you don’t distribute it well, it won’t encourage your customers to participate in the bargain event.

There are three main places to share your Cyber Monday videos with customers:

• Your website
• Email campaigns
• Social media posts and ads

We’ll cover the best ways to feature your Cyber Monday animation on these platforms to grab customers’ attention and lead them to your products.

Website

The best place to feature your Cyber Monday video or GIF is your homepage. With this prominent placement, your customers are more likely to see your bargain event and make a purchase.

The fashion brand Charles & Keith, for example, included this sale-announcement GIF on their homepage. The subtle motion and dramatic, large lettering grabs shoppers’ attention before they dive into the site.

[Source]

Email

An email campaign is one of the most common ways to tell customers about your Cyber Monday promotion. You can reach customers directly from their inbox and lead them straight to your website with backlinks in an email.

Emailing a GIF of your Cyber Monday video is fairly easy. GIFs are supported across most email clients (excluding Outlook 2007, 2010, and 2013), and you can link the GIF to your product page or homepage.

For example, Radio Shack emailed a Cyber Monday sale-announcement GIF of a countdown clock to the promotion. The subtle motion catches shoppers’ eyes, and the timer clock creates a feeling of FOMO that makes customers want to participate in the sale.

[Source]

If you’re sending a full animated video, we recommend emailing a thumbnail image of your video that links to a landing page on your site, where the video immediately plays. This method is better than embedding the video to play in the email for a few reasons:

• Most email clients don’t support embedded HTML5 videos.
• You can’t link embedded videos to outside sites, so it’s more difficult to lead customers to your website from the email.

To learn more about emailing your Cyber Monday promotion, check out our simple guide to emailing a video.

Social

A fast way to share your Cyber Monday video with your top customers is through social platforms. With social, you can target shoppers by their gender, age, purchasing behaviors, and more, so your Cyber Monday video reaches your top customers.

[Source]

To promote your Cyber Monday video through social, you’ll need a Business Account on the platforms you want to use. Here are links to set up Business accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

With a Business account set up, there are two main ways to promote your Cyber Monday animated video or GIF:

• A Facebook ad: Directly promote your product as a labeled Facebook ad. An ad allows you to have greater placements beyond News Feeds, such as the right sidebar.
• A promoted Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram post: Instead of creating a separate ad, you can boost a post with your Cyber Monday video or GIF to be placed higher on customers’ feeds.

You can learn more about promoting your Cyber Monday video or GIF on social with this helpful AdEspresso guide.

Attract Cyber Monday Shoppers with Animated Video

Cyber Monday is one of the most competitive shopping days for online brands. To stand out to customers, your company needs a visually compelling way to grab their attention and get them excited to shop during the event.

As one of the most engaging mediums, animation quickly and powerfully draws shoppers to your Cyber Monday sale. After using this guide, you can quickly create an animation that reaches a wide range of shoppers and motivates them to make a purchase during your sale.

About Vyond

GoAnimate is now Vyond. Learn more about the changes. 

Vyond allows people of all skill levels in all industries and job roles to create dynamic and powerful media. With features that go beyond moving text and images, you can build character-driven stories or compelling data visualizations that engage audiences and deliver results.

Start making your own videos today. Sign up for a free 14-day trial and attend our weekly tour of the Vyond Studio.

2018 was our best year yet. From bigger and better content to the debut of Vyond Studio, we’ve sure been busy. Here’s our recap of 2018:

JANUARY

• We hit the ground running on company-wide data privacy initiatives, including GRPR and ISO 27000. We met our GDPR deadline this year and we’re working towards ISO certification in 2019.

FEBRUARY

• Our team loves staying active together. In February, we celebrated with both Fit February and Winter Office Olympics.

 

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our office olympians of the week. The nerf gun, paper airplane, trashcan basketball competition is getting fierce. If Kevin completes a gold medal hat trick today we’ll have a regular Shaun White amongst us. ? ? ? #olympics

A post shared by Vyond (@vyond) on Feb 16, 2018 at 10:10am PST

MARCH

• Celebrated GoAnimate’s 11th anniversary.
• Launched a new community platform as a place for customers to connect and learn from one another.
• Introduced the new Contemporary style.

APRIL

• Exceeded 200,000 total social media fans. Follow us on Instagram for all the latest. 
• In April, we placed a company-wide focus on stress awareness and tried to keep this video in mind for our busy month ahead.

MAY

• On May 7th we rebranded from GoAnimate to Vyond. We were not acquired and nothing about our company changed. GoAnimate, Inc. is even still our legal business name. The rebrand was at least two years in the making, and we did it for two primary reasons:

1. GoAnimate was a great name and described exactly what we offered, but it didn’t describe who we could be in the future. Already, people are using Vyond in ways that go beyond basic animation, and we are researching and planning for opportunities to expand on that in the years to come.  
2. We heard from some customers that “GoAnimate” wasn’t being taken seriously as a business communication tool. We hope that our rebrand and name change help dispell the idea that “animation” is just for kids. 

• The same day, we released the beta version of the new Vyond Studio. We spent years rebuilding to make a better, faster, easier-to-use, HTML5-based tool for you. If you became a customer after May 6, 2018 you are already using this product. If you are a Legacy Video Maker customer, we strongly encourage you to start making the switch to Vyond Studio now — it’s free to switch, you won’t lose your original videos, and the new product is better. We are still actively working on the ability to copy videos from Legacy to Vyond Studio, and we’ll have more information to share in the first quarter of 2019.

• The following day at ATD International in San Diego we hosted our biggest party yet to celebrate the announcements. Thanks to everyone who attended!
• We were ready for GDPR on May 25th, and are now compliant with all requirements. 

JUNE

• With the new Vyond Studio released, we were able to get back to sharing product updates on a regular basis. June’s product updates to Vyond Studio included:
  • Contemporary characters ability to turn their heads to a ¾ angle.
  • Better font size control.
  • New Contemporary hairstyles and outfits.
  • 29 Text-to-speech languages added to Vyond Studio.
  • 22 new templates: 12 Venn diagrams and 10 new calls to action.
  • 

JULY

• July and August’s Vyond Studio product updates included:
  • Version history now saves a copy of your video every ten minutes.
  • Team video sharing.
  • Password protected video sharing.
  • 2,300+ Common Craft assets and templates added for Professional and Enterprise customers.
  • Healthcare pack (20 templates, 2 backgrounds, 70 props, 66 actions, 24 character creator components, and 20 stock characters). 

AUGUST

• MP4 capabilities were introduced to Vyond Studio and we increased the file size limit from 15MB to 100MB!
• August’s Vyond Studio updates included:
  • 95 new props (landmarks, plants, household utensils).
  • 39 new templates (concepts and titles).
  • 74 new contemporary actions (cooking & catering, daily life, emotion, shopping, travel & working).

SEPTEMBER

• After 11 years as CEO, our founder, Alvin Hung, chose to step down and replace himself with Gary Lipkowitz who had served as our COO since 2011. Alvin still remains as an integral part of our company. 
• September’s Vyond Studio updates included:
  • 83 Contemporary props (animals, sports, shipping, and farming).
  • 93 Business Friendly props (pharma and retail).
  • 36 Contemporary actions (sports and shipping).
  • 10 Business Friendly actions (pharma and shipping).
  • 3 Contemporary templates (shipping).
  • 9 Business Friendly templates (pharma and retail).
  • 5 Business Friendly backgrounds (pharma and retail).
  • Content outside of the stage is now shown while editing a video.
  • Speech bubble improvements.
  • Simple shape opacity control.
  • Search videos on your videos page.

• • Thumbnail preview on your videos page.
    

OCTOBER

• Shortly after Gary’s transition from COO to CEO he appointed Mark Deaton, our original head of customer success, as his replacement.
• October’s Vyond Studio updates included:
  • 43 Halloween actions, props, and character creator components added to the Contemporary style. 
  • Business Friendly office pack: 15 templates, 6 backgrounds, and 17 props.
  • Contemporary sports pack: 12 backgrounds, 23 props, and 18 character creator components.
  • 14 weather-related Contemporary props.
  • Ability to bulk change scene properties.

NOVEMBER

• Sadly, our hearts broke from the news of the local fires, but we’re proud of how our team came together to make a positive impact. The Butte County community is still rebuilding, and this post shares donation resources if you would like to make a contribution.

DECEMBER

• Attended our first conference in Germany.
• Vyond, the L&D video solution built for microlearning, won a Brandan Hall Excellence in Technology Award.
• December’s Vyond Studio update included:
  • Holiday content (Business Friendly and Contemporary): 28 props, 14 actions, 8 character creator components, and 8 stock characters.
  • 180 Contemporary animals
  • 39 props and 37 actions for cooking and catering (Contemporary).
  • 2 “using a mouse” Contemporary actions  
  • Global edit, or “asset view” enhancement for Professional plan customers. With this new feature, you have the ability to bulk adjust positions, size, opacity. And you have the ability to bulk swap assets, change actions, change expressions, change colors, add or change effects, and add or remove motion paths. 
• Our 12 days of video campaign shared all of our most useful content from 2018 and new video templates to use in 2019.

In May 2018 GoAnimate rebranded to Vyond and simultaneously released the beta of a new video-making experience: Vyond Studio.

The new Vyond Studio is faster, easier to use, and includes a new animation style. We’re excited about the improved preview experience, keyboard shortcuts, a new timeline, and much more. 

Why make the switch

The legacy video maker was built using Adobe Flash. While Flash used to be the standard application for running multimedia content, it’s become outdated as other technologies—such as HTML5—have emerged as faster, more secure solutions. We have HTML5 to thank for the latest improvements and for what’s to come in the future. 

Since Flash will cease to exist by 2020, so will our original, legacy, video maker. We encourage you to make the switch from the legacy video maker to Vyond Studio in the meantime. Vyond Studio is now our flagship platform, and we make continuous improvements each week. Find the latest updates here. Please note that if Flash is disabled in your browser settings, the legacy video maker will not work properly and you may experience errors.

There is no cost to switch from the legacy video maker to Vyond Studio.

Change your default experience

Anyone who became a customer prior to May 6, 2018 needs to manually switch their default experience from legacy to Vyond Studio. Anyone who started a free trial or became a Vyond customer after May 6th already has Vyond Studio set as their default experience. 

Here’s how to change your default video-making experience:

1) Click on Account Settings.


2) Click on Default Experience.



3) Select the preferred experience and click Update.

After making this change you will still be able to switch back to the legacy video maker. 

Migrating legacy assets

When you switch to Vyond Studio, your previously created custom characters and imported assets will be automatically available. You can now delete your duplicate characters and assets too!

Videos created on their respective platforms are non-transferrable – this means a video created in legacy cannot be transferred or moved to Vyond Studio, or vice versa. At this stage, there is no way to migrate videos or scenes from legacy to Vyond Studio. We’re actively working on incorporating video migration and want the transition to be as smooth as possible, and we will share more specifics with you soon.

In the meantime, you are still able to switch back and forth between the two platforms to retrieve your original videos. Please see the images below to see where you can change your experience. To do so, simply select the option in the settings drop-down menu in the top right corner of “Your Videos” page.

Going from Vyond Studio to the legacy video maker:



Going from the legacy video maker to Vyond Studio:



As the Senior Director of Learning at Sears Home Services, Keith is a pro at training his teams to use animated video. He has introduced the concept to three companies now, and the positive outcomes are unmistakable. Here we caught up with him on the trade show floor at ATD Atlanta to get his candid thoughts on the use of video, the future of video in eLearning, and how the use of video is spreading across his company. Watch and read all the innovative ways Keith uses video to accomplish his learning objectives and improve business outcomes interdepartmentally.

Keith discusses GoAnimate in the videos below. GoAnimate is now Vyond. Learn more about the changes.

Why animated video: the work, the worker, and the workplace.

KA: [In 2015] I started working with my team to figure out how to get our messaging out to deal with the work, the worker, and the workplace.

If we think about the work, in my space, we’re a dispersed workforce. I’ve got people in 47 offices around the country. For the most part, they’re customer-facing. They don’t have time to be sitting in an office, and they don’t have time to be taking a two-hour eCourse. So the work is very specific. Looking at the worker today, we’re dealing with a younger workforce. We’re dealing with a YouTube generation, where they want just-in-time learning. They’re used to going to YouTube to learn whatever it is that they do. And the workplace — for us, that’s somebody’s car or somebody’s mobile phone.

Vyond lets me use these little videos as 60 second teaches. When somebody needs to know “how do I do something,” they can either learn it right before they do it, or if they thought they knew it and struggled, they can go back and learn it afterward. So now, by using cell phones, by using animated video, by using well-written job aides, I can go in and get this information to the person, when they need it, just-in-time, in a way that resonates with them. It’s not watching a PPT, it’s watching a YouTube video, which is how they learn to do everything that it is they do today.

How do you use Vyond?

KA: I’ve been using Vyond for about 2 years now. I actually got introduced to it when I was looking for animation editing software. The company I was working for was interested in doing some whiteboard videos, and researched half a dozen companies out there.  Tested several, took a test run, and Vyond was by far the easiest to use, in the shortest period of time, so the shortest learning curve.

I use Vyond in several different ways today. We use it in anything from a communications video to kick off a new program — we’re actually using it to support our recruiting in marketing efforts.

I use it a lot in the microlearning space. So we’ll actually create 60 – 90 second training videos that we can send out to our dispersed workforce to introduce them to new ideas, which we can then supplement with additional materials. We’re also starting to play with using Vyond in a blended space, where we’re combining it with live action. So we’ll cut back and forth between live action interviews, bring in some special effects, scenes, and character actions to supplement what we’re seeing on the screen.

How are other departments at your company using animated video?

KA: We recently did a kickoff video for our recruiting team “ why work for our company,”  so it’s a series of ten different messages all woven into a 45 second video with an animated background and electronic music. Everything is synced to the music so we can actually go through and we can take these effects and we can tie them in there so when the 45 seconds are done, you’re all pumped up and looking for “what’s the big take away?”

We’ve done some specialty videos for some of our other departments. One of my departments wanted to do a video about “how to build a display.” So we actually used my digital camera and shot a series of photographs about this display being built. Each shot showed one more element being added. I then imported all of those photographs into Vyond, shortened the scene length to about a quarter of a second long and played them together so you see a stop-motion type build of this display where the items go through in a period of a couple of seconds, builds this thing from start to finish. It’s a really cool effect, maybe not something that Vyond was built for in mind, but really gave us a neat tool to just look at things differently.

What other unique things are you doing in Vyond?

KA: One of the fun things about Vyond is that every time I use it, I try to learn a new technique or a new feature that allows me to expand my repertoire and get my learners more engaged.

We’ve done things where we’ve embedded videos within videos, I’ve had an animated character on the screen, talking about a live action video and we’ll draw in a video monitor on the screen and have the live action video playing while the animated character on the screen talks about the live action videos, so we’re blending different types of effects, whether it’s live action video, real photographs, all in with the animation and it makes it kind of fun.

How do you introduce Vyond to new employees and departments?

KA: When I bring Vyond into a new workplace, I have to be very careful because I had a manager tell me last week, on his introduction to Vyond, that his entire team “geeked out” on the videos. So the acceptance in the learning organization is huge. I have to spend time actually teaching them to think as I do.

We don’t want to create Looney Tunes videos, we want to focus on good, sound learning theory and actually being able to get a message out to the people. So, I actually spend somewhere between two and four weeks teaching my people: how many objects on the screen, how do we sync voiceovers, how do we use background music, how to we theme a video, how to limit the number of objects [on screen], what’s the right number of concepts to teach in a single video?

For most of my people, there’s a two to four-week learning curve – not on the physical use of the tool, but actually on the mindset, so we can get a great microlearning message to our customer (our learner) in 60 seconds or less.

Where do you see video & eLearning in the future?

KA: When I think about where we’re moving forward with this, a lot of us (in the Learning & Development world) work within two different learning environments. We deal with the classroom environment, and we deal with the eLearning environment. The eLearning environment lends itself perfectly to video. I’m looking right now at how to take the classroom environment to the next step.

If you remember Jurassic Park, you saw John Hammond talking to himself on screen. We’re actually doing that for a meeting coming up where there’s an animated me on the screen, and a real me in the classroom. We’re going to go back and forth and exchange ideas and teach by me talking to myself. And at some point, the animated me will kick the real me out and take over the presentation.

So the use for video is insane. I don’t know where it’s going to go or what it’s going to do, but we’re always looking at new ideas for how we can continue to elevate our abilities using video in today’s learning space.

More from Keith

Read more about how Keith implemented animated video into a blended learning program at Orchard Supply Hardware in this case study, and watch his microlearning webinar with professor Karl Kapp on-demand here.

About Vyond

GoAnimate is now Vyond. Learn more about the changes. 

Vyond allows people of all skill levels in all industries and job roles to create dynamic and powerful media. With features that go beyond moving text and images, you can build character-driven stories or compelling data visualizations that engage audiences and deliver results.

Start making your own videos today. Sign up for a free 14-day trial. 

There’s a lot to love about Cleveland. It’s the birthplace of Superman and home to the Cavs, the Cleveland Clinic, and Content Marketing World.

If you had all the time in the world on your trip to Cleveland, you might want to Kayak Lake Erie, go hiking in Cuyahoga National Park, or take a trip to Oberlin.

But, you don’t have all the time in the world.

We know what it’s like to try to jam pack a trip with conference sessions, meetings, and emails while also trying to experience what makes a city unique. So, for those of you attending CM World, here’s our list of the most Instagrammable things to see and do in Cleveland that won’t conflict with your conference schedule. Plus, we’ve added the walking or driving distance from the convention center.

#ClevelandSigns & Skylines

@ThisIsCLE, installed three picture-perfect postcard-style “Cleveland” signs in three locations around the city. The 16x8ft signs are all in picturesque skyline locations that illuminate at night.

North Coast Harbor, @ncoastharbor

12 minute walk, E. 9th St. Pier

This sign is nearest to the convention center. It’s an easy spot to visit before or after the CM World Rock & Roll Hall of Fame opening night reception on Tuesday.

 

A post shared by Hope K (@psbonjour) on Oct 18, 2016 at 2:33pm PDT

While you’re visiting the sign, stop by @nuevomodmex for a drink.

 

A post shared by Nuevo Modern Mexican (@nuevomodmex) on Feb 3, 2017 at 3:32pm PST

Or sneak in some zen between conference sessions and the opening reception with free community yoga at the sign on Tuesday at 6:15pm.

 

A post shared by North Coast Harbor CLE (@ncoastharbor) on Jun 20, 2017 at 3:43pm PDT

Abbey Road Skyline

8 minute drive, 1502 Abbey Ave

This sign is a bit further away, but certainly worth it for the scenic photo opp.

 

A post shared by Travelocity (@travelocity) on Aug 8, 2017 at 9:25am PDT

Edgewater Park Beach

8 minute ride, Edgewater Park

Edgewater Park Beach is also outside of the CM World hub, but if you’re looking to spend time on the lake to catch some leftover summer sun, this is your spot.

 

A post shared by Molly Mizisin (@mkmclev) on Oct 29, 2016 at 7:41am PDT

East 4th Street, @e4thst

12 minute walk, E. 4th St

@e4thst is a short walk from the convention center, and exactly where you want to be Thursday night.

 

A post shared by East 4th Street (@e4thst) on May 12, 2017 at 4:32pm PDT

This shopping and dining district has something for everyone, from BBQ to bourbon. And if you’re staying over Friday night, check out the Whiskey and White Lightning Music Fest at the House of Blues. Seven bands and one-of-a-kind whiskey sampling is a great way to cap off your week in Cleveland.

Basketball fans will remember E. 4th St. from @Cavs championship parade pics. But if you’re one of the many marketers coming in from The Bay, maybe you don’t….

 

A post shared by Cleveland Cavaliers (@cavs) on Jul 8, 2016 at 9:37am PDT

You can catch our marketing team out on E. 4th, but until then, we’ll be swooning over this sweet engagement photo taken on 4th street earlier this summer.

 

A post shared by East 4th Street (@e4thst) on Aug 10, 2017 at 4:03pm PDT

@WestSideMarket

7 minute drive, 1979 W 25th

Cleveland’s 100 year old public market is a must-see for any foodie. Open 7am-4pm during the week and until 6pm on Fridays & Saturdays and 12p-6p Sundays, the market features over 100 vendors offering the freshest produce, charcuterie, and baked goods.If you’re an early riser, this is the perfect breakfast adventure to fit in before the keynotes.

 

A post shared by West Side Market (@westsidemarket) on Jul 10, 2017 at 9:29am PDT

 

A post shared by West Side Market (@westsidemarket) on Apr 24, 2017 at 10:00am PDT

@MarketGardenBrewery

The Market Garden Brewery, a great spot for lunch or dinner, is located right next door to the @westsidemarket.

 

A post shared by marketgardenbrewery (@marketgardenbrewery) on Jan 20, 2017 at 2:04pm PST

 

A post shared by LAND studio (@landstudio) on May 22, 2017 at 2:30pm PDT

Hyatt at the Arcade

7 minute walk, 420 Superior Ave. E

The Cleveland Arcade, opened in 1890, was the first retail center in America. The stores and restaurants may or may not be open when you have the free time to visit, but the iconic @HyattRecencyCleveland lobby, right off E. 4th Street, is open 24-7.

@FlatsEast Bank

13 minute walk, 1055 Old River Rd.

The Flats East Bank development project, completed in 2015, hosts a variety of dining and entertainment options for every taste. Check out Coastal Taco or the Alley Cat Oyster Bar then get your dance on at Forward Day + Night Club.

 

A post shared by Flats East Bank (@flatseast) on May 7, 2017 at 2:04pm PDT

 

A post shared by Flats East Bank (@flatseast) on Jul 4, 2017 at 4:31pm PDT

 

A post shared by Flats East Bank (@flatseast) on Jan 6, 2017 at 4:40pm PST

Public Library

1 minute walk, 325 Superior Ave.

Yes, the library. Hear us out.

The Ohio Public Library, open M-Sa 10a-6p, is directly next to the convention center. It’s absolutely beautiful and there’s lots to do there — including a Superman memorabilia exhibit that just-so-happens to be running while we’re in town.

 

A post shared by Cleveland Public Library (@clevelandpubliclibrary) on Jun 7, 2017 at 4:13pm PDT

 

A post shared by Jennifer Shea (@jshea317) on Jul 29, 2017 at 2:54pm PDT

 

A post shared by Cleveland Public Library (@clevelandpubliclibrary) on Jun 12, 2017 at 7:02am PDT

 

A post shared by Destination Cleveland (@thisiscle) on Aug 1, 2017 at 3:10pm PDT

(view from the 10th floor)

@AChristmasStoryHouse

12 minute drive, 3159 W. 11th St.

If you have a few hours to spare during the day, you have to visit the Christmas Story House Museum.  It’s open 10a-5p every day for only $11.

 

A post shared by A Christmas Story House (@achristmasstoryhouse) on Apr 24, 2016 at 5:35pm PDT

Playhouse Square

6 minute drive, 1501 Euclid Ave

Playhouse Square is the largest performing arts center in the United States outside of New York. Get tickets to a show, explore the theaters, or simply enjoy walking around the vibrant, instagrammable, area.

 

A post shared by Jason Shaffer | Photographer (@shafferphoto) on Aug 18, 2017 at 7:47pm PDT

 

A post shared by MARYWYAR (@marywyarphoto) on Aug 20, 2017 at 6:29am PDT

Heinen’s Downtown Cleveland

14 minute walk, 900 Euclid Ave

Try to make it a point to stop at Heinen’s Grocery Store for some hotel room snacks. Or take your colleagues for a drink and some appetizers in the second floor lounge. Yes, a lounge. In a grocery store.

 

A post shared by Destination Cleveland (@thisiscle) on Jan 9, 2017 at 11:07am PST

 

A post shared by Heinen’s Grocery Store (@heinens) on Dec 2, 2016 at 2:44pm PST

Cleveland Public Square

6 minute walk, Public Square

This newly renovated park is home to some gorgeous green space for lounging and some great events. During CM World, you can enjoy music and food trucks on Tuesday and Yoga on the Green on Wednesday evening.

 

A post shared by Jason Shaffer | Photographer (@shafferphoto) on Aug 18, 2017 at 7:34pm PDT

Cleveland Bike Share, @UHBikes

See more and get there faster with UH Bikes. There are 250 bikes across 25 Cleveland locations. $3.50p/ 30 minutes.

 

A post shared by UHBikes (@uhbikes) on Jan 16, 2017 at 7:03am PST

 

A post shared by Destination Cleveland (@thisiscle) on Nov 17, 2016 at 12:20pm PST

@Vyond

Vyond enables people to produce a wide range of custom animated videos – from scratch – in the cloud – using drag-and-drop tools.

With over hundreds of ready-made templates, thousands of movements, and tens of thousands
of assets to choose from, Vyond helps even novice users quickly and easily create amazing
animated videos. Choose a template and some pre-animated assets, add a voice-over, insert a
background soundtrack, and voilà — you have a professional-quality animated video to engage
your audience.

We’ll be in booth 535 at Content Marketing World. Visit us to chat about video marketing or demo the Vyond Studio. Plus, our video marketing team will be presenting. Catch one of our sessions.

Video at Scale: The Marketers Playbook for Creating Value in Every Piece of Content You Create

Wednesday, September 6th, 12:20pm, Room 24

 

A post shared by GoAnimate (@goanimate) on Jul 15, 2017 at 11:46pm PDT

Enjoy Ohio-hio-hio.

Make your own videos with Vyond.

Accessibility Additions to Vyond Studio

There are 65 additional actions for characters to use a:

• wheelchair
• power wheelchair
• cane (2)
• crutch
• prosthetic leg
• guide dog

These can all be found as character actions in Vyond Studio. Search the terms above in the action panel of Vyond Studio to see what’s available.

Guide Dogs

All of the actions are fairly self-explanatory, but here are a few helpful things to keep in mind for using guide dogs:

• All animals in Vyond are classified as props. Search “guide” in the props panel to locate guide dogs.
• Character actions determine how your character interacts with a guide dog.  Search “guide” in the actions panel to best locate the two actions built specifically for standing and walking with a guide dog.
• Watch how to make a character walk with a guide dog:

Your Feedback

Thank you for continuing to email community@vyond.com with feedback and requests. All requests are taken into account, and we’re continuing to research ways to represent various abilities with accuracy and dignity in the future. We can not guarantee adding any one request we receive, but it’s important for us to know what’s most important to you. Your feedback is critical to helping Vyond move forward, so please keep sharing.

Open Vyond Studio to use the new actions.

About Vyond

GoAnimate is now Vyond. Learn more about the changes. 

Vyond allows people of all skill levels in all industries and job roles to create dynamic and powerful media. With features that go beyond moving text and images, you can build character-driven stories or compelling data visualizations that engage audiences and deliver results.

Start making your own videos today. Sign up for a free 14-day trial.

RSVP

AGENDA – August 22, 2017

6:00pm-6:15pm: Networking, Music, and Drinks

6:15pm-6:20pm: “Introduction”: Jorge Soto, Co-founder and CEO at Freedeo.io

6:20pm-6:45pm: “What is #video marketing and how to get started effectively?”: Craig Jordan, CEO and Chief Strategist at SaaScend | Connect with Craig on Linkedin

6:45pm-7:00pm: “How to use animated videos to drive leads”:Amanda Morgan, Marketing Manager at GoAnimate | Connect with Amanda on Linkedin

7:00pm-7:15pm: How to film “humans” talking in front of the camera for sales and marketing leaders: Tomas De Matteis, Co-founder and Head of Product at Freedeo.io | Connect with Tomas on Linkedin

7:15pm-7:45pm: Closing Remarks by Jorge Soto, CEO at Freedeo.io, More Networking

RSVP

About Vyond

GoAnimate is now Vyond. Learn more about the changes. 

Vyond allows people of all skill levels in all industries and job roles to create dynamic and powerful media. With features that go beyond moving text and images, you can build character-driven stories or compelling data visualizations that engage audiences and deliver results.

Start making your own videos today. Sign up for a free 14-day trial and attend our weekly tour of the Vyond Studio.

Character lips color and glasses color are now color customizable.

We want to make it as simple as possible to represent yourself, and your audience, in the character creator. Until recently, character lip and eye glasses colors were quite limited. Nobody thinks their animated character needs a classic red lip every day, we hear you.

So, you can now you can personalize the colors of your characters’ lips and glasses.

Here’s How it Works

It’s really simple. In the character creator, make a new character, or a copy of a stock character. From there, navigate to the lips or glasses icons. The two types of female lips with lipstick, any glasses frames, and any colored glasses lenses can now be customized from the color palette below your character. Learn more about color features and how to use custom hex codes in this blog post.

Let us know what you think at support@vyond.com.

About Vyond

GoAnimate is now Vyond. Learn more about the changes. 

Vyond allows people of all skill levels in all industries and job roles to create dynamic and powerful media. With features that go beyond moving text and images, you can build character-driven stories or compelling data visualizations that engage audiences and deliver results.

Start making your own videos today. Sign up for a free 14-day trial and attend our weekly tour of the Vyond Studio.

Last week, the tech community at large received the official word from Adobe that they’ll be sun-setting Flash in 2020. Google plans to make Chrome Flash-free by then, too.

Because the current Vyond video maker runs on Flash, we want to provide you with an update and let you know how we’re updating our technology to function within more current standards.

UPDATE: The alpha of the new flash-free Vyond video maker will be available to all customers beginning February 28, 2018.

Flash and HTML5

Flash is a software platform by Adobe that has been used to create multimedia content and applications for the past 20 years. While Flash used to be standard, it has become outdated as other technologies, like HTML5, have emerged as a better, faster, more secure, way to build.

Flash has helped shape the way that you play games, watch videos and run applications on the web. But over the last few years, Flash has become less common. Three years ago, 80 percent of desktop Chrome users visited a site with Flash each day. Today usage is only 17 percent and continues to decline. (Google)

Adobe announced this week that they will “stop updating and distributing the Flash Player at the end of 2020 and [are encouraging] content creators to migrate any existing Flash content to…open standards like HTML5, WebGL and WebAssembly (Adobe).” Vyond is migrating to HTML5.

The transition away from Flash isn’t news to many of you. We’ve known this was coming for some time and announced the beginnings of our move from Flash to HTML5 in 2015. Our HTML5 player is already making your video preview faster.

Enabling Flash in Your Browser

If you’re using Vyond now, you have most likely already enabled Flash in your browser. There should be nothing else you need to do in order to use Vyond in the meantime. If there is, we’ll let you know.

Just in case you haven’t yet enabled Flash, here’s how to enable Flash in just about every browser.

The Future of Vyond

We’re very excited to share that we’ve been working on an entirely new HTML5-based video maker to replace our current (legacy) video maker. We will have an alpha version of the new flash-free Vyond available by the end of 2017.

Nothing is changing today, but there are exciting things on the horizon. You’ll still see the legacy video maker as your default option when the new video maker becomes available.  When you switch to the latest video maker, Flash will no longer be required.

We’ll have more details about access dates and new, exciting product features coming soon.

About Vyond

GoAnimate is now Vyond. Learn more about the changes. 

Vyond allows people of all skill levels in all industries and job roles to create dynamic and powerful media. With features that go beyond moving text and images, you can build character-driven stories or compelling data visualizations that engage audiences and deliver results.

Start making your own videos today. Sign up for a free 14-day trial and attend our weekly tour of the Vyond Studio.

The choice of typeface (or font) enhances visual communication and contributes to the overall understanding and tone of your videos. We are pleased to announce that we will be modifying some of our existing fonts to make them more applicable for business use. These fonts will automatically appear in the video maker, there’s no action you’ll need to take to use them.

Beginning August 7th, you’ll notice that the fonts in the video maker will look a little different. We’re updating 13 existing fonts and adding four new ones to all GoAnimate and GoAnimate for Schools accounts. See the image below for all of the font changes and additions.

All 17 new fonts will be updated in the font drop-down and tray. The updated fonts are similar to the originals but will be noticeably different for many customers. We believe the updates will help make your videos look more polished and professional, and will contribute to the ultimate success of your message.

Take a look at a before and after of the Whiteboard Animation templates with the new fonts on the right:

Fear not though, your existing videos are not affected by the font changes. The changes will only impact new videos and changes to a text box in an existing video. As a paid subscriber, you can download your MP4 video file, without any changes to the existing fonts, at any time.

Remember, GoTeam subscribers can import specified brand fonts, or hundreds of other creative options, into their accounts.

About Vyond

GoAnimate is now Vyond. Learn more about the changes. 

Vyond allows people of all skill levels in all industries and job roles to create dynamic and powerful media. With features that go beyond moving text and images, you can build character-driven stories or compelling data visualizations that engage audiences and deliver results.

Start making your own videos today. Sign up for a free 14-day trial and attend our weekly tour of the Vyond Studio.

Behind the scenes at Vyond, we take customer feedback very seriously, and we’ve heard from many of you that we haven’t done enough to provide the breadth and depth of diversity that you need. So, we plan to make significant improvements and additions to assure that our characters, templates, and props are diverse and inclusive.

Here’s what we’ve been working on, with more to come:

The Latest Updates to Vyond Studio

• 22 new “Jobs & Workplace” characters.
• 10 new “Casual” characters.
• A variety of modifications to some existing characters.
• We previously had seven named categories for office workers, so we simplified them into one “Office Professionals” category to make characters easier to locate.
• Business Friendly templates were recently updated with a rotating cast to assure representation of people in various job roles and power positions. We will continue to work on this.
• In 2016 we added a various new hairstyles and facial features. We will continue to work on this.

Here are the new characters in Vyond Studio

Up Next

250+ flags from around the world, including a rainbow flag, will be added shortly. For flags and any future emojis we may add to Vyond, we will be following the Unicode Consortium “Unicode Standard,” which is set by members of Adobe, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Oracle, SAP, and others.

We are in the research and development stages of addressing various aspects of character accessibility. For example, wheelchairs and canes. There are several wheelchair and cane actions in Vyond, but there aren’t enough for you to properly represent people using assistive walking devices. We’re working to add as many new as possible as we continue to improve Vyond.

Moving Forward

We want to make sure we’re giving you a tool that allows you to express your business values. It is our goal to equally represent and include people throughout Vyond. 

We’d love to hear what you have to say. Is there something in Vyond we need to change or add in order for you to represent your viewing audience? Please let us know at community@vyond.com. We’re listening to your feedback, so please keep giving it.  

About Vyond

GoAnimate is now Vyond. Learn more about the changes. 

Vyond allows people of all skill levels in all industries and job roles to create dynamic and powerful media. With features that go beyond moving text and images, you can build character-driven stories or compelling data visualizations that engage audiences and deliver results.

Start making your own videos today. Sign up for a free 14-day trial.

For our customers making countless variations of “soft skills in the workplace” videos, we have good news. We know you’re looking to add variety to your videos, and we feel the same way. So that’s why we’ve made office props color-changeable, bringing more flexibility and brand control to your office-related content.

You now have the power to control the space your characters work in. Change the outdoor lighting blue to black to show the passage of time, transform your office from a dull grey to full color to illustrate a positive change, or modify an office template to better represent your workplace.

Here’s How it Works

It’s really simple. Click on any backdrop or office prop, and the action panel will pop out on the left. From there, you can easily change colors of office props and backdrops. Learn more about color features and how to use custom hex codes in this blog post.

Vyond allows people of all skill levels in all industries and job roles to create dynamic and powerful media. With features that go beyond moving text and images, you can build character-driven stories or compelling data visualizations that engage audiences and deliver results.

Start making your own videos today. Sign up for a free 14-day trial and attend our weekly tour of the Vyond Studio.

We’re teaming up with Wistia for a webinar all about generating (and ultimately converting) leads with animated video.

And you’re invited!

Attend to learn why animated video performs better in certain contexts, how to implement animated video into your content strategy, and tips for generating leads with animated video.

Register now to attend this live session. Can’t make it? No worries! Sign up now and we’ll send you the recording afterward.

Rolling Out Support for 10+ Languages

Initially we’ve added ten Noto language fonts, with more to come. The Noto font family is a recent development from Google, “which aims to support all languages with a harmonious look and feel. (Google).” By adding the Noto font family to GoAnimate, we’re now able to support a larger variety of non-latin-based languages.

Using a Supported Language Font

To add non-English text to a GoAnimate video, you’ll need to select the “Noto Sans” font.  The Legacy Video Player will also still support non-Latin-based alphabets in the Arial font, but Arial is not supported by the new HTML5 player.  Languages resembling the English alphabet (like Spanish, for example) can also be used with in many of the previously available fonts.

Languages GoAnimate supports in the Noto Sans font include: Arabic, Hebrew, Thai, Telugu, Tamil, Bengali, Devanagari, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean,  along with all Latin-based languages.

When foreign characters (non-Latin-based alphabets) are detected in GoAnimate, there may be a short delay before the font is loaded. This is normal for more complex fonts like Chinese, Japanese, and Korean that have thousands more characters than other languages.

Here’s how to use non-Latin-based alphabets in GoAnimate.

For Languages Not Yet Supported

Some languages are not yet supported in GoAnimate, but we hope this initial release will be a stepping stone towards international language support.

If your language isn’t supported yet, there are still options:

• • GoTeam subscribers can import a font file in any language (up to 15MB). Check to see if your language is available as part of Google’s early access BETA
  • All subscribers can upload images of text (PNG or JPG) as props into GoAnimate
  • Let us know! We grow our platform based on user demand and feedback, and want to hear what we can do to make video production easy for you. Drop us a line.

GoAnimate is a cloud-based animated video creation platform.  With GoAnimate you can create animated videos for your business using hundreds of props, assets, and characters, representing hundreds of industries. Create professional videos with simple drag-and-drop tools for a low monthly cost. Try the 14-day free trial today! 

We’re constantly working to improve GoAnimate, and we love your feedback. Thank you to our customers around the world who email in with requests, so we can strive for options that reflect the needs of our users.  

How can we support your video creation? Let us know @GoAnimate on Twitter, or email community@goanimate.com with feedback and requests.

At Vyond, we’re constantly updating the platform to help you make great videos quickly. Over the past several months, we’ve been adding scene templates like crazy to meet the growing demand of our customers. With more than 350 drag & drop templates now living in the platform, we needed to make them easier for you to find.

Templates

Templates in Business Friendly are now categorized for convenience into 16 categories: concepts, charts, government, screens, travel and other succint buckets.

We’ve even made it easy to keep your favorite categories at the top of your tray. By default, the “Office” category will be marked as “favorite;” you can favorite other categories or unfavorite “Office” by clicking the ★ icon on the right side of the category.

The new categorization will lessen the time it takes to find what you’re looking for. Because these templates belong in different categories.

Available in Leisure, click here to favorite category to the top

Available in Industrial, click here to favorite category to the top of your tray

Available in Concepts, click here to favorite category to the top of your tray

Backdrops

The location of backdrops has changed a bit to save time and give video makers more choices. Now you can change backdrops with ease. Navigate to Scene Settings > Options and swap out your backdrop location, pattern, or color as desired. Everything in the foreground of your scene (characters, props, and text) will remain unchanged.

Background Search Feature

We are aware of a background search issue for  “search all themes.” We’re working to fix this. In the meantime, searching templates and backdrops within Business Friendly works perfectly!

Check back here for the status of “search all themes.” 

And let us know what you think by emailing community@vyond.com. We’re always interested in customer suggestions and feedback.

About Vyond

GoAnimate is now Vyond. Learn more about the changes. 

Vyond allows people of all skill levels in all industries and job roles to create dynamic and powerful media. With features that go beyond moving text and images, you can build character-driven stories or compelling data visualizations that engage audiences and deliver results.

Start making your own videos today. Sign up for a free 14-day trial and attend our weekly tour of the Vyond Studio.

Companies large and small are creating GIFs to explain, demonstrate, educate, entertain, and tell stories.

For the uninitiated, a GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) file is a format for image files that supports both static and animated images. A single set of images are presented in a certain order and then that set loops endlessly. The popularity of GIFs is rooted in the looping, which hammers home something entertaining or notable.

At Vyond, we struggled to find a good animated GIF solution online for our own campaigns. So we just decided to build a great one ourselves.

Today we’re happy to announce that Vyond GoTeam subscribers can make and export animated GIFs in our video maker.

Here’s how it works

Start by creating a short and simple video in Vyond.

Then follow the exact same process you’d follow for exporting a video. Except this time, select the option to export as GIF, instead of MP4. Watch this short video for a tutorial.

THAT’S IT! Your GIF is ready to use.

Tips for creating GIFs in Vyond

Be sure to take GIF file size into consideration. Twitter, for example, accepts 5MB GIFs, but a file that large might slow down your website, and Facebook doesn’t accept GIF uploads at all. Check with your publishing platform before you begin creating GIFs.

GIFs by nature are limited to 256 colors per frame, although your computer (and the Vyond Studio) can display millions of colors. So, to prevent quality loss to your GIF file, it’s good practice to limit the number of colors used and avoid gradient backgrounds.

We’re seeing the best GIF results from videos that clock in between 5 and 15 seconds on the video maker timeline. This typically includes 1-5 scenes and a few movements or actions.

The GIF, for example, was created from a :07 second (single scene) video and downloaded at 360p. The converted file size is 1.3MB.

GIF Export is currently available only  for GoTeam subscribers. Please email community@vyond.com with suggestions and feedback.

About Vyond

GoAnimate is now Vyond. Learn more about the changes. 

Vyond allows people of all skill levels in all industries and job roles to create dynamic and powerful media. With features that go beyond moving text and images, you can build character-driven stories or compelling data visualizations that engage audiences and deliver results.

Start making your own videos today. Sign up for a free 14-day trial and attend our weekly tour of the Vyond Studio.

Problem solved: we’ve launched three new features in Business Friendly you’re going to love: a color wheel, a color picker, and opacity control – plus we’ve expanded the color palette!

Inside the GoAnimate videomaker, you’ve always been able to paste in HEX codes to match company branding guidelines, but now you can be precise with the color, text, background, vidget data, and characters without searching for HEX codes! You can pull a color from anywhere within the videomaker, and control the opacity of text and text backgrounds.

HOW IT WORKS

When you click on a textbox, background, or vidget you’ll notice a “Text Color” option in your tray (highlighted below). Click on “Text Color” to locate the new and improved color palette and features.

The same options can also be accessed by selecting “Scene Settings” in the bottom-right corner of your video maker.

Color Palette

The new color palette contains 11 default color options to select from, and gives you the opportunity to add up to 25 additional colors to the palate by using the new color wheel and color picker features.

Color Wheel

After you’ve navigated to the color options or style tab, select the “+” option and you’ll see the new color wheel selection tool. Use this feature to browse all potential color options by clicking and dragging the color selection circles around the frame to select just the right shade and tone. Click away, or hit enter when you’re happy with the color selection. From within the color wheel, you will be able to paste or type in a HEX, RGB or HSB – hit “tab” when you’ve done so.

You can also select precise shades for hair color, skin tone, eye color, and clothing by using the new color wheel from within the Character Creator.

Color Picker

The color picker tool looks like a little eye dropper, and can be found in the bottom right corner of the color wheel. Select the icon and click anywhere in the video maker to match a color and add it to your palette.

This One-Minute Tutorial will explain in more detail:

Opacity

Opacity control essentially allows you to decide how much attention you want your text to receive. Is this Headline text? Background text? Locate the opacity slider for Text Color and Background at the bottom of each color palatte and drag the slider to select.

Let us know what you think about the new color features; we’re always interested in your feedback.

But there’s good news! CV is 80% preventable with education and lifestyle changes according to the American Heart Association.

Every healthy choice makes a difference and brings you closer to a healthier heart.

February is American Heart Month, and today is ‘Go Red for Women Day’. Since Go Red began in 2004, an estimated 670,000 lives have been saved. Learn about the warning signs for heart attacks, strokes, and cardiac arrest here.

We got into the spirit of Go Red for Women Day!

About Vyond

GoAnimate is now Vyond. Learn more about the changes. 

Vyond allows people of all skill levels in all industries and job roles to create dynamic and powerful media. With features that go beyond moving text and images, you can build character-driven stories or compelling data visualizations that engage audiences and deliver results.

Start making your own videos today. Sign up for a free 14-day trial and attend our weekly tour of the Vyond Studio.