Social Mobi Videos [review]
POS:
Quite simply a better way to play videosNEG:
Embed size needs to be manually tweaked sometimesToday Im doing a review of the new Social Mobie Videos software. Before I got access to Social Mobi Videos the only thing I knew about it was that it allowed you to put video tabs on Facebook fan pages. Most people know by now that even though I once loved them, I’m not much […]
Today Im doing a review of the new Social Mobie Videos software.
Before I got access to Social Mobi Videos the only thing I knew about it was that it allowed you to put video tabs on Facebook fan pages. Most people know by now that even though I once loved them, I’m not much of a advocate of Facebook tabs any more. I just dont feel like they have as much value as the once did. Because of this I was not really that interested in Social Mobi Videos at first. However Martin suggested I take a more in depth look into it. Let me tell you. Boy was I glad I did.
After testing this software I had just one question for Martin:
I asked him this at a half past midnight my time, which is around 5am his time so I did not get an answer yet at the time of writing this review, however I will say 100% for sure that if Martin does not let me keep my review copy of Social Mobie Videos permanently I will be buying it. Let me explain why:
As you may have noticed the video above is being played with this software. Thats what Social Mobi Videos actually is, its an advanced video player that offers several advantages over the standard YouTube player that I normally used. But before I get into the features I do want to point out that this review video is still being hosted for free on YouTube. Im just not playing it with the YouTube player, Im playing it with the Social Mobi Videos player.
The first advantage should be obvouse. No YouTube branding, no link to YouTube in the player itself, no YouTube banner ads showing. I still get the free hosting by YouTube but I dont have to deal with the YouTube slapping its branding, its logo, and its ads all over my video.
Now Ill be honest at first I was a little worried about this because YouTubes TOS says that if you use their video player or their embed code you cant do things like hide their logo or links. In fact I researched YT’s TOS and this is exactly what they say about it:
But the think to keep in mind is the very first sentence. “If you use the Embeddable Player on your website”. I had a look at the Social Mobi Video player code (Im not going to tell you how I did it, but trust me I did look at it) and I was pleased to find that this does not use the YouTube player at all. Its actually its own player that is made through clever use of HTML 5. Because if this there is no TOS violation that I can see since the rule clearly is only applicable if you use their player. So right there we have a major advantage over using the YouTube embed code. We still get the benefit of having our video hosted for free without having the YouTube ads and links all over. Of course if you want to host the video yourself or on some other service this software can handle that as well.
The second advantage is how customizable it is. In my video above I used one of the more plain video skins, while even the plain ones allow you to edit its overall look, as well as its color, auto play and control options this also this comes with a ton of templates with fancy backgrounds and forms that you can use as well.
Besides being able to customize the video player and its template you can also customize how it is added to your website. You can do a normal embed like I did above, you can do a on click pop up where a button shows on your site that will trigger a lightbox style pop up, or you can have Social Mobi Videos trigger automatically when your website loads. These are things that you just cant do with YouTube or with other video players without having some kind of additional software and I think it’s really good that they included them. ‘Having options’ is always a good thing, options lets you use the software in a variety of situations depending on your needs at the time and really ads value to the product.
The real heart of Social Mobi Videos is the additional functionality it allows. It allows you to add things to your video. For example it can allow you to brand the video with your company logo, as I have done in the review video above. It will also let you add optin forms and call to action buttons anywhere in the video, when trigger the video will pause and the optin form or call to action will show. You can decide if you want to force the user to take the desired action to continue or if you want to allow them to click ‘skip’ to continue.
These kinds of options inside of a video are fantastic for anyone doing any kind of internet marketing. For example I can have a call to action, that is also my affiliate link, at the end (or anywhere in) the video (and to be totally honest, I do have on in my review video). Also if I wanted to I could have a optin form in the middle of my video that tells people they can signup to get more reviews. Things like this are invaluable for anyone in the IM space regardless if your reviewing products like I am, trying to build a list, or selling something of your own.
As if all of this was not enough this Social Mobi Videos takes it a step further and has yet another very useful feature. This is one that I dont believe I have seen in any other video player software and frankly I almost missed it.
It has a built in split testing feature that will allow you to split test two videos. This is great because you can make two marketing, sales or review videos and run a split test to see which one gets the best results. Its very easy to see that this software was designed from the ground up with the internet marketer in mind. Everything about it is designed to either get you more clicks, more optins or more views.
So what about the software itself? Was it easy to use and did I have any problems with it? Well first off I want to say that there is a ton of assistance built into this product. It has video tutorials right inside of it. It has a FAQ section filled with common questions and answers. It also has a support tab (which can be seen in the screenshot above) on the right that is similar to what I put in my own software, that will let you contact support if you need direct assistance.
However despite all of this build in assistance I will admit I did what a lot of people will do. I ignored it and dove write into trying to use this product. Fortunately it was quite simple to use. The interface is intuitive and well designed and I had no problems at all even though I did not bother to watch the tutorials. I dont see anyone having any issues using Social Mobi Videos.
There in fact was only one gripe I had with it and that is with the way the embed code is generated.
The embed code needs to be sized correctly or else it may get cut off a bit on your site. The size is set by default when you click the embed button to the size of your video, but it does not take into account any of the fancy template backgrounds and graphics you might have decided to use. What this means is that you may have to manually adjust the embed code (through the input boxes, not by editing the code) to make sure your template or background graphics are not cut off. I would have liked to see the software take the template you are using into account and automatically have the correct size in the code. While having to manually tweak the size only takes a moment and is just a minor annoyance I did feel it was something I should mention in the interest of being 100% honest.
The last thing I was wondering about was the mobi part. This is Social MOBI videos after all so you would think that this should play on mobile devices. This is something I was a little septic about since most video players are FLASH based and wont play on mobiles. Then I remembered though, this does not use FLASH, this uses HTML 5.
Being a DROID user I only have an iPhone for testing. Well I should say I use to have an iPhone for testing because unfortunately the other day my 6 year old son decided he needed to sneak my testing iPhone into the bath so he can play Angry Birds when he should be washing. Needless to say I no longer have a working iPhone. However I did test this on my personal Samsung Galaxy S3 and the video played without a hitch.
So what do I think of Social Mobi Videos over all? Well as I said quite simply its just a better way to play videos. It has a ton of marketing functionality and also lets you host your videos for free on YouTube without having to use the YouTube player that is stuffed with YouTube branding and possibly ads. I’m was being totally honest in the beginning of this article. If Martin does not let me keep my review copy of this I am going to buy it myself.
BONUS:
If you pick this up through my link you will get instant access to my “Share To Download” wordpress plugin that will allow you to put give free gifts away on your site in exchange for a Facebook share. You also get free resellers / giveaway rights to this plugin!
A quick note about the reviews I do on this site. The product vendors give me access to their products for free in order for me to do my review. However I make no promises to them regarding the results of my tests or what I will write in my review. Should you click a link that takes you to a sales page for a paid product for sale this link will be an affiliate link and I will be paid a percentage of the sales price should you decide to invest in it.
About the Author
Great Review Brett. So are you saying that the way the socialmobivideos code is generated it pretty much takes out the annoying YouTube “related videos” at the end of the video? Thats a great feature.
No ‘related’ videos, No ads, No links to YouTube in the video player, AND you can have call to action and optin forms right inside of the video as well as branding to your own company .. oh and it comes with cool skins and can generate a pop up for you. Yea there is no comparison to using the standard player that YouTube provides. This is WAY better.
FYI there is a small bit of code that you can insert in the YT embed that stops related videos showing on a website, I use it for my clients.
Yes your talking about “?rel=1”, you add that the the video URL in the YT embed code. Of couse this does nothing about the YT player having a link to YT in it or the fact that banner ads can still show.
Hi Brett,
Great info you have provided. The video player in this software is what really sold me. I have purchased through your link.
Thanks,
Patrick
Thanks for another great review..
I’ve received few emails about this product and I’ve dismissed it because of the FB tab thing, but now after your review, I’ve changed my mind, it does look great.
Hi Brett,
Thanks for the great review!
Just one question, it works great for Youtube videos, but does it work for Vimeo videos too?
I did not see any Vimeo option. Though honestly that should not matter since there is no YT branding anyway (avoiding which is a major reason people use Vimeo)
Hi Brett,
I got a couple of links to this and ignored as not from you, they need more decent affliates, also what put me of was the “Chad Nicely” promo as some of the previous products he’s fronted were plagued with tech / glitches, sometimes better when the owners promote their own products (as you do) as confusing when we see Todd G. , Sam Bakker etc, as hard to tell who’s product it is and how involved the ppl in the video’s are, can be off-putting sometimes as the product might be great. This one sounds great but not sure if white label?
Appreciate the review as sounds good, although don’t know if the video is working on this page for anyone else, on my connection, it isn’t, will try with another browser and connection.
Thanks,
Mark
Chad is a ‘pitch man’ not a vendor, he does not really create products, he just fronts them, so you cant really go by him being the one in the sales video when determining if a product is good or not.
After ten minutes of Chad’s teeth, I feel like a Great White Shark is coming at me. I do like his pitches and to me he’;s dangerous. He could sell me absolutely anything he’s that good, so I avoid his pitches lol. He’s very good at selling but as Brett says, he is only the frontman. Everyone should analyse the backend too. I now always check out the JV page of the product that Chad has anything to do with. He sells just as hard to the JV’s and then I feel betrayed as a consumer of the same product. When he talks about deep funnels written by the best copyrighters in the biz, ready to be lapped up by hungry buyers (my words not his), i get turned off really fast. Works a treat and has saved me heaps.
My tip to vendors selling a product – don’t ever get your overzealous polished pitchman for hire selling to customers and jv’s at the same time. It looks bad
If you think ANY product vendor can tempt me with ‘deep funnels’ you must be new to my blog and I would invite you to browse around. There is only one thing that effects my opinion of a product. My experience when I test it.
And that Brett, is why I keep coming back to you.
Full credit to you!
Your Aussie mate,
Mark
Hi There,
Thanks for the in depth review:)
This might be a silly question so I apologize if it is!
Once you have included the call to action and logo into the video, will it display like that if you view the video in YouTube?
No you can only add these things to the player, you cant change YouTubes site.
How would it compare to something like Simple Video Player 2?
I dont know what Simple Video Player is and Google does not bring up a website for it:
But , does it play YouTube hosted videos, is it mobile friendly, does it have built in optin forms, does it have call to action options, does it come with all the skins and designs, does it allow click able branding .. etc .. I have described Social Mobi Videos in this review, so if you know Simple Video Player 2, then you are in a much better position to tell me how it compares whan I am to tell you (since you now know the features of both software’s)
Sorry Brett, it’s Simple Video Pro; Nick LaPolla. Just thought I’d check to see if you’ve reviewed that one. It’s a powerful video player but not sure how it stacks up against this one. It’s been around for a couple of years I think.
Well as I said, if you read this article and watch my review video you can know the major features of this Social Mobi Videos, if you are familiar with Simple Video Pro, you will then be in a good position to tell how the two compare.
Hey Brett… why get Social Mobi Videos, if I already have.. Video Auto Click?
Im glad you think highly of VAC. But VAC cant put videos on your website. This can. The only thing that VAC and Social Mobi Videos have in common is that they both play videos. Their use is totally different. For example my review video above. It uses SMV. I could not have done that with VAC.
thanks for the review. This was very informative as always. I was reluctant to purchase this because I thought that this was similar to the video audio click. what are the main difference is in your mind? The biggest difference that I saw and I would love to get your feedback is the ability to create the tab on Facebook with social movie videos.
sorry I meant to say video auto click.
This is nothing like VAC. VAC is for posting marketing videos to Facebook groups. This is a video player for your website.
I see where you are coming from. I was looking at it from what I was thinking a functional standpoint, the fact that both pieces of software can be put into facebook and if someone clicks on a certain part of the video, they will be redirected somewhere else.
SMV puts videos on tabs, this is a feature of it that did not interest me at all.
Thanks for your input.
Hi Brett,
Do you know what the license rights are for the plugin portion, is it for a single website or for all personal sites?
I just sent Martin a Skype message asking him, I want to make sure I tell you the correct thing.
Just got an answer:
“[6:09:13 PM] Martin Crumlish: all their websites”
Thanks for finding out for me, I ‘m going to purchase using your link. thanks
Nice review. Thanks!
Most review and instructional videos are hard for me to see if not full screen. Without the optional HD or higher res options Youtube player offers, I assume you can’t watch full screen without going to Youtube.
I do see that if you hover over bottom right the Youtube logo appears and you can view on Youtube. Is that an option or part of it?
The ‘player skin’ I have chosen to use does not have the full screen option. There are other ones though that do have it. You are correct though, if you are using a YT video, and you use a skin that allows full screen viewing, the YT log will show in the lower right ‘on hover’ in full screen mode. This is not a bug or anything though, its because YT actually adds that to your video file itself, so there is no way around it.
Brett, OMG such an awesome review. I too was not interested until I read your review. So detail I just need to skim over the sales page. Are there developers rights for client use?
Yes, and there is also a ‘white label’ upgrade as well.
This actually one of the best video players with clickable features I have seen in this price range, but my only hang up is that like most of these type players, the call to action features don’t work while the video is playing when viewing the video with an iPhone. Wish someone would develops one in this price range that would work on Apple devices. I know it is not easy considering how Apple code there software, but I am sure it can be done
Hi Brett,
I just bought Social Mobi Video through your link… and cancelled just after (sorry).
The reason is something I guess you can’t see from your review copy.
The major features (accroding to me) of this app like foreign auto-responder, splash screen, webinar integration, etc..wich are described in your article and in the sell page are only avalaible through the OTO and not in the basic version.
I think you get an OTO version for this review so you cannot see this point.
I agree this player seems to be a great tool, but I need to pay three times the announced price to get somehing that was promised before the sell.
Sorry, this is unfair for me and so I cancelled my purchase (waiting for the refund).
Regards,
Patrick
Dont be sorry, if your unhappy with your purchase you have a right to refund it.
That is why i always come to your blog before i buy a product! you simply rock Brett 🙂
you saved me too many times from falling for pitches ^_^ keep up the amazing work
Regards
Kay – The Mama Marketer
Hi Brett,
So OTO 1 is developer’s license and OTO 2 white label? How much are they, thanks?
Honestly Im not quite sure how the funnel goes. Normally vendors tell affiliates the funnel just so the affiliates can see how much money they can make. To me thats of minor importance (the major importance being testing the product) so often, to be honest, I dont even look at the funnel. I do believe the white label version is a bit high something like $297.
Thanks for the review Brett
First i thought wow, no youtube link at all!
But a second I noticed that youtube’s video url can be easily copied with the right mouse button. If this could be undone it would be perfect!
Thank you, Brett! I will use this review/tutorial as a resource. That is so helpful! I just got MemberHub with Social Mobi as a bonus. I am more of a LinkedIn / Twitter person so I was going to ignore it. Perfect! SM will save me a lot of money in video hosting as I am getting ready to launch my first course. Uh oh – – – and what Tim above said.