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I’m excited to announce (somewhat belatedly) that Helium.com, the Internet company I work for, has started using multimedia videos to inform and instruct members, visitors and potential clients.

Until about a month ago, we’ve been relying solely on written copy in our User Guide, community forums and other scattered areas on the website. Typically—and as often predicted by Internet user studies—many visitors would not take the time to read online documentation and would veer towards the forums for one-on-one or one-one-many help requests, and community connection. (The fact that many members would seek advice from other members and directly from moderators rather than reading the manual is also an interesting point to note.)

The videos help to answer some of the most basic and frequently asked questions such as what’s Helium all about, how do I write on Helium, how do I rate on Helium, how do I earn money on Helium and how does the Marketplace program work. We’re still awaiting initial user statistics, but I suspect that each flash video will appeal to members who are inclined towards visual learning tools and quick answers, rather than reading guides or waiting for questions to be answered in our forums.

The videos reside on a few key pages, as well as within advertising blocks that appear throughout the site. This should ensure that they get enough exposure to visitors.

I’m excited because it’s also a first successful step in demonstrating our ability to use alternative multimedia learning tools that we can leverage in places like tutorial pages that are specific to certain types of members, visitors or business partners. For example, let’s say we want to create a page that teaches Helium writers how to optimize their titles and articles for web search while still providing an easy-to-read and professional work of long-lasting knowledge to the community, a video might be a better way to go. A picture is worth a thousand words, right? It could be reasonable to assume that a video would be worth more.

These videos are also a great marketing tool. What better way to educate the time-strapped publisher about what Helium is all about than with a quick video that’s just under two minutes. By showing, rather than explaining, the ease of how Helium can be used as a cost-effective and time-saving publishing resource, I hope that it will bring potential business partners knocking on our door asking for more information.

Here’s a video that briefly provides instruction about how to rate articles on Helium.