If you’re a small- to mid-sized business, you’re probably wondering how you can leverage online video to build awareness for your brand or company.

Mike Turner, Jr., a freelance creative director based out of North Carolina (and a relative of one of the members of the 60 Second Marketer team) has successfully used online video to engage prospective clients and to position himself as an alternative to using a full-service agency.

His website is designed to promote his services, but on the last page of his site, he uses a funny, tongue-in-cheek video called “Humility” to add some personality to his personal brand. It’s a fun example of how you can use an inexpensive video to differentiate yourself from your competitors and have some fun in the process.

With all that in mind, here are 22 tips to remember if and when you decide to use online video to promote your product or service.

Here goes:

1. It’s mostly about the visuals. If you watch the evening news, you’ll notice that what you’re really paying attention to is the video, not the script. Sure, the script enhances the video, but at the end, you remember what you see more than what you hear. Think about the Miracle on the Hudson — you remember the video of the airplane, not what the journalist said about it.
2. Don’t regurgitate a press release. Videos are not press releases. They’re separate animals of their own. Write them that way.
3. Focus on one, or at most two, key points. Keep things simple. But if you do decide to focus on more than one point, be sure to include a recap at the end so the viewer gets a second chance to see your key points.
4. Don’t cheap out. Bad video production makes for a bad user-experience. If you’re an Apple user, you can use Garage Band and iMovie to make high-quality videos. If you’re not an Apple user, you can use some PC based solution that’ll probably be less elegant and harder to use. Sorry.
5. Don’t cheap out #2. Use a professional-quality microphone (about $300) and, if you can afford it, a compressor (about $200). Whatever you do, don’t buy a cheap microphone. It’s like printing a brochure on cheap paper — when the sound quality is cheap, it sends a bad signal to your prospective customers. Invest in a good microphone and you won’t regret it.
6. Keep the videos short. People don’t have the time or the patience to watch something more than two or three minutes long.
7. Write in concise sentences. Jerry Seinfeld said that the art of telling a joke was to get as much information packed into as short a sentence as possible. In similar fashion, the more content you pack into each sentence, the crisper and more fulfilling the video will be.
8. A committee will kill a good video. As with most things creative, the more people who are involved, the more likely a good concept will get watered down. Keep things simple, crisp and efficient.
9. Add variety. Use photos up front, then cut away to a short interview, then come back to a pie chart, then show more photos — the more variety and texture in your video, the more your audience will stay engaged.
10. Don’t ad lib. Plan your video out. Write a script. Record it. Drop in the visuals and graphics. Don’t wing it — if you do, it’ll show.
11. Script writing secrets. Write your script. Then write it again with 25% fewer words. Then cut that back by another 25%. The secret is to keep things short. People are used to watching 30-second commercials. Two minutes is an eternity in online video world.
12. Keep the transitions between scenes simple. There are over 100 ways to transition from one scene to the next. Do you know how many of those Hollywood uses? One. It’s called a dissolve and it’s still the simplest, easiest, cleanest way to move from one scene to the next.
13. It’s all about the lighting. What separates the pros from the amateurs? Lighting. In fact, the third person hired on a film crew in Hollywood (after the director and the director of photography) is the lighting director. Use good lights. And use more than one to shoot like the pros do.
14. It’s not about the lighting. Of course, if you’re just using still photos and PowerPoint (or Keynote) to create a short video, then you don’t have to worry about lighting at all. That’s a solution for people who don’t want to buy a lighting kit.
15. Create your own YouTube channel. If you’re going to shoot a lot of videos, create your own YouTube channel like the one The 60 Second Marketer has. That way, people can subscribe to your videos and get updates whenever you upload a new one.
16. Use TubeMogul. Looking for a way to upload your videos to over 20 different channels on the internet with the flip of a switch? Then use TubeMogul. It’ll save you hours and hours of time.
17. Get comfortable with QuickTime. QuickTime, like all things Apple, is easy-to-use and the standard for online video. If you’re still using Windows Media Player, dump it and get with the program.
18. Hire an outside video production firm. If you don’t feel comfortable with your own video production skills, hire someone to do it for you. 60 Second Communications produces online videos for its clients. So does TGCMedia and plenty of other companies around the country.
19. Check out Veeple, which is a cool, new video production technology that allows you to make certain spots on your video clickable. That way, people can click a video of a document to download a hard copy, or they can click on a video of a website to visit the website. Cool.
20. Check out MultiCast Media’s VidegoPro, which is a self-serve streaming video solution for small, medium and large businesses. It’s what we use at the 60 Second Marketer and they’ve been a top-notch solution for us.
21. Follow the 2 second rule. The average 30-second TV spot has between 15 to 30 shots. If you keep the shots in your video to under 2 seconds each, you’ll keep your viewer engaged the same way a 30-second TV spot does.
22. Don’t follow the 2 second rule. On the other hand, you could go the other direction and just shoot one person on camera for 3 minutes like Mike Turner did. It’s proof that for every rule, there’s an exception.

Those are the key ideas we have for shooting online videos. Did we miss anything? What would you add?

Monday, February 2nd, 2009, 11:57 am   |   General Marketing  |  RSS feed |  Respond  |  Trackback