Everyone is bored with the blurb about how online video is going to be the next big thing; that it’s about to overtake static content online for the first time in 2019. So, you’ve heard it a million times and have decided to have an online video created, what is the next step? Well I’d say that the majority of our customers dipping their toe into the water for the first time perceive online video as a costly and one size fits all exercise, so their approach is to try to tell the whole world everything that they do in 3 minutes, post it across social media channels, job done. Wrong!
About 5 years ago we used to sell the benefits of a 3 minute video plonked onto your home page and YouTube maybe. We knew back then that the tide was turning and ‘shorter is better’, because let’s face it we’re selling to goldfish these days so best not make it too content intensive. So now we’re selling the 30 second to 1 minute dream of engaging the viewer before they go back to watching cat videos on Facebook. Well for an old school videographer who is all about making every job look beautiful first and thinking about content later, this was always going to be a bitter pill to swallow; surely people aren’t that shallow and are prepared to stay a while to enjoy the visual feast that I have laboured over, right? Wrong!
Content is now king, more is better and quantity trumps quality; really? Well yes, I’m afraid it does, so anyone with a phone camera can now create loads of content as long as it is relevant to the business. I’d like to argue against this but I really can’t, in fact I’d go as far as to say that I actively encourage it. A proportion of our work comes from people who have made a botched job of filming their own video along with unintelligible audio and require us to make something that is better quality. I’m really not going to argue against this am I, well yes actually.
I sometimes disagree that it is the quality of video that matters, it really is all about content these days. Why most of these (let’s call them home made) videos fail, is not the poor quality of the video, it’s the content. My accountant at this point is making a ‘cut cut’ motion with her hands. But it’s true, it really is about content and if the video is poor quality then so what, it’s the engagement that matters, right? Maybe!
What this really equates to for a lot of our clients is how can they can say the same number of things about their business in half the time, plonk it on the website and social media channels, job done. Wrong? Well yes and no. if you don’t have any video content then maybe a first start is to let people know what you do but trying to do this in the limited time is difficult; almost boring in fact. Most people don’t want to be sold to at the pace of an auctioneer on Red Bull. We’d rather trickle feed the message over time and across all channels. Right, so this is the new black in online video terms. Wrong!
What matters is having a presence online, to constantly be reminded of your brand even though the viewer doesn’t feel like he/she is being sold to. They say that for every three articles you post online only one should have the hard sell, the others should offer something of interest or benefit; thought leaders, new concepts etc. It’s about achieving maximum visibility across all media channels at all times and if this visibility is you saying ‘buy, buy, buy’ everyone is going to go back to watching cat videos on Facebook. So how do you do this? Well that’s a big question and even though plenty of people will take your money to try to tell you how, not many truly know the path to video Nirvana. The truth is that there isn’t a one size fits all and every bit of content will be driven by what type of business you run and to some extent the personality of the business. No way is correct so why not generate some content that is completely random but engaging; risky right? Wrong!
If you’ve read this far, then you deserve a medal. No seriously if you have read this far then maybe a your video campaign isn’t working for you and you want to dare to be different. Well read this article about 4 companies that tried a different way and succeeded. We can help you be creative but we can’t look under the skin of your business or really get to grips with its unique personality over a few coffees, so it’s time to get your hand dirty and get creative yourselves. Just a quick warning before you start; if the video that you create on your phone isn’t working, don’t come crying to us because it’s probably nothing to do with how you filmed it. Go Figure.
https://wipster.io/blog/4-brands-that-are-ruling-the-video-marketing-world
Mitchell Remes is a director of CMA Video and has worked in video and the media industry for over 20 years ranging from online video production to music production. He has worked on TV and cinema advert productions and creative planning projects for brands ranging from Levi’s and Lego Land.
Our video marketing blogs have been recognised as one of the Top 50 Video Marketing Blogs on the internet. We hope you enjoy reading them and gain valuable insights into what we do here at CMA Video and show that we’re not just another Birmingham video production company but we do more from animation videos to event filming, video strategy to social media video campaigns.
