You can’t have failed to notice that the web is now bursting with video content. I’m not just talking about those surfing dogs and clips from the X factor that populate Youtube, or even the fact that you can now watch virtually any TV show when you like on your computer. No, what I’m talking about is the stuff that’s increasingly appearing on your customers and your suppliers websites, maybe even your own organisation’s site; the corporate video, the product promo, the customer testimonial or whatever other video incarnation you’ve stumbled across.
So what if you’re faced with the task of researching, reporting on, or perhaps even commissioning a video for your organisation’s website – what will you do, where do you start and who or what are you going to put in it? Over the following series of 3 blogs we offer a brief guide to how to get your corporate video made and how to get it on-line.
Let’s start at the very beginning
Videos get made for all sorts of reasons and most of those reasons are wrong. For any organisation there really is only 1 good reason to make a video. Communication. That’s it. No hidden agendas, no complicated business or marketing theories – the only reason you could possibly want to spend time and/or money on a video is to find a better way to communicate with other people. And to do this your video simply has to tell a story, with a beginning, middle and end – in other words it has to have effective narrative content.
Does it Pass the test?
Before you try to produce a video you need to have a very clear idea of the message you’re trying to communicate and who are you trying to communicate that message to. These points really are fundamental and they are regularly ignored by most video producers. I know this because most web video fails a crucial and time honoured test. Namely, the highly respected and fearsome “So What?” test. This is the one great test that all communication (not just video) must pass with the intended audience. It goes like this: When you’ve watched the video, read the article, listened to the concert, attended the seminar, stared at the painting – you simply ask yourself the question “So What?” If the answer is “dunno” or worse “I don’t care”, then the message has failed, at least for you. Of course it may have worked brilliantly for someone else, and that’s fine, but it must work for somebody and preferably the person or people it was aimed at in the first place.
In Part 2 we consider how to commission a video and how to find the right production company....
To download the complete article Click here.
Wednesday, 13 January 2010
Web Video: Can I Have One of Those Please? (Part 1 of 3)
You can’t have failed to notice that the web is now bursting with video content. I’m not just talking about those surfing dogs and clips from the X factor that populate Youtube, or even the fact that you can now watch virtually any TV show when you like on your computer. No, what I’m talking about is the stuff that’s increasingly appearing on your customers and your suppliers websites, maybe even your own organisation’s site; the corporate video, the product promo, the customer testimonial or whatever other video incarnation you’ve stumbled across.
So what if you’re faced with the task of researching, reporting on, or perhaps even commissioning a video for your organisation’s website – what will you do, where do you start and who or what are you going to put in it? Over the following series of 3 blogs we offer a brief guide to how to get your corporate video made and how to get it on-line.
Let’s start at the very beginning
Videos get made for all sorts of reasons and most of those reasons are wrong. For any organisation there really is only 1 good reason to make a video. Communication. That’s it. No hidden agendas, no complicated business or marketing theories – the only reason you could possibly want to spend time and/or money on a video is to find a better way to communicate with other people. And to do this your video simply has to tell a story, with a beginning, middle and end – in other words it has to have effective narrative content.
Does it Pass the test?
Before you try to produce a video you need to have a very clear idea of the message you’re trying to communicate and who are you trying to communicate that message to. These points really are fundamental and they are regularly ignored by most video producers. I know this because most web video fails a crucial and time honoured test. Namely, the highly respected and fearsome “So What?” test. This is the one great test that all communication (not just video) must pass with the intended audience. It goes like this: When you’ve watched the video, read the article, listened to the concert, attended the seminar, stared at the painting – you simply ask yourself the question “So What?” If the answer is “dunno” or worse “I don’t care”, then the message has failed, at least for you. Of course it may have worked brilliantly for someone else, and that’s fine, but it must work for somebody and preferably the person or people it was aimed at in the first place.
In Part 2 we consider how to commission a video and how to find the right production company....
To download the complete article Click here.
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