How to do your online video

More and more businesses are realizing the importance of having a video presence online, but often lack the knowledge on how to do it right. We will give you points and advice on how to create the most effective video – doesn’t matter if you do it yourself or pay someone to do it for you.

1) Don’t film your own talking head, show your prospect in pain:

• A talking head is a leftover from broadcast TV where the viewer was passive. In contrast, computer users create their own experiences, thus being active.

• In an eye-tracing study, viewers of a talking head video spent most of their attention outside the video (on road sign in the background, player controls, etc.); in videos of moving objects and in animations the focus stays sharply on the subject.

• Historically in movie making, by showing the main character in pain you create empathy and anticipation in the audience; by beginning with an explanation of who you are, you bore your audience to tears – they don’t care for you.

2) Don’t tell what you do, show what you do:

• This is a classic for all stories, from 1 minute videos to 2 hour movies. “Telling” means you gave dry information and haven’t involved the viewer emotionally; “showing” means you used specific details to describe the action, letting the viewer experience it - and that makes the viewer believe in your story.

• Compare the following script examples for effectiveness: “We are experts at automating enterprise contract management” VS “A sleek vacuum-like machine (bearing company logo) rolls onto a landfill full of old paper, sucks it all up, spits out neat numbered stacks on the now clean ground.”

3) Leave the last frame on a call to action for a few seconds:

• Don’t leave it on black background, do leave your website on the bottom, a phone number to call, and an e-mail to contact you at.

• Don’t leave just an 800 number with an answering machine on it, rather choose something where people can interact with you right away, like a twitter account name, a Facebook page or an e-mail.

4) Do these little technical details correctly:

• Put a play button on the player, so people know this is a video and not just an image (you’d be surprise changes constantly, and you’ve got to continue the conversation with your prospects before they’re bored again.

• Put the length of the video into the player or next to it, so people know if it is 1 minute, 20 minutes, or 1 hour, and can make a decision.

• Do NOT put the video on autoplay, allow people to play and pause the video as they want.

• Have a volume control button, people hate it when they can’t control the sound.

• Best, put video on YouTube and embed the code into your web site page instead of putting it up on your own site – this will let people share it easily.

What our clients are saying:

My name is Michelle Speirs and I am the Marketing Programs Manger at Topaz Bridge™, a Software Applications company which integrates SAP® and Microsoft® SharePoint® software.

I had seven weeks before a major tradeshow and urgently needed to find a company who could produce an animation video for us which could enhance our corporate and product brands and also create stopping power onsite at our booth. I extensively reviewed 7 companies and was beginning to think this was an impossible task, time was running out and our budget was very tight.

I contacted Lilipip Studios who were confident from the start that they could produce a video for us. And they did deliver on their promise, not only did Lilipip Studios produce a video within our budget, but they also delivered the video in two weeks, well in time for our departure.

At the show our television screens were the main feature of our booth design and the video added tremendous value to our overall branding and messaging. We just used the video at a second event last week and we will be using the video again at future events.

Lilipip made the entire production process simple, from getting the messaging right to selecting the images and music and it was great to see the finished product animated. Lilipip has an amazing team of people to work with; I really did appreciate the dedication and flexibility of their team and will look forward to working with them again in the very near future.

Check out our latest animation for Cascadeo. And, if you have gotten the coupon from Seattle 2.0 Awards for 20% off, now is the time to use it!

In conclusion, we have recently discovered Biznik and are having quite a success with our Online Video Roundtable events, so if we haven’t seen you in a while, please come to one of our events to catch up. Thank you for reading our newsletter, and we look forward to staying in touch with you!