Tips on Small Business Videos
By Michael Mason
You might have a great product or service, but one of the mistakes people make is assuming that your customers will automatically find you, just because you are a great company. You have to remember that people in general are very visual. Wharton School of Business says that a well-produced video increases information retention by 50% and speeds up financial decisions by 72%. 90% of the communication provided by video is nonverbal, such as body language and tone of voice. In addition, there are all kinds of trust barriers that are knocked down by video, which can mean everything for your company.
What not to do when making a video:
The first mistake people make when making a video is the inclination to make something too long. Understandably, companies have a lot to say and want to say all of it. You have to remember, your videos aren’t required viewing. We find 1 minute 30 seconds is usually the sweet spot.
Another common mistake we see is people often come off as too formal in their videos. This is your chance to humanize yourself. Don’t say what you think is standard for the situation. Always speak from the heart.
What do you do with your video?
When you have a video you have to post it in the right places. It’s great to send your video to email subscribers, people who are already familiar with you will love the personal touch of video, which will increase retention.
It’s vital to use social media, which is peerless for video sharing. Facebook alone represents a whopping 4 billion video streams a day and video sharing from one’s own network is exponentially more effective.
Posting on YouTube is an absolute must. If YouTube is considered a search engine (as it certainly should be), it is the #2 largest search engine in the world and is largely the preferred search engine for millennials.
And you need to make sure your video is prominently embedded on your website. The average time a person spends on a website with only text is 57 seconds. A website with video? 6 minutes!
Can you afford it?
Thanks to new technologies, film production is getting better and better for less and less money. The most significant cost should be the skill and creativity of the filmmaker. You need someone with a great eye for shooting and editing. With the right production team you can have something of cinematic quality for minimal cost.
Michael Mason is Owner and Executive Producer of Perfect Chaos Films in Austin, TX, a video/animation production company specialized in corporate culture videos, product explainers, commercials and feature development.