Video is an incredibly powerful & effective way for you to build a great relationship with your audience online.
It facilitates a personal connection between you & your followers, and can be a great way for you to: showcase your industry knowledge; further, explain products or services; address a concern directly with your customers online! 😮🤯
If that wasn’t reason enough to use more video (or, start using video) in your online marketing efforts, the demand for the media type is also constantly on the rise.
With 54% of customers wanting to see more content of this type from their favourite brands – as of March, 2019.
54% of consumers want to see more video content from a brand or business they support.
Oberlo, 2019
The best part about all of this is that the process of creating a video is incredibly easy.
With all of us having access to smartphones or tablets – and the countless editing apps on them – there really are no barriers preventing any of us from planning our content, setting our stage, & pressing record!
In this blog, I cover 5 tips you can think about next time you look to create video content for your brand.
Covering everything from who you’re talking to in your video, to how you can tailor what you’re saying to boost your engagement & achieve business goals through online video content.
Scroll down to find out more!
Before we get started, I wanted to talk to you about our incredibly exciting video marketing course ‘Visual Stars’.
An awesome collaboration between Hypestar & Visual Punch, this workshop covers 5 core topics surrounding video creation to give you the knowledge, practical experience, & confidence to take your video marketing skills to the next level!
Book your place here.
1. Focus your audience
When it comes to marketing online, the Hypestar team support the idea that you really can’t market to everyone.
It’s the same when it comes to video creation.
Your video shouldn’t be aimed at everyone.
Instead, it should be focused on a specific audience created with your business or a particular service in mind; as this will help you connect with your audience in a more meaningful way.
Audience targeting such as this can be an incredibly important part of your marketing strategy & can ultimately influence how effective your campaign is, and whether your audience will return to your business for help in the future.
Get started…
What platform are you using?
Depending on which platform you’re publishing your video to can depend on the predominant age or gender of your audience.
This isn’t always the case, although it should be something you bear in mind.
What language will you use?
What kind of language is appropriate for the audience you’re targeting your video to?
Think about the kinds of words or phrases you might want to include/exclude from the video content.
How can you help?
What kind of challenge can you help this targeted audience overcome?
Are you presenting a resolution to their problem in your video?
2. Signpost your video
When you publish your video, make sure you outline the key outcomes from the content.
Tell your audience what you’re covering, and how you’ll be helping solve their problems.
Where to start…
Title & description
This signposting can be done in the title and description of your video.
Create an engaging title (as opposed to literally just explaining what the video is all about) to intrigue your audience. Then explain the key benefits your audience will get as a result of watching your content.
This tit-bit of information will help your audience decide whether or not the video content is something they’d be interested in.
If done well, this could mean that a strong percentage of those watching your video could end up being potential customers, or new advocates of your business online.
3. Know what you’re going to say
Engage your audience from the off with straight-to-point content, & save yourself the worry of having to muddle your way through your video without knowing what you’re going to say by creating a clear structure for yourself before you start!
Your video doesn’t need to be 100% scripted, but jotting some notes or bullet points down about the things you’re going to talk about can be really helpful for anyone recording video content.
(We like to jot things down on sticky notes as reminders!)
Don’t worry, we’re all human and the odd ‘urm’ is easily overlooked. But your video will likely be received much better by your audience if it delivers a genuine message!
Top Tip: Your video doesn’t need to be a particular length, so if you run out of things to say or you can’t remember everything you’d like to talk about then don’t try and fill time with unrelated jabber.
Sign off your video with a ‘Call To Action’ (e.g. “Don’t forget to check out all the services on my website”), then stop recording! 😊👍
4. Engage your audience with stories
Stories are a great way of exaggerating a point you’re making.
Also, let’s not forget that video is there to engage & help you build a rapport with your audience. So using relatable personal stories or customer testimonials to elaborate a point you’re making is a great way of creating effective & impressionable video content.
You could do this by introducing a customer success story, or a personal story about you & the development of your brand. Alternatively, it could be an inspirational anecdote that could get your audience fired up!
Top Tip: Don’t forget that all good stories have a beginning, a middle, & an end.
So, when you’re planning to integrate a story into your video, think about how you can introduce it, explain the concept, & round off your point without making it feel out of place or without confusing your audience.
5. Raise your game with equipment
It’s not always necessary, but if you’re planning on creating video content frequently, it could be a really good idea to invest in some equipment to give your videos a more professional finish.
This kind of investment is all about helping you create more slick & clean-cut video content. It is no way determines the overarching success of the videos you create.
For instance, if your audience doesn’t find your content engaging. Then investing in equipment isn’t necessarily going to alter their opinion.
It’s more likely that you need to reconsider the theme of your content to help engage your target audience or rethink the way you describe your video when you post it.
Nonetheless, the Hypestar team do (and will continue to) invest in equipment for our videos. And we love the enhanced quality & finish our equipment brings to our content!
Equipment suggestions for you… 🤔
Awesome Audio
(It’s not just all about visuals!)
As an audience member, being able to hear what’s being said in a video is really important. So it might be worthwhile investing in a microphone to enhance your audio quality.
It’s also worth considering whether you’d sit through a video with terrible sound quality – think about the audience experience!
Trusted brands: Rode, Blue, Neewer
Trusty Tripod
Give your video content more stability with a tripod!
Quick video content for your Facebook or Instagram ‘Stories’ are fine as a handheld (sometimes wobbly!) pieces of footage. But sometimes you want a more stable finish for promotional videos.
Tripods are ideal for this, and can easily be set up wherever you are. Meaning that you can film hands-free, and not have to worry about giving yourself a dead arm holding the camera up for minutes on end!
Trusted brands: Manfrotto
Lighting
Having good lighting can be really important in helping you create the atmosphere and visuals you want for your video content.
A halo light is a fantastic way to help you achieve this, and can be easily transported wherever you might be creating your next piece of video content.
