Elections Today
- Pennsylvania
Recent Projections
| State | Candidate | Delegates |
|---|---|---|
 Donald Trump | ||
Pennsylvania |  Joe Biden |
Ask an Expert: Video basics for your small business
— -- Q: Steve, I get that videos are all the thing online, but they are out of my comfort zone. How do we make videos that don't look stupid or unprofessional? What should they ideally say? Also, we don't want to spend a lot of money. — Wendy
A: As you point out, online videos come in all shapes and forms: some are great, many are awful, others are boring, and a few go viral. Fortunately, for the small business, you need not create the World's Greatest Video for yours to be effective. Rather, what you need to do is create video content that can be easily consumed, which is useful, video that is somewhat memorable, and video which puts your business's best foot forward.
Yours should contain some or all of the following elements:
Great Content: The phrase is not "content is prince" or "content is duke." No, they say "content is king" for a reason — because it is.
For your video content to be worth someone's time, then it needs to be worth someone's time. You have to put some forethought into it and consider what it is that you think your customers, fans, and followers would find interesting. What is it you can offer in video format that your people would like? If you have some specialized knowledge, that of course would work. If you can be humorous, great. What about a product demonstration, or tour of your facility, or an introduction to your team?
The important thing is that you present the information in your video in a way that is accessible and which promotes your brand to the best extent possible.
Not too long: Not only are we are living in a time of short attention span theatre, but in particular, people have come to expect that videos online will be no more than a few minutes in length. Longer, generally, and people generally tune out. This means that your videos need to be short and snappy for the most part. How short? It is normally accepted that about three minutes is an ideal length for online videos. Yes, four minutes can work, but five is usually pushing the limit.
Make it accessible: Fortunately, in this era when it seems that anyone and everyone is creating some sort of online content, your content need not be perfect to be useful. Videos in particular can be fairly informal, and that offers you a great opportunity to make a great impression.
How often do you get someone's undivided attention for three minutes online? Rarely. If you make your videos stiff and formal, you are probably missing out on an excellent opportunity to bond with your viewer. So consider making your videos
•Friendly, or•Funny, or•Quirky, or•Positive, etc.
Of course, you will want to come across as smart and knowledgeable too, but to the extent you can be less formal, it probably behooves you to do so.
Break it up: If you ever analyze a television news segment (and for our purposes here, I suggest you do), what you will notice is that there are many edits and cuts; the action rarely stays on one subject for more than, say, 30 seconds or so, and most cuts are just a few seconds long. The same is true for TV shows and movies — the action moves (unless, of course, you are watching Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace, but I digress.).
Related Stories
ABC News Live