Video marketing has become essential in a company’s marketing strategy. Incorporating video has gone from being a ‘nice to have’ tool to a ‘need to have’ strategy that has become a necessity for your business. However, when companies think of video they immediately think that they need to spend a large chunk of money to pay an agency to create a full-blown promotional video. Whilst this is true for a lot of video content, such as homepage videos or promotional pieces, there are plenty of occasions where this isn’t always the case.
Daily or weekly vlogs, designed to capture attention on social media channels are perfect for self-shooting. They allow you to respond quickly to industry events and help bring a ‘personality’ to your company and brand in an authentic way. Remember though, authentic doesn’t mean bad, and with the explosion of self-shot video on the likes of LinkedIn, there’s a large quality gap, and consequently a large opportunity for you to stand out.
It’s important to remember that there are occasions where not having professional video isn’t just less effective, it can be very detrimental to your business. It’s usually a question of meeting customer-expectation. On a company homepage you expect to see a professional and slick looking video, and when you’re levels of expectation are met then you can trust the company will be professional and provide a good level of service or product. A self-shot video will likely fail to meet your customer’s expectations of quality and have that positive impact.
Many companies who want a simple and basic video are able to create this themselves, they just need to know how. Small to medium companies who are just starting out in video will use their mobile phones to create their content. And this is okay! Mobile phones are forever evolving and their cameras are getting better and better. More importantly, there are fewer post-production steps required, such as colour correction and audio synching, as the videos can look ‘good enough’ as soon as they’re filmed. Of course, you still need to make the scene look nice, and sound nice – which is very important.
Having a basic knowledge of video and the quick access of your phone allows you to create videos for your social media channels in no time, allowing you to test what works for you and your audience, so you can maximise your audience engagement, grow your following, and let people know about your company, your product and your service.
Remember to weigh up the perception of your company, the customer’s level of expectation, and the ultimate aim of why you’re creating a video, or commissioning an agency to. Self-shooting works for the right kind of content. Professional video is ‘expected’ for other video content. Strike the perfect balance, experiment and track how well your videos are working, and then keep tweaking until you land on what your audience love, and what helps your business to grow.
