Content is and always has been King. It just changes forms. And right now, video is the ultimate means of engaging an audience, whether online or at a conference. But with audiences coming close to saturation point, how can businesses make their video content stand out?
Tom Baker, Video Lead at RCCO and Co-Founder of Wild Film, is an award-winning Video Filmmaker and Director, having worked on projects that have won eight dolphins at the Cannes Corporate Media Awards. In this article he provides insights on how to create better video content.
Producing Engaging Video Content as a Small Business
Video content is a great way to elevate your small business, grow your reach, and communicate effectively with your audience.
The only thing is that video content is used in almost every business nowadays. So how can you break through the barrage of videos with powerful content that reaches your audience and creates impact?
- Emotive Storytelling
Brands and businesses have long since understood the power of emotive storytelling in video content. If you take a minute to consider which video content you can still remember today, I can guarantee that it has stayed with you for a reason. Usually it’s because that video spoke to you on an emotional level.
People may forget what you say in your video content, but they will not forget how it made them feel.
Your video content can make people laugh, cry, or generally feel any other range of emotions.
Doing this will make your content memorable and keep your audience engaged and more likely to keep watching.
- Know Your Message
You need to be 100% clear on what message you want to convey to your audience. Then you can ensure that the message permeates and drives every aspect of the video content you create.
It means that your audience will come away with an understanding of what you want to tell them.
Maybe you want to reinforce the trustworthiness of your business or get people excited about an upcoming release of a new product or service. Always be clear and stay on message.
- Use Your Experiences
You may have heard the story about Steve Jobs taking classes in calligraphy and how later they helped him to create fonts on his first computers.
This is an excellent example of an entrepreneur using experiences from their life that may seem unrelated at first but can help to create great things for your business.
Video content is much the same, take experiences from your life and use them to shape your content, and you will add depth to your videos and make them far more original and engaging for your audience.
- Inspire a Sense of Awe
More and more we are understanding the importance of awe and creativity in businesses. Long gone are the days of staring blankly at the screen and trying in vain to produce ideas.
Introducing a sense of creativity and awe will allow you to bring about new and exciting ideas in your video content and business generally.
You can practice bringing these into your creative process through mindfulness or awe walks because when you are inspired and creating from a sense of awe you will pass this on to your audience.
- Film textures
If your video features a character, think about what is going to bring them to life. Whether that is their family, the neighbourhood they live in or what they wear – show the world around them and what makes them who they are.
Your audience has to feel like they know the world your character has come from. You can evoke this feeling through filming the textures of the world your character is in and producing detailed shots that will help draw your audience in. This will produce a more rounded film.
- Use Close Ups
Close ups and faces have been proven to receive more engagement on social media. The closer we get to a character, the more sympathy the audience is likely to feel for them.
Think about starting with a close up of your character instead of a wide shot or logo – the emotion of a face is more thumb stopping than a generic wide landscape shot.
- End With Power
Ideally, the end of your video will stay with your audience and leave them with a message they will continue to think about long after the video has finished.
Plan a strong message for the end of your video. How you do this will depend on what suits your audience best.
Be bold and spend some time thinking about what you would like your audience to come away thinking.
Think of it as a question, what question is your video asking the audience? Then leave them with that question ringing in their ears.
The tips above should give you a good understanding of how to create engaging video content for your small business and succeed in inspiring, engaging, and delivering powerful messages to your audience.