We Live. We Speak. We Create.

The baby has arrived! Months of arduous work culminated in the birth of a video masterpiece, and it’s time to show it to the world.

If you did your due diligence (recommended), you’ve developed a comprehensive social media video marketing strategy (recommended) with a diverse set of new media distribution channels that you have calculated down to the penny are perfect for your 1) brand, 2) creative concept, 3) style of video, and 4) target audience.

Let’s face it. Your company’s marketing mix is wrong if it isn’t heavy on video and social media.

• Video is the best medium to communicate a brand’s message.
• Social platforms reach almost 3 billion people worldwide.

How big are social media platforms? Planet Earth’s total population is 7.9 billion people. There are 4.6 billion active global internet users, or 59.5% of the total population (Statista, 01/2021).

The Top 15 Social Media Channels

Social Media Platform        Country          Year Launched        # of Active Users (07/21)

Facebook                             USA               2000                         2.7 billion active users

YouTube                              USA               2005                         2.2 billion active users

WhatsApp                            USA               2009                         2.0 billion active users

Facebook Messenger         USA               2008                         1.3 billion active users

Instagram                              USA               2009                         1.2 billion active users

WeChat                                  China             2011                         1.2 billion active users

TikTok                                    China             2017                         689 million active users

QQ                                          China             1999                         617 million active users

Douyin                                   China             2016                         600 million active users

Sina Weibo                            China            2010                           511 million active users

Telegram                               Dubai             2013                          500 million active users

Snapchat                               USA                2011                          498 million active users

Kuaishou                               China             2015                          481 million active users

Pinterest                                USA                2010                          442 million active users

Reddit                                    USA                2005                          430 million active users

That is a lot of international online marketing real estate – and Twitter’s 300 million followers aren’t even on it! It’s hard to imagine that a business can still exist if they underestimate the importance and influence of social media networks, especially when 40% of the global population isn’t even on the internet yet.

Time to Get Technical

Video and social media are the perfect matches at the ideal time. Technological developments in streaming technology increased average upload/download speeds throughout the rise of social media, paving the way for video’s digital marketing dominance.

The download speeds required to stream video content are:

• 25 Mbps: sufficient for streaming 1080p HD video.
• 10 Mbps: sufficient for 720p video.
• 5 Mbps: sufficient for 480p video.

According to Speedtest Global Index, which “ranks mobile and fixed broadband speeds from around the world on a monthly basis,” as of June 2021, average download/upload speeds in the United States were:

• 45 Mbps/68.70 Mbps.
• 08 Mbps/13.67 Mbps for mobile.

Those speeds are more than high enough to stream high-quality videos and reduce or eliminate streaming issues.

According to Speedtest.net’s Speedtest Global Index, as of June 2021, global average download/upload speeds were:

• 61 Mbps/57.67Mbps.
• 34 Mbps/12.69 Mbps for mobile.

As global video start failures and buffering issues decline, and picture quality and bit rate increase, the video will continue to be the most effective way to communicate a brand’s message.

Dominant social media networks like Facebook will most likely continue to grow (or gobble up competitors), and new social media networks will continue to launch.

Likewise, the current infrastructure investment in nationwide 5G cellular networks accelerated mobile use in the U.S. (metric). As visual content becomes easier to watch on cellular networks, another surge in its marketing capabilities will occur.

The romance between video and social media is now a long-term relationship. Future growth, integration, and reach are likely, which will, in turn, spur innovations across the spectrum of stakeholders (e.g., technology, platforms, companies, marketers, end-users).

An intelligent high-level video social media policy can build a positive feedback loop of investment and return into the video-social media partnership.

Determine your Social Media Mix

Get the data! Conduct the necessary market research and develop a solid plan to execute your video marketing strategy that begins with concept and ends with distribution. If your team applies equal thought and care to every creative chain link, you maximize your video’s chance to succeed.

Let’s say your company (We Sell Stuff, Inc.) research concludes video marketing campaigns on three specific social media networks will best serve your marketing objectives.

You discover your target audience, and a new demographic you want to reach is scattered across three very different social media channels. Two of them are video content sharing sites (e.g., YouTube and TikTok), and one is a messaging service (e.g., Facebook Messenger and WeChat).

Armed with this knowledge, your marketing team can deep dive into the fine print of how each network operates, its cost, and its projected ROI.

Customization and Optimization

The fifteen social media networks listed above are all different. Even platforms integrated and cross-promoted like Facebook & Instagram have different rules and regulations, users, languages, customs, and ways to engage with content.

Social media users are savvy, especially on their preferred network. The type of content needs to match the social media channel. It would be best if you learned their language. Instructional videos may be great on YouTube but ignored on TikTok.

Social media video content like regular videos may work wonders on Instagram Stories but flop on Facebook Messenger. You get the idea. Creative and technical teams must collaborate to successfully transition between completing a video and releasing it into the wild.

We Sell Stuff, Inc. can now practically apply its due diligence to the process of customizing your video content for each social network. That’s creative. The resulting videos then need to be optimized for each social channel’s unique technology. That’s technical.

We Sell Stuff, Inc. has a great social media marketing strategy that identifies the ideal social media networks for its video titles. The company’s creative and technical teams, including video production professionals if hired, have a high level of expertise related to the social accounts and collectively customize and optimize video content to play on each one.

Analytics

One of the significant advantages of social media marketing is the volume and breadth of the analytics available to companies that invest the time to collect, analyze, and create actionable steps around the data’s conclusions.

Click-through rates, conversion rates, bounce rates are just several examples of metrics at marketers’ fingertips.

Whether you are monitoring your Google Ads buy with Google Analytics or using the metrics provided by the social media network hosting your content, you can find out whatever you need to know to make constant improvements to your overall strategy.

A big ship is hard to steer through a canal; it moves slow and may not avoid pitfalls in time. Social media is not a big ship, but many small, agile clippers that can change course with ease quickly.

We Sell Stuff, Inc. unleashes its market analysts and, after studying a statistically significant time frame of data, learn that high-quality content promoted on two of their social media networks far outperforms the third.

The analysts also discovered that two of the four types of videos in circulation have much higher engagement levels and conversion rates. As a result, We Sell Stuff, Inc. streamlines its video marketing strategy, and a measurable increase in ROI occurs.

Reach

Social media is the stone you toss into a pond that creates concentric expanding rings that ripple outward. If you promote your customized and optimized video across the proper social media accounts (and your website), it sets a process of organic growth in motion that has a limitless reach.

The most extreme version is when individual videos “go viral.”

Other ways in which video increase a message’s reach:

• Video ads remain online in perpetuity, which allows video views in perpetuity.
• Relevant content (aka Evergreen content) drives traffic through SEO long after a video is created and distributed.
• Video clips, video thumbnails, mini video teasers increase user engagement and continue to drive traffic through SEO long after they run.
• Social media posts, or even a blog post, that include video, also drive traffic through SEO long after they post.

Yes. You need a promotional video.

See? That was easy. Now that you’ve agreed to spend a lot of money (relatively speaking) on a promotional video, it’s a good time to tell you what a promotional video is. A promotional video (or promo video) is a video that promotes a company/brand, product, service, or cause.

That definition may sound like a run-of-the-mill description of every advertisement you’ve ever seen, but there is nothing traditional about the modern promo video. Promo videos are a new front in the marketing war to stand out in infinite content space. “Infinite space” currently means 200 million active websites visited by 4.6 billion active users worldwide. Competition is medieval.

A quick note on the word “need,” as in “Do I Need a Promotional Video for My Business?” (Yes). Think of it this way. Twenty-five years ago, you didn’t need a website, and two years ago, you didn’t need a face mask.

Did we mention many types of promotional videos exist (so you may want more than one)? Here is a list of effective promo videos:

• Product Demo
• Customer Testimonial Video
• Explainer Video
• Company/Work Culture Video
• Product Review Video
• Corporate Event Video

One type of promotional video may be more effective for your specific business needs than another, but it is a statistical fact that all of them are effective (so you may want more than two). Why? What do they have in common? Promo videos are:

• Short
• Compelling
• Memorable
• Inspiring
• High-quality
• Professional storytelling
• Animation or live-action

Let’s take a promotional video tour so you can get an idea of why a promo video may be just the thing your marketing department needs to do.

Product Demo/Tour Video

Fun statistic: 69% of consumers prefer product demos when trying to decide if they are going to purchase a product or not. (Wyzowl)

Product demos show a product in action. We’re not talking about some dry run-down on how to use a lawnmower. Product demos are short, engaging, high-quality videos that use advanced storytelling through animation or live-action to get your prospective customer to reach for their wallet.

Customer Testimonial

Fun statistic: One of the top three most effective types of video content is customer testimonials. (Marketinghy)

A compelling customer testimonial video takes us on the hero’s journey. The customer is the hero and your company/product/service is the guide who helps the hero make it to the happily ever after. The formula is the same.

A person describes how idyllic their life was before a significant problem intruded and made everything terrible. Then they discover your product, and it changes everything back to the way it was before – but better. Ka’ching!

Explainer Video

Fun statistic: According to Strategic, 91% of people watch an Explainer Video when purchasing.

So many people already watch Explainer Videos on such a frequent basis they would probably find it funny that there is a term for them. An explainer video explains how a product, service, or feature works. You sell Widgets.

Your Explainer Video explains how your Widget works, how to use it, and why your Widget is the best Widget of all time.

Company/Work Culture Video

Fun statistic: Brands receive three times the positive word-of-mouth if the companies that make them inspire a higher emotional intensity. (Sprout Social)

Videos to promote your company are a little like the end of “Wizard of Oz.” You pull back the curtain, so consumers can get to know the people behind their favorite brands or learn about a company’s internal culture.

Company/work culture videos can help form a deeper and more long-term relationship with your customer base or give top talent a glimpse into why they may want to bring their professional expertise to your company.

Product Review Video

Fun statistic: “62% of consumers watch product review videos before making a purchase.” (MediaKix)

A product review video sounds like a customer testimonial. Still, the reviewer is not a happy customer but a third-party, unbiased expert or influencer in a field related to the product or service.

Think of a product review video as the Consumer Reports of promotional videos. Perceived as neutral but knowledgeable, a reviewer’s demonstration of the product and measured opinion of its performance carries a lot of weight with potential customers.

Corporate Event Video

Fun statistic: “Video of a live event increases brand favorability by 63%.” (Twitter)

Live product launches are the quintessential corporate event video, but they certainly are not limited to only that form. Live streaming an event creates buzz and excitement about a new product, or line, or partnership – whatever the case may be.

Event videos can be live-streamed or promoted on social media platforms like Facebook (Facebook Live and Facebook Stories) and Instagram (Instagram Stories and Instagram Reels).

Conclusion

That is an impressive list of options and metrics. Any business can benefit from some type of promotional video. Start slow if you need to, or if your resources are limited.

Choose the kind of promotional video that will help your organization the most and dive in. Promotional videos offer new and creative ways for brands to reach and connect with customers.

The wide range of promo video options and the diverse topographies of social media networks create unprecedented opportunities to micro-target the most likely prospects to convert into loyal customers and for a brand to demonstrate different, more human, characteristics to the public.

Corporate personhood is a legal term, but it should be a marketing one. The more a company operates as a person, the more likely it will make more enduring “person-to-person” connections.

Online marketing’s magic is a mix of creativity and data science. Industry analysts predict video (creativity) will soon be 80% of all internet traffic.

Real-time analytics (data science) allow brands to mitigate risks, real or imagined, and develop online marketing strategies that respond in an agile and nimble way to an ever-evolving marketing landscape — all while forming a deeper connection with its customers.

The marketing is creative but data-driven, and the data is clear – every business needs a promotional video… or three.

“If you build it, they will come.”

That is the famous line from W.P. Kinsella’s book-turned-hit movie, “Shoeless Joe: Field of Dreams,” about a magic baseball field where the ghosts of the greatest baseball players reunite to play ball just for fun.

All kinds of people from all sorts of places journey to the field to watch their favorite players from by-gone eras, united by nostalgia and a love for the game.

In 1965, with money and research funded by the U.S government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) an MIT professor connected a computer in Massachusetts to a computer in California, and the internet was born.

Forty years later, three forward-thinking individuals who worked for PayPal, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, Jawed Karim, built the internet’s angel-funded field of dreams and called it YouTube.

Instead of a magic field where only players of incomparable skill and renown compete, YouTube is a video-sharing wonderland that, in 16 short years, has grown in power and influence rivaled only by its parent company, Google and Facebook.

Google, which bought YouTube in 2006, is more significant. Facebook has more active users. But YouTube is the #2 most popular social media platform worldwide, and its currency is the most popular medium worldwide – video.

Video traffic will be over 80% of all internet traffic by 2022. That’s NEXT year. Only 60% of the human race is online. Streaming technology improves every year, which makes watching a video online more manageable and more accessible.

Mobile technology, and cellular networks, improve every year, which has a similar positive impact on user-generated video-sharing platforms. More than any other company, YouTube will benefit from the skyrocketing growth and popularity of video streaming, so it’s worth a delve into YouTube’s brief history.

As promised in the title, a barrage of fantastic video ideas for YouTube beginners will follow YouTube’s timeline.

YouTube Essential Facts

Founded:                  February 14, 2005

Founders:                 Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, Jawed Karim

Headquarters:          San Bruno, California

Parent Company:     Google, LLC (2006-present)

Advertising:             Google Ads

The following is anecdotal, but a specific individual and his friends, who may or not be related to an unnamed content writer, live on YouTube. Kids don’t realize something other than streaming exists and prefer user-generated content.

More than that, however, a kid will set up a YouTube channel, swipe the closest iPhone, and start filming. Soon your backyard Spielberg posts original content and gets LIKES from all over the world. YouTube is not just watching. It’s participating.

Anecdotal for sure, but sometimes stories you hear people tell are backed up by hard science. From Backlinko.com (Jan 2021):

• YouTube’s 2020 revenue was $19.8 billion.
• YouTube currently has 2 billion users.
• 9% of global internet users access YouTube monthly.
• Every day, viewers consume more than a billion hours of YouTube content.
• YouTube’s 2.2 billion users make it the #2 social media platform worldwide.
• India has approximately 225 million YouTube users, the most of any country. The United States follows, with 197 million.
• People between the ages of 15-35 are YouTube’s dedicated users.
• Globally, women use YouTube more than men.
• 6% of YouTube channels have fewer than 10,000 subscribers.
• Quarterly YouTube ad revenue is over $5 billion.
• In 60 days. more content is uploaded to YouTube than the combined content created by the three major U.S. networks in the past 60 years.
• On average, individual YouTube content creators receive between $3-$5 per 1000 views.
• YouTube’s ad revenue in 2021’s 2^nd quarter almost doubled to $7 billion.

Not too shabby for a company still in its awkward teenage years!

YouTube Timeline

2005              YouTube launches with Jawed Karim’s “Me at the zoo” video.

2006              Google, LLC buys YouTube for $1.65 billion (that was fast!)

2007              YouTube expands into nine countries and launches a mobile site.

2010              YouTube’s market share reaches 43%, with 14 billion video views.

2011              YouTube’s daily video views top 3 billion and 48 hours of new videos are uploaded every minute.

2012              8 million people watch a YouTube live stream of Australian skydiver Felix Baumgartner jump from a helium balloon twenty-four miles above the Earth.

2014              Susan Wojcicki appointed CEO.

2015              YouTube Music, YouTube Kids, and YouTube Gaming launch.

2016               Streaming service YouTube TV launches.

2018               YouTube Premium launches.

That’s the story of how YouTube became one the largest advertising networks in the history of humanity. Oh, the humanity! YouTube is digital marketing, and social media marketing rolled into one giant juggernaut.

Individual creators, potential customers, and regular people with unique ideas for videos are part of the YouTube community — all waiting for the world to discover.

Current YouTube Products/Services

• YouTube Premium (monthly subscription service, YouTube & YouTube Music ad-free)
• YouTube TV (streaming service, monthly subscription)
• YouTube Movies & Shows (Buy, Rent, Free with Ads)
• YouTube Music (Free with ads and limited features, Premium ad-free with all features)
• YouTube Live (live-streaming events)
• YouTube Kids
• YouTube Creator Academy
• YouTube for Artists

Back to the field of dreams. What makes YouTube a field of dreams is that it’s a dream for different reasons to different people.

Some people are addicted to watching user-generated video content, and they can’t get enough. Others are brand builders and marketing gurus who want to reach and influence YouTube’s 2 billion users.

Many are content creators who love producing videos and uploading them for the world to see – not to mention profit share through Google AdSense. Then there’s the top category of YouTube celebrities and influencers who are getting rich through the medium.

Nothing speaks louder than earning money hand over fist. For people who want traditional professional entertainment, YouTube TV and YouTube Premium offer those options as well.

YouTube Video Ideas for Beginners in 2021

Now that you’re an expert on YouTube’s history and clout, it’s time to launch your million-dollar YouTube channel. The best way to stand out on YouTube is to be your category.

However, for beginners, an excellent place to start is with the top ten most popular types of videos on YouTube. Know your audience! These types of content are what viewers watch the most (so these categories are also the most competitive).

1. Product Review Videos

The #1 type of YouTube video are product reviews. Researching products online before making a purchase is an almost daily ritual for most people. Product reviews are popular because viewers trust the source, typically an expert in a related field to the content, a consumer advocate, or an influencer with cred.

The source doesn’t matter as long as it’s a trusted source, isn’t a customer testimonial video from the product’s creator, and isn’t a paid review. Product reviews must be objective and free from bias.

2. How-To Videos

Many YouTube channels are how-to videos only and have millions of active subscribers. When you need to know how to do something, YouTube is the fastest way to find someone to teach it to you.

Warning: beauty influencers may dominate this category, but if you have a particular skill, you believe is worth teaching, and you can do it entertainingly, How-to-Videos may be the category for you.

3. Vlogs

These personal online video blogs are time-consuming but offer influencers (think beauty and travel) an authentic way to connect with their viewers by inviting them into their daily lives.

More than content, there are technical aspects to producing a Vlog that requires advanced specialized skills, so a successful Vlog has a great deal of dedicated, collaborative work that goes into it. Those efforts pay off.

Vlogs are viewers’ third most popular type of video to watch. For those who profit from their content or YouTube personas, Vlogs are their best vehicle, even if it means producing relevant content on a regular basis.

4. Gaming Videos

The gaming industry is more profitable than Hollywood and U.S. sports teams combined – and one of YouTube’s most popular video formats. If you’re a gaming enthusiast or champion, your gaming channel with Gameplay Video may be your dream come true.

5. Comedy/Skit Videos

If you can make people laugh, you’re the life of the party. The same is true on YouTube. Comedy pushes all of our happy buttons. Beauty influencers like to use comedy skits in their videos to add a more human dimension to what can seem posed and plastic.

6. Haul Videos

A consumer, statistically most likely a woman, shows the world what she bought on her latest spending spree in a haul video. To varying degrees, she talks about the experience or product in greater detail.

Haul videos evolved out of “unboxing” videos (#10) but are more informal and freeform. Brands love Haul videos because they organically showcase their products.

7. Tag or Challenge Videos

Tag videos show viewers multiple content creators performing the same video challenge. The competitive format and watching participants’ unique way of interpreting the same challenge puts tag videos at #7.

8. Favorites/Best of Videos

This category is very popular with beauty and fashion creators and influencers. Favorites videos are an intimate look at the products a YouTuber uses and loves. Like a product review, if you can build trust between viewers, they will tune in to hear your opinion, which may influence the viewer when they turn buyers.

9. Educational Videos

“Knowledge for the sake of knowledge!” That’s Harvard’s motto. Irony aside, the internet is the most resource-rich institution since the Library of Alexandria burned in 48 BCE. Viewers can find videos about any subject and in any form.

PhDs in Ancient History can guide you through the most influential ancient civilizations, and beauty Vloggers can post educational videos about products they love, whether educational in the more traditional sense or commerce; an educational channel is about sharing knowledge.

10. Unboxing Videos

Unboxing videos are the Christmas morning of videos. YouTubers love unboxing stuff, and viewers love watching them unbox stuff. Like Unboxing videos’ younger sibling, Haul videos, brands love this format because it gives their new and existing products an organic unveiling to discriminating consumers from a trusted source.

If you believe these ten video ideas for YouTube beginners are a lot to digest, please keep in mind these ideas are the most popular, not the only ones. Here’s a quick list of other video types to consider (in alphabetical order):

• Explainer Videos
• Daily Routine Videos
• Funny Videos
• Life Video
• Music Videos
• Opinion Video
• Reaction Videos
• Response Video
• Tips Videos
• Travel Videos

If you don’t see a niche in the list above, hundreds of more content ideas exist (not an exaggeration). Enthusiasts of every kind can find a video to match their interest.  Any content creator can find a corner of the YouTube community where they can feel connected and contribute.

Conclusion

Your field of dreams awaits. Play ball!

Digital video marketing is in a golden era of innovation. The online world is stacked with creative developers constantly pushing the envelope in one way or another. Whether it be a new algorithm or a new social media platform, the internet is evolving on steroids.

Digital marketers must constantly adapt to new challenges and opportunities – they must innovate as fast as the environment in which they operate.

This online marketing Galapagos gives brands (and companies) a new frontier of choices far exceeding the early, now quaint, days of running a commercial on network TV. To be clear – under the right circumstances, a TV commercial on network TV is still great, but it’s now just one way to go.

Digital marketers and companies produce many types of videos pushed through a web of online and traditional distribution channels that can reap tremendous results.

Online video dominates everything from ROI to SEO. Nobody asks the question, “Should we make a video?” anymore. The question now is, “How many do we make?” You may be a company that wants to make a staff training video or post an explainer video for a new product on your website.

You may be a new brand that wants to use video platforms like TikTok and YouTube to reach a specific screen-addicted demographic. Or you may be Geico and spend $1.5 billion a year on advertising. No matter who you are or your end game, the rules of video production are the same.

When producing your video in 2021, here are eight things to consider (in alphabetical order):

1. Branded Video Content
2. Customization
3. Education-Instructional-Training
4. Engagement
5. Increase sales
6. Production Value
7. Search Engine Optimization
8. Social Media Mapping

Branded Video Content

The hyper-competitive online marketplace requires brands to form deeper emotional connections with potential leads than their competitors – no easy task. A brand can maximize its video’s ROI with campaigns united by a common design and style. For example, a company’s videos should match its website, logo, and persona.

Digital video distribution is multi-channel or omnichannel if you prefer that term. Each platform has parameters that affect performance, and each is different. A video project can get lost in space if there isn’t a cohesive, integrated approach that ties them all together in the viewers’ minds and hearts.

Consider this prime example of branded video content. A company’s website is its global corporate headquarters. Anybody can access it 24/7 from anywhere there is internet access. A company home page with eye-catching corporate video content with excellent production value is a fantastic way to impress potential customers.

Imagine a homepage with searchable video clips displayed as a custom thumbnail image (to give it some pizazz), preferably video thumbnails, which increase YouTube click-through rates.

Customization

Video is the key that unlocks multiple kingdoms. If you make a single video and distribute it through ten different video advertising channels, your company can make an exciting impact. However, a better strategy is to make ten other videos – one for each channel.

Imagine you travel to ten different foreign countries, one right after another. You only speak your native tongue, and you stick to the tourist attractions. No matter what, your trip will be a remarkable and memorable chapter of your life. No one will question that.

Now imagine that you know the language of every county you visit. Instead of staying at a hotel and snapping selfies at famous monuments, you remain with natives of the country and see the country as the locals do. That is a different and more enriching experience.

Customizing video to the language and customs of the social channels or online distribution channel on which it will run gives brands an advantage over those who employ a one-size-fits-all strategy. Examples of customizable components that define a visual story are video format, sound, and length.

Education-Instructional-Training

Video isn’t just for hawking products.

If your brand, keep in mind that your digital video marketing strategy may include corporate videos whose target audience is a company’s employees or explainer/product videos on a company home page and social media channels.

If you are a digital marketing agency, keep in mind that your digital video clients can include educational videos for students or instructional videos for professionals.

LinkedIn Learning is the quintessential website for education-instructional training videos. Some are live-action. Some are animated. Many are both. All require professional writers, producers, and talent.

Engagement

Video increases user engagement. Not satisfied with that fact, online marketing professionals employ various deft tools to boost engagement beyond video’s inherent effectiveness.

Competition for eyeballs, hearts, and minds spur innovation. Corporate motion graphics, interactive videos, and virtual reality are three great examples.

Corporate motion graphics is an animation and voice-over combination akin to oysters and Champagne, beer and baseball, and The Captain and Tennille.

CMG videos guide viewers through products and services with ease and charm with excellent conversion rates that make people in C-office suites hand out performance bonuses.

Interactive videos are, by definition, engaging. It’s one thing to look at a slot machine and another thing entirely to pull the lever. Real people like to remove the lever.

People think of virtual reality as some sci-fi technology that will immerse them in an alternate world – and it will.

For digital marketing, however, VR is an effective way to transport viewers into the video. For example, real estate agents widely use 360-degree VR videos to give people tours of residential and commercial property.

Increase Sales

According to Wyzowl, 80% of people say product videos give them more confidence to purchase a product. Product videos can highlight features, show them in use, or explain how it works. The next best thing is to have a company ambassador in the room with the potential customer and sell it to them in person.

Product videos have a demonstrable effect directing online purchasing, which is a game-changer. Once the benefits of product videos are numerous to ignore, the stragglers who dragged their feet adopting product videos as an integral part of their digital video marketing strategy will be one step behind their competitors.

Production Value

Your video should be professional quality everything – picture, sound, performance, production design, editing, and graphics. Ads that do not meet the sophisticated expectations of modern consumers are ineffective and become fodder for parody.

Video is so important to marketing strategies that the number of videos in production is unprecedented. As companies ramp up the number of videos they produce, standards must not slip. Here is an example completely separate from digital marketing – wine. Cue the background music to “Red Red Wine.”

Making fine wine is a collaborative art form, just like video production, and it’s well-known that when a large company gobbles up a successful boutique winery, the new owner will inevitably ramp up production at the expense of the quality. The wine suffers a loss of reputation.

This trade-off occurs at a single winery or across an entire region. Marketing agencies need to guide their clients away from this trap. The best business model is one that maintains its integrity.

Search Engine Optimization

Video increases a website’s search ranking. Add a video, your ranking improves. It is that simple, except that it’s not simple. It’s a complex shell game of different algorithms employed by online ad distribution channels that are subject to change without warning (so to speak).

Let’s take a look at Google’s ranking method to showcase how video boosts SEO. Google uses two key metrics to rank a site:

The number of backlinks that refer users to the site.

The amount of time a viewer spends on a site.

Video typically pushes up both metrics, resulting in a higher SEO rating. A video may get prospects through the door, but the customer journey should end with a high-quality video with great storytelling and production value, or the video could have the opposite effect than intended.

Social Media Mapping

You have a finished video. Now what? The top 15 social media platforms in order by # of active users: Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, WeChat, TikTok, QQ, Douyin, Sina Weibo, Telegram, Snapchat, Kuaishou, Pinterest, and Reddit.

The challenge here is two-fold. First, you should commit to an appropriate amount of due diligence to determine the platforms that will best help you accomplish your business objectives.

For example, maybe your target audience is hiding in gaming channels or responds to a specific type of video, such as customer testimonial videos. You won’t know until you get the data. Second, you should produce content tailored for the media you do choose. For example, shorter videos are the best content for TikTok.

An advanced level of expertise is needed to exploit all the potential advantages video can give a product or brand. Every platform has different users who engage with content in different ways.

On the back end, each platform has technical specifications that optimize quality and performance. Lastly, each platform has various algorithms that impact a video’s endurance in its search results.

Corporate videos aren’t new – there are just more types of videos, and, in the age of instant analytics, they are more effective. Companies leverage the power of video for internal employees and an increasing number of external users.

Typically hosted on a company’s website, featured in direct marketing campaigns, or distributed through company-run social media accounts, corporate video content is an excellent way for a company/brand to diversify its multi-media profile and reach existing and potential customers in innovative ways.

When your company’s creative team sequesters in a room for its first corporate video brainstorming session (recommended), one of the first items on the written, distributed-in-advance agenda (recommended) is to decide if Animation or Live-Action will better serve the type of video you plan to make.

Animation is a popular and often more preferable creative approach to video. One only needs to look at the current Japanese anime craze to understand how deeply rooted animation is in our shared global culture.

Yet, live-action video production with top-notch storytelling remains one of the best and most memorable ways to connect with people – and, when done right, can be an enriching, collaborative endeavor.

This article is an exercise. Below, a list of ten types of corporate videos. Read through them and think about which way you would go – Animation or Live-Action.

Staff training. For example, you need to teach new employees how a specific type of meeting runs and why.

1. Safety: For example, your company is in biotech and handles hazardous materials. Safety is paramount, and video is the best way to communicate that core message.
2. Corporate Event Videos: For example, a new product launch. Apple Inc. loves new product launch videos.
3. Trade show videos: For example, every year, an auto show sponsored by major global car brands is held in several major cities to introduce new vehicles, concept cars, and showcase classic cars. Everywhere you look, a slick video of a car, or SUV, or EV doing miraculous things. Some videos give you a tour of the vehicle – or through the car’s engine!
4. Explainer videos: There are so many examples, here are just two. One, online recipe sites with explainer videos showing how to prepare a dish. Two, new product features explainer videos.
5. Client and customer testimonial videos: It’s a good thing Yelp reviews aren’t videos. That would be a dismal set of business-killing videos for sure. However, if YOU make the customer testimonials, you can control the narrative.
6. Company/brand promotional videos: This category is to promote something other than a company’s product or brand. For example, a company that partners with a charity makes a video promoting its cause.
7. Education Videos: In this case, the company is a school, college, or university. Over the last year, Covid-19 drove significant growth in videos produced for education. Schools from kindergarten to graduate school moved online. Video conferencing (e.g., Zoom) and video (e.g., Flipchart) are the two pillars of virtual learning.
8. Billionaires in space videos: A new category for videos that are a unique and groundbreaking spectacle. For example, recent videos of billionaires and their friends bouncing around rocket ship cabins in zero gravity. Space tourism is coming to the (wealthy) masses, and the footage we’ve all seen on the news will be in so many investor/promotional/corporate videos there is no doubt editors are already working their magic.

The Case for Live-Action

There is an allure to live-action production. Everybody gets to pretend they’re on a big Hollywood movie set for a couple of days and call it a wrap. However, video production is a complex process with many creative and technical complexities.

Companies should always consider hiring video production professionals over the DIY approach. Their expertise is needed all the more on live-action productions.

The mission is to connect with your target audience in a meaningful, memorable way as quickly as possible. Live-action may be your best option for the following reasons:

1. Viewers form an emotional connection with characters (or real people featured in a video) they feel are like them and whose stories resonate in their own lives. The human element prevails.
2. Only live-action captures the full range of human emotions. A tone, a gesture, an eccentricity are just a few subtle ways humans communicate humor, anxiety, confidence, happiness, sadness, and on and on.
3. Visual storytelling is an art form with a blueprint found in every human culture throughout recorded history. There is not more effective way to communicate. Full stop.
4. Video’s impact can only reach its full potential through live-action. Go back to the example of car videos at car shows. Showcasing the beauty and power of a sexy new sports car is better served by live-action footage.
5. Video is king, and celebrities are the king of videos. Without dispute, featuring a celebrity or legitimate influencer in a video will typically increase its reach, audience engagement, conversion rates, and overall ROI.

Cons of Live-Action

Consider these downsides when producing live-action video content.

1. Managing the human element of video production is challenging and unpredictable. For example, the talent in the video will most likely require special handling for which there is no handbook. Good luck.
2. Video production companies produce videos for a wide range of budgets, but there is no way around the fact that the least expensive live-action video production is costly. You can cut corners in many ways, but you can’t get around necessary expenses like lighting equipment.
3. A live-action shoot is susceptible to setbacks. For example, your video project’s big shot is a spectacular sunset that morphs into the brand’s logo, but when the day of the shoot arrives, it rains for a week.

The Case for Animation

Let’s all go to the lobby!

Let’s all go to the lobby!

Let’s all go to the lobby!

To get ourselves a treat!

If you don’t know that song, do yourself a favor, go to YouTube, and cut and paste the lyrics into the search bar. This vintage animated video content encouraging 1950s movie-goers to hit the concession stand during intermission will not disappoint. (Yes, intermission.

For our younger viewers, intermission is the live-action version of pausing the DVR, stream, video game, or whatever it is online you are watching).

Seven decades later, movie exhibitors still use some version of that animated video to get 2021 movie-goers to hit the concession stand. And now there’s beer and wine, so have at it. Animation video’s endurance should make it an automatic component of any video content marketing strategy.

The mission is to connect with your target audience in a meaningful, memorable way as quickly as possible. Animation may beno your best option for the following reasons:

1. Animation explains a complex idea in visually dynamic ways. For that reason, many explainer videos use animation. A stellar example is documentarian Errol Morris’s use of CGI animation in “Brief History of Time.” The animation explains the late theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking’s complicated ideas to people who aren’t geniuses.
2. A brand can commission a visual style that integrates its overall branding strategy and is designed to reach targeted demographics.
3. Animated video’s potential is as limitless as the human imagination. The Big Bang created the entire universe everywhere in a single moment. Animation is artistry’s big bang, able to create entire universes everywhere in a single moment. Or at least 15 seconds!
4. Animation allows us to go where we cannot go. Once again, go back to the car videos at car shows. There are just as many animated videos as there are live-action ones. Instead of a sleek concept car gliding along a coastal highway, we journey into the inner workings of the most advanced electric motor in development. It is quite the odyssey.
5. Animation’s remarkable craftsmanship and ability to magnify the human experience is the reason the top ten highest-grossing animated films each made over one billion dollars. One billion! In contrast, the top five live-action films made over two billion, but 6-10 are on par with animation. Not too shabby!

Cons of Animation

Consider these downsides when producing animated video content.

1. Animated video production is typically more extended than live-action. Depending on the video style and production process, turnaround times can drag out.
2. Animated video costs can be a barrier to entry. A professional animator is a rare commodity, and animation studios are even more so.
3. Animation is a different type of production. An animation script is different from a live-action script.   Animation options are different from live-action options. Animation video cost is different, which is essential when drawing up a budget.

The Case for Animation & Live-Action

Two classic examples of the harmonious marriage of animated and live-action videos provide all you need to think about the third way – both! A note: many live-action videos already include animation in the form of animated graphics and visual effects.

1. The live-action/animated “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” was a first in so many ways it’s a whole article. The movie provided an incredible showcase of what is possible when video combines the best of both worlds.
2. Another example is Norwegian one-hit-wonder pop music band Ah- Ha’s 1985 music video for their song, “Take on Me.” Warner Brothers paired the band with American director Steve Barron and American animator Mike Patterson. The resulting video became iconic and its emotional impact lasted a lot longer than A-Ha’s career.

Conclusion

Animation vs. Live-Action is an important but mostly easy decision facing companies producing corporate videos. Each type of corporate video lends itself to one medium or the other. The answer reveals itself during development for the big ideas that do not favor one direction or another in the early stages. Each medium can be marketing magic.

In the 1997 Oscar-winning feature film, “Wag the Dog,” to divert attention from a presidential scandal, an expert spin doctor, Conrad Brean (Robert De Niro), hires a seasoned Hollywood producer, Stanley Motss (Dustin Hoffman), to manufacture a war. Motss’ stories about challenges he has faced producing past films are priceless:

Stanley Motss

The war isn’t over ’til I say it’s over. This is my picture – this is NOT the CIA’s picture. You think you’re in a tight spot now? Alright, Conrad, try making The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse – tell ’em, King.

Fad King

Three of the horsemen died.

Stanley Motss

Hear what he’s saying? Three of the horsemen DIED. Two weeks before the end of principal photography. This is NOTHING. This is nothing, this is – this is – this is just, “Act One, The War.” Now we really do need an Act Two.

“THIS IS NOTHING!” is the attitude you should adopt right now because when you start making your video, everything will go wrong. Whatever it is you think will happen isn’t going to happen, and what does happen will not be anything predictable or preventable (for the most part).

It’s a war, alright, so when everything falls apart, and you wish you had gone door-to-door with flyers instead, just remember that THREE OF THE HORSEMEN DIED! Out of four!

[ONE] You Fall for the DIY Trap

It doesn’t matter that your niece’s 15-second lip-synching TikTok video has 250,000 likes, and she’s only seven years old. She can’t make professional video ads, and neither can 99.9% of the people who work for you. Successfully producing a video requires more than .1 of a person.

If you needed heart surgery, a clear-thinking individual wouldn’t say, “You know, I think I’m just going to do it myself.”

1. Shooting video is complicated. Shooting a video at your kid’s game is not difficult. Shooting video with perfect sound and fantastic performances, if applicable, is a highly specialized skill. If anything goes wrong on your video shoot, you have no ad. Producing organic videos that encapsulate a brand’s entire message is challenging, which is why movie studios hire top talent to mitigate the risk and not kids with halo lights. Viral video rarities make headlines but are statistically insignificant.
2. Post-Production: Congratulations! You now have hours of video and sound that do not add up to anything until an entirely new group of skilled artisans get their hands on it and assemble it into the groundbreaking brand-making digital video of everybody’s dreams. Editing requires another layer of expertise that isn’t on your staff. Hire professionals.

[TWO] Audiopocalypse

The term “video” is misleading. Your “video” is really “audio-video.” That’s where the term “A/V” comes from – “Audio/Video.” In 2021, effective online digital marketing unlocks the full potential of both sound and picture.

Unfortunately, the sound is an afterthought to the majority of the participants in a video production, which results in a long list of potential points of failure throughout the campaign’s life cycle.

Pre-Production:

1. If it’s not on the page, it’s not on the stage. In a script, writers craft each word and action with great care, but the sound is almost non-existent. Sound is what the production people will do later on. Or the company will add a jingle or pay to use a popular song. Presto! Sound! The first way to avoid an Audiopocalypse is to put sound on equal footing with video from the first moment of your first brainstorming session.
2. You choose a great song for your ad, then in post you discover the cost to use it is triple the size of your budget. Do your homework.

Production:

1. The sound and the video must sync. The only exception to this rule, for some reason nobody can fully explain, is if the content originates in Japan and is dubbed into English. In that case, if it syncs, somebody will get fired, but in every other scenario involving video content.
2. Due to the unpredictability of video production, the recorded sound may not be professional grade. Sound quality issues are common, and are no reason to panic. However, fixing it requires additional work in post, which costs money (I hope you budgeted for it), needs your talent to return (scheduling nightmare), and a talented sound editor.

Post-Production:

1. Post-production effects are not professional grade. Much of the sound you hear is recorded in a studio. A sound engineer records everything from a car door slamming to a dog barking in the studio. If any of the completed work isn’t good, it may affect the overall quality of the final video.
2. The sound editing is terrible. That is your worst nightmare. You hired a professional, yet still, somehow, the last word of every line of dialogue cuts off.
3. The original song you commissioned is horrible, and nobody likes it. Bad songs happen a lot. Nothing will kill a video faster than a bad song – or the wrong song. Fun Fact: Sylvester Stallone’s younger brother Frank wrote a song called “Take it Back” for the 1979 mega-hit “Rocky.” You probably don’t remember it. Nobody does.

[THREE] Your Video is Held Hostage by Creative Differences

Any member of the professional creator community knows that “creative differences” mean that all hell has broken loose. The result is that your production has come to an inglorious halt. Think of the partisan gridlock in the United States Congress. Creative differences on a video shoot are the same thing, just with better-looking people.

1. Creative differences between talent. The worst. Creative differences between talent are like a bad date that gets progressively worse and never ends. Content creators are moody, and a creative ad campaign may unleash an ugly human element common in film/video productions.
2. Creative differences between marketing agency and production team. Choose your production company wisely. Yes, their technical capabilities must be flawless, but be sure you get along with the people. At some point, there will be conflicts that leadership must resolve to ensure the project’s success. The production talent sees themselves as independent creators, not as part of a marketing campaign.
3. Creative differences between client and marketing agency/production team. Making compelling videos involves many different types of people with different agendas. However, an advertising campaign begins and ends with the client. Nobody is heading to Cannes to walk the red carpet after completing your agency’s latest explainer videos.

[FOUR] The Film Shoot Does Not Go According to Plan

Never once in the history of filmmaking has a film/video shoot gone according to plan — the original nickelodeon flickers included. In 1900, it took half a day to film a train coming down the track. Don’t get cocky because there are billionaires in space. THREE out of FOUR of the Horsemen died. This stuff isn’t easy.

1. Your shoot goes off schedule and off-budget. A production’s kiss of death is to get behind schedule. Video production is like a taxi. You’re trapped in the back seat, and you can’t get out until the ride is over and every second the meter is running. If you get the wrong red light, you’ll miss ten green ones, and then you’ll be even more behind schedule. And all the while, the meter climbs.
2. You created a corporate budget for video production. Your film shoot will not go according to plan if your production runs out of petty cash halfway into your first day of principal photography, or you go into post-production without the money for looping (or ADR – additional dialog recording). Or maybe you committed the cardinal sin of production and short-changed the Crafts Services. Now you have fifty angry crew members who have suddenly forgotten how to pull focus and flip the lights on, and only last-minute catering from Zankou Chicken (read: premium price) will ensure the viability of your project.

[FIVE]  Distribution is Mishandled

1. Buying Ad Time. It does not matter how great or funny your video is if nobody sees it. Choosing the right channel at the right time with the best reach for your brand and selecting the ad that is the perfect length and tone for a brand’s target audiences is a distribution jigsaw puzzle. Your video may languish without the credit it deserves if all the pieces do not fit together seamlessly.
2. New media madness. YouTube Marketing, Vimeo, TikTok, Instagram Reels, Twitter, Facebook Video Feed, Google Ads, and the list keeps growing. Every distribution channel has its own rules and regulations, culture and customs, and users who engage in different ways. A killer ad on TikTok may flop on YouTube. A brand’s potential customers are out there, but one size does not fit all. If you’ve invested in a single ad, chop it up and maximize its use. Please take advantage of your video partners’ drive to maximize their profits! For example, YouTube does a lot of the heavy lifting for you. Between YouTube Kids, YouTube Studio, YouTube Red, and YouTube Analytics, YouTube is begging you to reach your customers with creative messages. Add new campaign settings like Video Discovery Ads (aka TrueView Discovery Ads) give marketers new real estate to build their brands.
3. Video formats vary from channel to channel. Knowing what video ad format you need is essential. Plan on delivery of your final video in formats optimized for each channel. Do not have the quality or effectiveness of your video downgraded because it’s the wrong format. Optimize for each channel. For example, optimize mobile video for mobile users.

Video has now become an essential channel for marketers. Over 5 billion videos are watched on YouTube daily, videos garner more shares than text and images combined, and videos on landing pages increase conversion. Video helps you break through the clutter provides the ability to engage with your client deeply.

Consumers love video because it is easily digested and often more engaging and entertaining than the written word. Many people (65%) are visual learners, not to mention consumers can be lazy. This makes video the perfect way to tell your story. If you’re not using video as part of your marketing mix, you are missing out. 

So, here are our 5 tips to improve your video marketing today.

What Makes Great Video Marketing?

A great marketing video tells a concise and cohesive story. Create an arc when telling a story that takes your audience on a journey from the first frame to the last frame. A great video needs to bring value to the viewer. Focus on your customer and what your product does for him. A video that is focused purely on sales or branding will fall flat. There is too much noise out there for this to resonate. If you are not entertaining, educating, or otherwise engaging your audience, you may need to reevaluate your content. 

Tell a Story to Improve Your Video Marketing

Videos have emotive capabilities, which is what makes the medium so powerful. Make maximum use of that speaking to your customer’s needs and wants. 

Think about making the client say, “Hey, that’s me. I need that.”

A too overtly sales-focused video will fall flat, while if you focus on the value, you provide to your customers, that is much more likely to resonate. Put a call to action at the end of the video and a URL to capture the leads, but you must first engage them.

Everyone loves a good story. Find a way to tell yours in a way that is interesting and relevant. Talk about how you impact customers, how you make a difference, or the people behind your product. Pull back the curtain. This is a great chance to show your personality and show your company culture. Let your audience know what sets you apart and why they need you. 

Don’t be boring! You don’t need to be a master comic, but humor does work if you can find a way to do it effectively and consistently with your brand. People want to laugh and to feel enlightened. Don’t feel constrained from using humor, and don’t try to emulate what others have already done. 

Hook Them in the First 10 Seconds

Attention spans are short these days. It is said the average attention span is just 8.5 seconds. That means with all the content out there competing with your video; you have only a few seconds to convince your audience that your video is for them. Your story has to come alive very quickly so you can avoid the scroll. The viewer must understand very quickly what the video is about and that it is worth their precious time to watch it. Creating a hook is a great way to do this. 

Try piquing the viewer’s interest by asking a question. Your video must demonstrate its value to the viewer and tell them why they should watch it. It can make them laugh, address a problem they have, teach them something new, or inspire them to act. 

Target the Right Audience

Facebook is an excellent platform for distributing your content. It stands out because of the ability to be hyper-targetted in your audience. Be sure you understand who your perfect customer is before creating a video or doing any marketing! Know your basics like age, gender, and location. Then dig deeper. You can choose up to 16 “interests” to hone in on your client. 

Remember that videos autoplay on Facebook in]unless the phone is on silent mode. This means you should be mindful of telling your story in a way that works with and without sound. Some tips are to use great visuals, text descriptions, and subtitles. 

Don’t Fear Pre-Generated Content

Social proof can be compelling. Showing your happy customers who look like your viewers or share their problems using your solution is a very compelling way to build a strong video. And guess what? People love to see themselves in videos and are happy to star in your video and be your brand evangelist. Find ways to get your customers to create videos of them using your product or service or talking about how it solved their problems, and you have a home run. The bonus is they will share and share with friends, family, and on their channels. 

Optimize Your Videos for SEO

Creating a killer video that is engaging and tells your story compellingly and entertainingly is only half of the battle. You need to be sure your video gets found. There are many tactics to do this. First and foremost, you want to upload the video to your site to host on your own domain before sharing it out on other platforms.

You’ll want to enable embedding on your video to increase the chance of getting inbound links. Create a video sitemap, and be sure your descriptions are strong. This will let Google’s spiders understand what your video is about and the content. Spend the time to get this right. Be sure your video is correctly tagged with relevant keywords and that your video is explained with full descriptions and titles that are unique. All of this will help you rank. 

Facebook and YouTube both let you upload a thumbnail to sit alongside your video. This is an effective way to grab attention and prep them for the video before it starts playing. Your thumbnail should begin to tell your story while telling the viewer what to expect. Facebook is a great platform, but be sure to take advantage of their targeting to get to your perfect audience. 

YouTube is the second largest search engine on the web, so it is the obvious channel to share your video. Some tips are to add a great thumbnail. This could make or break the success of your video. Think of it as your book cover! This is what will attract people and get them to click. Your thumbnail should match up with the first 10 seconds of your video-, which should be your best content anyhow. Create a killer headline that is searchable and promises a solution. Don’t forget to tag!

 Optimize your content by using a CTA. It does not have to be a sale or sign up. Alternate CTA’s that may be more in keeping with your goals for the video and the video’s content might be to subscribe, follow or like, share, comment, or check out other content. 

More and more scuba divers are finding that they can create vibrant and beautiful underwater video with GoPro. GoPros are small, affordable, and simple to use. When we think of good underwater filming, we have images of expensive equipment and highly skilled videographers.

The truth is that a good diver can produce amazing underwater videos with some basic skills, a little practice, and a GoPro. Our guide reviews the basics of stabilization, settings, filters, angles, and shots, equipment, and lighting. And we’ll share some pro tips for taking your video up to epic levels.

The basics of GoPro underwater filming

GoPros have become very popular with divers, and you’ll find they set up their cameras in many ways to capture those quick and fleeting moments under the sea. Divers use pole cams, selfie poles, handles, dome ports, spear gun mounts, and other accessories to help them capture those special moments for sharing later. 

• Your GoPro

It’s easy to use your GoPro right out of the box. Just charge it up. But you should start every dive with a fully charged battery and may want to consider bringing extras. The last thing you want is to miss that epic moment as our battery dies. Keep your screen at 100% brightness at all times and set the “Auto Off” and “Screensaver” to never so your LCD screen does not go dark after 1 minute. 

 Your memory card is going to fill up quickly with high resolutions and frame rates so use a minimum of 32Gb to 64Gb memory card. This should last you for a couple of dives. On longer dives, download your files each day. 

Be sure that you understand the properties of your GoPro. Models vary in terms of waterproofing, image quality, image stabilization, settings, lighting, and more. The Hero5, Hero6, and Hero7 are all waterproof up to 33 feet, while the older models are not.

If you are using other models or exceeding 33 feet, you’ll need to use a dive housing. You may want to keep your camera in the housing even above the surface to protect it from accidents on the boat or dock.

• Resolution and Frames per second

Those just starting out should use the default settings of 1080 resolution (HD), 60 frames per second (FPS), and a wide field of view. This is easier to edit and postable on social media. You can experiment with higher resolutions as you get more experience. 

Frames per second (FPS) is the number of frames you are creating per second. The more FPS you are creating, the smoother the video and the better the result. You should be using 60 FPS for underwater. A high FPS like 120 or 240 works for fast action events like a fish feeding. Just remember that higher frame rates fill up your memory card quickly. 

• Filters

Some GoPro models do not require filters. Filters are used to bring red lighting to the film, making for better contrast and color. Red filters are used in blue water and magenta filters in green water. Avoid filters in shallow water and rely upon the natural sunlight. 

• Lighting

Low lighting can lead to dull, blue, and colorless videos. The proper lighting will bring out those vibrant colors you want to capture. Water absorbs light, starting with red, then orange, and then yellow. After passing through 15 feet of water, light loses lots of colors.

Underwater video lights will bring you the results you want in rendering your subject in vibrant colors and are highly recommended. White light from video light adds back the missing wavelengths that are absorbed by the water. 

There is a vast range of lighting options available across many price points and levels of sophistication. The key is to practice, practice, practice. Underwater lights are good for about 5 to 6 feet, depending on water visibility.

Higher lumens on lights mean better lighting. You’ll have the best result when your subject is close to the light. Experiment with different angles with your light as it will produce different results, such as more shadow, less shadow, or softer or harder light. 

• Tips for using your GoPro underwater

Your GoPro will sink fast! They are small and hard to find on the bottom of the ocean. Consider adding some type of float to avoid losing your camera and possibly your precious footage. Options are a floaty grip, floating wrist straps, or floaty casings. The simple option is to use a wrist strap without any flotation. It will still sink if it comes loose, but there is less chance of that with a strap.

When you’re swimming, the camera won’t be staying level and the right way up. Lock the orientation to avoid automatic rotation is enabled. Also, lock your screen. Even though your touch screen will not work underwater, it will work when you surface, and water or something else drops on it. Try to set up your shooting options before you get in the water. 

• Experienced divers have the edge

The best tip to getting great underwater photography is to be an experienced diver. You’ll need to have full control of your buoyancy and be able to move slowly and smoothly to get excellent footage. 

• Use a stabilizing tray

The first sign of a rooky underwater photographer is shaky footage. Remember, you are fighting buoyancy, currents and tides, and depth. It can be tough to remain stable. A useful tool is a double-handled stabilizing tray. It helps produce smooth underwater footage and gives you a point to attach lighting or arm options.

• Avoid dirty housing and lenses

Obvious, but not! Be sure to keep your camera squeaky clean. Avoid water smears and salt stains by thoroughly cleaning inside and outside of your lenses and housing after each use. Cleaning will also extend the life of your equipment.

• Shoot in the shallows

You already know that light and color disappear in the water as you go deeper. When you’re shooting with a strobeless GoPro, stay above 16 feet to retain vibrant colors. You should also strive to keep the sun at your back to help light your subject unless you are going for a silhouette.

This does not mean you should stay close to the surface. If you want to go deeper, invest in some basic lighting. One light will help when shooting close-ups, but two are better, especially for wide-angle stuff where you need to position the lights further back. 

• Try a split shot

Merge the wonder of the land and sea by capturing them in a single frame. You’ll need a dome port that will move the water away from the lens to increase the field of view if you want to create over/under imagery.

Pro Tip: Don’t get your dome wet, as it can be tough to remove a water droplet on the lens. Add to the separation by having a focal point in the foreground underwater. This can create stunning imagery and footage. 

• Capturing that epic footage

Capturing those fantastic underwater experiences will help memorialize some of your best dives. Composition, perspective, framing, and the overall subject and lighting are critical elements of any good photography. Shorten your learning curve by watching and appreciating what other leading underwater photographers are doing.

Look for all of those elements, study what they are using for settings, and then look at your videos in the same critical way. Keep a log of your shoots, capturing locations, subjects, and any techniques or settings you experimented with. Keep your distance and respect the underwater life, and try to capture the subjects and the action that make you love being underwater with your camera. 

Video is critical to your marketing efforts. It is possible to create a great professional video representing your brand well on a budget by doing it yourself or working with an agency.

If you hire a professional, you will obviously get a better result and a great representation for your brand; they will have a range of equipment that will give you more flexibility and create special effects. If you are on your own, you can still get a great result and a video that works for you if you are super clear on your audience and your message and build your video based on that. You may need to accept some compromises, but you can produce a high-quality video with some planning and practice.

Production Basics

If you’re ready to try your skill at producing a video or working with an agency to create your video, there are a few basics to consider. Nothing says “amateur” like low audio quality and poor lighting. Try to balance your vision for your video with what you are willing to spend. Sometimes less is more, and it’s better to go for crystal clear sound, great lighting, and clear imagery than to blow the budget on special effects, expensive actresses, or exotic locations.

Put quality over quantity. Keep it simple and clean, and focus on your message and your target audience. Don’t get too technical, and practice makes perfect. Remember, your video is about storytelling, so concentrate on polishing your message and your script until it’s pitch-perfect.

Affordable Equipment

You don’t need to purchase lots of pricey equipment to create a quality video. One alternative is to rent out equipment rather than buy it. This can be a significant saving and will let you test out various lenses and equipment. Camera equipment can be pricey.

Camera: Newer smartphones have excellent cameras. If you have an iPhone 6 (or similar Samsung) or later, that should be fine for producing your video. If you have the money to spend on equipment, you can get a good full-frame camera for under $1000 or a good DSLR for around $600. If you are doing action filming, a GoPro HERO is under $300.

Lighting: is critical. Poor lighting in your video is the hallmark of an amateur. You should be well lit, and don’t put the light behind you. There are several options for lighting. Let’s start with free. Natural lighting is always the best option, and the sun is free! Try to use as much natural lighting as possible. You can add more light with a table lamp or other light but be careful. If it is not fluorescent, it can cast an unnatural yellow tint on your video.

When you are recording, always face the light source, so it casts your face in the light. Lighting behind you will put you in silhouette. If you have some budget, you can get a lighting kit for a little as $29, and it can make a huge difference. Good lighting can make anyone look good! If you have a larger budget, invest in a ring light and light stand.

Sound: Many filmmakers say that poor sound automatically means a poor film. They’re not wrong! You may not notice good sound in a video, but you certainly will notice the poor sound. It will ruin your video and represent your brand poorly, so this is a place you may want to invest. A good microphone is well worth the investment. The audio in your smartphone should be fine if you are filming in a quiet room when there’s no chance of background noise or wind. Always run a soundcheck to pick up on any background noise you may not notice with the naked ear.

Most desktops or laptops don’t have good enough sound but check it out. If you have a small budget, you can get a lavalier microphone for your phone for around $79.00. They work great, especially if you are filming outdoors or are a few feet from the phone. You can also purchase a splitter so you can have two microphones for doing interviews. Avoid putting the microphone too close to your head. They pick up everything! Remember to take “room tone” no matter what sound equipment you use. Simply put, this means recording about a minute of background sound in whatever location you’re at. Trust us; you’ll thank us later when you’re editing everything together.

Tripod: Unless you’re going for a hand-held look, make sure to have a steady hand, or better yet, use a tripod when setting up shots. If you can’t get a tripod, place your camera on a block or stack of books to stabilize it. Tripods start as low as $10.00. A more expensive model will support more weight, like a DSLR or iPad, while the cheaper ones are designed for phones.

Tips for Looking Professional on a Budget

• If you’re not using a tripod, zoom out wide and hold it steady as possible. The wider the shot, the less obvious any movement will be. As an alternative, have your presenter up close to the camera.
• Frame it up! It’s a rookie mistake to position your head center frame. Your head should be positioned at the top of the frame. This will better fill out the screen.
• Try not to use a wall as the background. Look for something that adds depth. Try to find something that adds to the story and has layers. It’s perfectly fine to use items from your home or office as your backdrop.
• Set up a branded background to make a professional-looking video. You can use seamless backdrop paper in our brand colors to reinforce your brand.

Considering Costs

It is impossible to determine what a professional video would cost. A live-action video could range from $15,000 to 100,000, while animated videos can be more affordable. If you plan on working with a full-service video agency, you’ll need to provide them with a budget as a starting point. Get involved from the start in pre-production to help save money.

Remember, time is money. So limit the number of revisions you make by staying involved in the pre-production stage, so there are no surprises. The video company will be able to help identify opportunities to reduce the budget. A good video can be a substantial investment, but it should last long, represent your brand well, and convert better than a poor video.