So you’re off and running to begin, expand, or revamp your web-video presence.
You know whom you want to reach, and what you want to say. You keep hearing about story as being key to effective video.
Here are five tips on how not to tell your story:
1) Tell it from your perspective. You’re the experts, after all. Shouldn’t the viewer want to learn what you have to say about your product/service? Maybe, but what if they don’t think like you do — and likely they don’t. Think from their perspective — WIIFM or What’s In It For Me. It’s not about you, it’s about your customers, what they need, how you can help them, how they feel about using your product/service, how they connect with your brand. In this selection of fundraiser recruitment videos for Water for Sudan, a small non-profit, we chose not to highlight the organization’s need for money. Instead, we spoke to the need of individuals to actively help, to go beyond simply giving money. Notice the variety of people in the six supporters’ success stories.
2) Focus on technology. Your technology is impressive. Whether it’s the newest micro-sensing nano-spectrometer, or the technology of the delivery vehicle itself — the fact that you’re using video to show the inside of the machine while it’s operating — the technology will impress, right? Wrong. The technology may be impressive, but what does it do for your viewers? What kind of connection can you make? This clip from Mad Men shows how to take a deeper look at connecting, before beginning story development.
3) Be everything to everybody. Make one video for all audiences. You’ve spent years refining your brand and story, why would you need more? No matter who your core constituencies are, likely they are diverse and segmented in many ways. Like other communications tactics, video content needs to be targeted. One video size does not fit all very often. It may for an overview, or a message from the CEO on direction or values, but to reach your multiple constituencies and engage them, you need multiple targeted stories. Check out this Chase site with links to videos speaking to a wide variety of interests, directly from the home page.
4) Sell, Sell, Sell! No! No! No! Selling the way it’s always been done is long gone. Especially in web 2.0 and beyond. People want to be informed, entertained, engaged. They want to be involved as participants, not feel as if they just walked onto a used car lot. Here’s an entertaining analogy. New and different approaches are required.
5) Ignore the brand, video is different. You can do anything, no holds barred! Video is indeed a unique medium, and therefore does require a different approach and aesthetic, but it still needs to communicate the core attributes or “personality” of your company or organization. So while there are a lot of creative options, the style of production and storytelling must support and reinforce your brand. Pitney Bowes took a high energy approach to personalizing their C Suite Executives and others in this recruiting micro-site, but the values that come through are pure Pitney Bowes.
Netting it all out:
- First, make sure you’re delivering value to your audiences in selecting stories for your videos.
- Second, develop the stories such that the content engages your audiences on their terms.
- Third, make sure your organization’s core brand values come through.
- Finally, select production techniques that creatively bring these stories to life.
Next time, a look at how to leverage video assets in diverse campaigns, plus the importance of selecting the right distribution channels to make your video successful.
The content links in this post were selected as examples to illustrate specific observations. Only the Water for Sudan and Pitney Bowes content was produced by POV-Rose Media.
