Article Contributed by Cameron Johnson
Whenever small business owners look in to the possibility of doing some kind of video marketing, they very often find themselves presented with outdated information about what works and what doesn’t.
Successful YouTube videos share a number of important characteristics that are a combination of common sense and a better than average understanding of how people interact with broadcast media. In these respects, video isn’t really all that different from podcasts, comics or e-books. Audiences respond most positively when some basic principles are followed. Here are some to consider.
Your Regularly Scheduled Program
Putting up a couple of videos and then going home isn’t going to help anyone build an audience. Broadcast television and radio were built on a schedule. From the evening news to Saturday morning cartoons, the biggest audiences were always built by programs that maintained a regular schedule.
It didn’t really matter all that much what channel a program was on, nor did it matter all that much what kind of signal it was. As long as viewers found their program at the regularly scheduled time and channel, the chances of that program building a large audience increased. Small businesses that start a video channel should employ the same technique.
Hold the Emmys
When you first start out, you won’t be producing award-winning episodes. That’s perfectly acceptable. What you do want to do is make sure you are producing consistent quality and maintaining an easily understood format. Your show should be straightforward and easy to get without a lot of explanation. Some entertainment channels exceed 10 million viewers and don’t over-emphasize production values.
Production Values
Of all the things a beginning video producer should pay attention to, this one is likely the most important, at least for your early material. Numerous video channels have failed because no matter how good their material might be, if shots are poorly lit, the sound is inferior quality and the video format itself is not the conventional standard, it makes things unnecessarily difficult for your audience.
With video, lighting is everything. You need to make sure you have even television-quality lighting in every shot. If possible you should work with a stationary camera unless you have a really compelling reason not to. Second comes audio. Investing in good microphones is crucial and learning to record synchronized audio with each shot is equally important. Poor lighting or audio will doom a video channel no matter what the quality of your material.
Instructional
Where ever possible, your video materials should make some attempt to provide the audience with useful information. There are a huge number of ways to do this. Companies like Blue Coat distribute short demo videos to explain how their product can be used to solve common network and security problems. Some channels have accumulated as many as 5.6 million subscribers using this format. Other channels might explain how to bake better cookies or how to fix a shingle roof. Whatever the materials are, as long as they are providing information that can be utilized by the audience, the chances of your video channel becoming popular increase dramatically.
Accelerate
Rapid audience growth is possible if you have a rapid release schedule. This principle goes hand in hand with a short video format. Putting up hour-long episodes is generally frowned upon by audiences and is likely to put too much pressure on your production at the beginning. Try to keep your updates at five minutes or less and trade the long formats for faster episode releases. Producers like Stampy have made a career out of daily updates, and they have the ad revenues to prove it.
Video production is a career in itself. With an Internet-savvy approach, however, it can be both rewarding and financially successful for both the channel and your business.