6 EFFECTIVE ways to use VIDEO CONTENT for your BUSINESS
aka. The Silent Key Films Guide to Approaching Your Video Production!!
Where Do We Begin?!
When it comes to creating Video Content for your business, the possibilities can seem endless, so it can be hard to know where to start!
You have decided you need video content… you understand its value in the online marketplace… how it can boost your business… but what should it look like?
What or Who should be in it? Where will we shoot it? Do we need a script?!
At Silent Key we’ve put together this list of 6 ways to approach your Videos that help to answer these questions and will give you a clear starting point!
These also show you how we generally categorise and refer to our own video products, so will give you a clear idea of what the typical options are, how to easily talk to us about them, and what might best suit your brand.
1.
CONTEXT!! - Concept Videos
What is your Video for?
What direction to take your Video depends on many things, but most important of all is the CONTEXT in which it gets viewed – who do you want to view it? – where/when is it being shown? Does it need to work in multiple places?
Once you know your audience and have a platform in mind, you need to think - What do you want people to do once they’ve seen the video – buy a product? Visit your website? Gain trust in your brand? Be impressed? Remember your service? Share it?!!
Different platforms have different video functions and limitations, so thinking about these contextual questions first, will help us to determine the basic starting points of video length, tone and style.
For example, if your video is a Centrepiece Video for your website homepage, it needs to fit in with the branding, look and tone of the rest of your site.
This gives us a great place to START – What simple and obvious style, tone and aesthetic choices could you make based on the type of business or brand you represent? Do you have brand colours? Are you workshop based? Do you have a busy office aesthetic? Are there certain processes / machines / products / people that define your brand?
Just by answering simple questions like these we start to get ideas for our video - we can create CONCEPT VIDEOS – shots that we know will look great – visuals that would look perfect with your logo - textures and aesthetics we know we should capture! These can be used to create storyboards, to design shots and sets, to help with scripts, and to plan the visual structure of a video. Sometimes single shots that embody the character of your brand can end up being very useful and we’ll offer them as add-ons for clients – to make a website look more dynamic - to bookend regular content – or for a Video Banner running behind a title on your website! But for now they’re really only a conceptual starting point - to help us form ideas for the more complex and considered Video Content we’ll now get into…!
2.
WHAT WORKS?! - Brand/Product Promos
Is your Video a straightforward Promotional Film for your business - to give people who watch it a better, faster, more visual understanding of your brand?
This is very often the case! Most of our clients are looking for exactly this – a website homepage or social media profile can be transformed with good Video Content, and we refer to these as BRAND PROMOS. They are typically around 3-5 minutes long, the length of a good song, and give an overview of what your business is all about, its values, its selling points, maybe the people involved, or a specific product.
The key when thinking about what this video should be like is to be careful and stay measured in your approach - pitch it correctly!
Creativity, shot set-ups and stylised flourishes can come later – first we need a solid basis for our video that WORKS.
To do this we go back to our initial ideas and develop them in the most obvious ways – say you’re a Hotel, B&B or Country Club – what do people expect to see, what do they want to see, and what else should you show them? They WANT to check out the facilities, the rooms, the surroundings. They EXPECT to see friendly staff, cleanliness and folks enjoying themselves. What you SHOULD show them, are precisely these things, alongside YOUR BRANDING.
If you’re a Personal Trainer we need to see you, some exercise taking place and your Branding. If you’re a Restaurant we need to see Food and your Branding. If you’re a Software Developer we need to see computers AND perhaps the way in which your software is benefitting someone’s work or life AND your Branding!
These are our basic starting points, but they will actually form the majority of what we see visually in the final Video, whichever way we choose to go with the narrative (we’ll come onto that!). So it’s important to identify them now and learn what visual world they place us in.
This simple, obvious, beginning determines the foundational character of your video, and the tip is to stick to it as we go – the music choices, the pace, the aesthetic must all stay in line with this foundation so as to avoid things that clash and produce negativity in the viewer.
Check out some of our BRAND PROMOS here, and test us to see if whatever style they take, the content is measured and stays in line.
3.
TELL A STORY! – Social Media Video Ads
Is your Video an Advert to use online and promote on Social Media platforms?
Social Media platforms have taken over! They are the Market, the Yellow Pages and the Networking Lunch all rolled into one. They are where everyone is spending their time - and are simply where businesses should now be spending a good chunk of their marketing budget.
At SILENT KEY, we even made our own Social Media Video Ad about why you should be running Social Media Video Ads – which you can watch here!!
A lot of our foundational advice still applies when thinking about approaching these, but they are different, faster, and need to catch people’s attention in the social media feed. Instagram has a maximum time limit of 60 seconds for video ads, so this is a good guideline to follow.
The key thing to think about - and this is something that in some way applies to all of the content we create – is to TELL A STORY! People respond to a narrative – a nice collection of shots can look great but will also lack substance, or anything for viewers to cling to or learn from. If people feel like they aren’t being told anything, they will quickly scroll passed. A good narrative can be a hook to catch attention, and a reel that keeps people watching. People intuitively notice story structure and will want to see how it unfolds.
What story do we tell? The story of your Business. The story of a product being created. The story of your Customer Journey. The story of why a Brand Ambassador joined your Brand. The options are endless, so we use our foundations to filter to the appropriate ones, the ones that work, and then we can think about adding an interesting angle or stylish take.
For example, let's say your business is an Events Food Stall. Sure, we know we’re gonna see food being prepared, working the stall, happy customers, perhaps the fact that it’s at an event. But that’s simple and less memorable. Whereas if we tell the structured Story of that day, driving the stall to a music festival, introducing the characters running the stall, setting up, preparing the food and selling it to happy revelers, and finishing the day by joining in the party, we suddenly have a story. We can stop there, or have fun and get creative to make it more interesting, maybe we shoot it as if your stall was the real headline act, the true rockstars?
Then maybe the next Event you work you can promote the video on Instagram to those who have shown interest in that event online - so people on their way to the festival can check their Instagram and see you before they arrive! Maybe you can even build in a discount for Instagram followers?
Maybe we then go back to the video plan, get a little meta, and tell the Story of you promoting yourself at the event - include you posting the video, someone at the festival seeing it in their feed, and happy Instagram followers flocking to the stall to show you their phones and get their discounted food – then when you run this as an Ad, people on their way to your next Event can see and do the same! You see how much fun we can have – the Story makes it dynamic, interesting, memorable and even interactive!
CTA’s - The Video ending with this discount offer, and a phrase such as ‘INSTAGRAM FOLLOWERS GET 20% OFF TODAY!!’ - is your ‘Call To Action’ – perhaps the most important part of any Social Media Ad. This one is a great ‘Call To Action’ because it drives traffic to the Stall, gains you followers on social media, is interesting and sharable, AND includes an exclusive offer!! So what would be your Call To Action? To hit the link? Where would you want the link to take them? An online store? Your website? Knowing this will help us tell a better story!
If you feel particularly Called To Action, check out some of our SOCIAL MEDIA ADS here!
4.
ABOUT US! – Brand Story Videos
Is your Video an ABOUT US Video?
The About Us / About Me / Meet the Team / Behind The Scenes section goes by many names and can sometimes feel tricky to put together for a business – suddenly you’re talking about yourself and your team and your personality as well as your professional background and that can be daunting – BUT EVERY BUSINESS STILL HAS ONE! – Why? - because we all know intuitively how important it is for clients of any business to get to know the people behind that business!
A little personality goes a long way, and if an ‘About Us’ is delivered in a personable and relatable way, clients will be put at ease and be more likely to want to work with you over your competition. It’s no wonder then that Video has become an increasingly popular format for this– a video allows you to quickly and effectively say and show more of your personality in a more natural and relatable way than other formats.
However, the way you approach an ‘About Us’ video is important, as a poorly produced one can detract from your professionalism, and we are obviously desperate to avoid any cringe! At Silent Key we work carefully to ensure these types of video don’t fall into any, and one fully tailored approach which works effectively is what we call the BRAND STORY VIDEO.
The ‘Brand Story’ is a documentary style, natural, stylish, interview-driven look into a company and the people behind it. It’s normally unscripted, as we prefer to research your business and work with you to capture natural talking points about your work, backstory, values and goals, and then form a narrative to showcase these. This works well to give unrehearsed, authentic results.
We don’t stage manage too much, but prefer to shoot in your place of work, or depending on the business where a client might interact with your work. An office. A workshop. A gym. A photoshoot on location. We want to see your work as it happens, and hear you speak about it authentically. We’ve worked hard to develop a process that creates a relaxed shoot in which we can create natural moments that we can capture with a cinematic edge.
Watch some of our BRAND STORIES here and find out more.
5.
COMMUNICATION! – Events Videos
Is your Video an Event Video?
Our big Tip to help you approach producing an Events Video is the simplest of all!
Why? – because it’s simply to FOCUS ON YOUR EVENT!!You have an event to run, and it's going to look great, it’s what you and many others have been working hard on making fantastic in all manner of ways, and it will be our SET for the day – so as long as you do your job well you’ve done our pre-production well!!
The important aspect of working with even the most experienced of Event Videographers is COMMUNICATION. Let us ask questions, and give us as much info as you can! If we know WHEN and WHERE important moments are happening we can make sure to capture them, and the more we know about specifics the better as we can organise our team to get the best angles and shots.
We also know that events can be hectic and busy, so if certain things are still a little up in the air, don’t be shy – tell us! Then we can use our experience and anticipation to be in the right place at the right time.
Simple accommodation of the camera crew is also something worth having in your mind – cameras need space, tripods for steady footage, and clear sightlines to important activity. We like to have fun shooting in and amongst the crowds, capturing the atmosphere, but if you have, for example, a speech from an important guest that you need to capture clean footage and audio of, we need to know so we can set up camera positions with clear sightlines beforehand, and mic up any relevant people.
Thought should also be given, as ever, to the context of how you want to use your Event Video – Do you want a celebratory recap video? Or do you want the focus to be on your planning of the event? Do you want Vox Pops of many different attendees throughout the event?
We can also consider our Storytelling concept to enhance the watchability of your Video, particularly for those without a personal connection to an event. Can we tell the Story of the event through the eyes of one guest? Should it be the story of the Planner, ending with (hopefully!) a job well done?
If so, a clear choice must be made in pre-production for us to organise accordingly, as it can be tricky to do this retrospectively.
We love shooting events, and the main thing is to understand that something with so many moving parts will always feel a little chaotic, so above all try to relax and enjoy the occasion!
Click here to see more of our EVENTS work.
6.
SUBTLETIES – Interview Videos
Is your Video an Interview Video?
Many clients will be looking for simple, well produced Interview content for their website, online profiles and LinkedIn presence. Perhaps you want to extend this to a set of tutorials or a masterclass?
Producing a good Interview Video is first and foremost about doing a clean, solid, job that works – we aren’t trying to be flashy with camera motion or have particularly cinematic shots - our subjects are often still, we are focused on their face, and what’s most important is the content of what they are saying, how they come across, clarity, and a process that has ironed out any technical distractions.
So with this solid Form in place, the way to think about enhancing, personalising or characterising your interview content is in more subtle, nuanced terms. Who is our subject? How do we need them to come across? Can we use the lighting setup to give our subject a warmer appearance, an air of authority, or perhaps an edgier shadowy look for a creative?
When it comes to direct human communication, small details make a difference, have you ever worried about what you’re wearing when speaking to someone?! The small choices that we make for our Interview Video are our creative opportunities:
What clothing? Hairstyle? Makeup or no makeup? If we are using graphics to bring up your name and job title, how should that look? Which font? What colour? Official looking news-bulletin graphics or playful, fun, comic-book text?
Do we want our subject speaking directly to the camera or to someone off-camera? Do you want to work from a script, read from an autocue, or do you want someone to conduct an interview with you? Maybe you even want us to prepare an Interview around certain themes in order to naturally and authentically bring out your expertise?
Another often overlooked consideration when it comes to Interviews, is the Performance aspect. Many people aren’t practiced at being on camera, may not know how to prepare their voice for clarity, or appear nervous or uncomfortable. Just going for it and hoping for the best can be far worse than acknowledging a performance task and making simple preparations. At Silent Key we use our experience both in-front of camera as well as behind, offering clients simple vocal and physical warmups that anyone can do, to ensure that every one of our Interviewees comes across in the way they’ll feel happy with and is the most engaging and effective.
Ready for your Interview? Take a look at some previous INTERVIEW CONTENT we’ve produced here.
AND WE’RE OFF!
We’ve covered a lot!
Awareness of context. Use of concepts to build ideas. Solid foundations for an interesting narrative to be built upon. Use of subtleties to enhance character. Good communication to allow for further ideas to flourish…
These techniques, brought together, all working in tandem, form our CREATIVE TOOLKIT for approaching any Video Production at Silent Key Films.
We hope you immediately feel like we’ve shown you starting points and ideas for your Video Content, and that we’ve helped you understand which of those ideas are worth pursuing, and which creative choices and approaches will work most effectively for you and your Brand!
What comes next is to be confident with your choices, yet be always open to changes and accepting of compromises. Don’t stop being creative, let yourself get carried away with ideas and then manage your expectations, because remember you probably don’t have a Hollywood budget!
Above all, stay positive about the project, enjoy being part of a filmmaking process, and have fun!
So… what does YOUR VIDEO look like?