Social media videos are a great way for any business to connect with your loyal customers and to attract new ones. It gives you the opportunity to show off your skills, products and services for the world to see.
Here are some useful & practical tips that may help you.
Begin with your goal in mind
Most people when they first start on any sort of marketing don’t necessarily know exactly what they want to do. So, ask yourself this – what do you want this social media video to accomplish? What is its purpose? It could be increasing followers, bringing more awareness to your shopfront, showing that you are an expert in your field or that you are worth what you charge.
Most people want some form of conversion so knowing what that is and laying out that goal within your whole marketing strategy, is an important first step.
Can you hear me? 
The difference between a moving image and a still one is sound. So, if you are speaking, make sure that audio is clear. Avoid noisy rooms and if you are using an iPhone or laptop, you can use the earphones that have a microphone.
With your earphones you can either place them in your ears or if you are clever, you can thread it under your top and use a hair clip to secure it on. This will make it less visible. Be careful though to allow your mic some space and not have it touching your hair or clothing. You will pick up the rustle otherwise.
Can you see me? 
Lighting is really important when it comes to video & photography.
- Have the natural light facing you rather than behind you will give you better exposure – if it is behind you, you will probably find that your camera will compensate and overexpose the back, or under expose you.
- If filming of a night, use a white fluorescent globe instead of a warm yellow one. White globes closely resemble daylight
- You can also buy other types of lights if you are intending to do more yourself.
Are you rocking the boat? 
Shaky video can be off putting so if you are walking around, try and keep it as stable as possible. There are lots of little stabilisers such as tripods, gimbals etc that you can purchase. There are lots of options that you can buy that are cost effective from Ebay and other places on Google.
Eye level 
When filming any video, it’s far better to keep your video at eye level rather than looking down at someone. On a gentle cosmetic point, you are more likely to have a double chin if you look down rather than up or forward.
Cost effective ways to do this are to prop your iPhone, tablet or laptop up with books etc so the camera is facing at eye level. You can be inventive and find what works for you.
Vertical or Horizontal? 
This should be discussed and thought of in your planning session. The question you need to ask yourself is where will you be using your content?
We film widescreen because we use them on multiple platforms. If you use your iPhone in vertical rather horizontal angle, the best place is Facebook and Instagram. If you intend to also use your video content on YouTube where it can then be embedded into your website, newsletters and other blogs, horizontal is a better option. Similarly, with LinkedIn where the ratio is widescreen.
If you do video vertically and upload it to YouTube it will have the black bars on either side. This may or may not be an issue depending on your audience.
Subtitles
Many people watch video content on mobile devices without sound. Adding subtitles to your video content will increase your retention on your work that you have spent time on. You can upload to YouTube and depending on the quality of the sound…and sometimes how YouTube hears it, it will give you an automatic transcription. Make sure you go into it and correct any mistakes. You can also do this in Facebook when you load your videos up.
If you are using YouTube to transcribe, once you have downloaded the SRT file name it correctly – EG: Sunburylocal.en_US
When loading to Facebook, you also need to make sure you choose ENGLISH (US) as the DEFAULT language, or your subtitles won’t appear. Unfortunately, mobile device users control whether subtitles appear so if it’s not turned on, currently it won’t automatically show up.
