This week’s guest post is from Ryan Mast of Meteor Tower Films. Ryan is a very talented filmmaker who specializes in creating award-winning, original online video entertainment, including music videos.
Ryan shares 6 tips with us on how to properly use video as part of a Social Media campaign.
1. Empower your fans to promote you. For musicians, this is the majority of what I do. Video updates from the road help the fans see a slice of the band’s life and feel close to them, even if it’s just video of them goofing off at the local mall, cut in with video of them playing live on TV and the bassist making fun of the drummer on the van. Music videos give fans and music blogs something bite-sized to share with friends or readers — they’ll share it on Facebook, favorite on YouTube, post a link on Twitter, embed it on their Tumblr, etc. Produce something for your business that your fans will love and re-post by producing and releasing genuinely entertaining and novel content.
2. Create content that people care about. You’re not broadcasting to the world — make something uniquely relevant to the region, subculture, or interest group you want to talk with. For most small businesses, your staff and your customers are a big human interest for potential customers. If you’re creating a video for your web site’s landing page, post impromptu interviews with your customers talking about why they love your business, shop, food, product, or show.
3. Be concise and genuine. Internet viewers can smell a sales pitch; long title sequences, wordy scripts, and stiff delivery repel viewers. Unlike television or film, on the web you don’t have your viewer’s undivided attention. They have the power to click away as soon as they get bored, and their tolerance will already be remarkably low if you’re trying to sell something to them. To convey large chunks of data or information, share that in text on a blog or web page where viewers can read at their own speed.
4. Sound clear. Buy a good shotgun or lav microphone. Don’t obsess too much over your camera; the picture quality is irrelevant if your viewers can’t hear you clearly. Interestingly, your audience will perceive that the visual quality of your video is high if your audio quality is high. So, make your video appear to look better by making it sound better. There are many resources on specifics of audio tech for various budgets; ask the Google what’s best for you, but plan to spend at least $300 to start doing it right.
5. Post your video on the big video sites. At least post it on YouTube; don’t host it just in your own website. Viewers can easily interact with videos on sites that they’re familiar with (like YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, MySpace, etc). Make it easy for them to favorite it, share it with their friends, rate it, and comment on it.
6. Let the community respond to you. Always always leave commenting on. You will get hostile, asinine comments. They will say your video sucks, or that you suck. But if it doesn’t suck, your fans will defend you. Or not. Social media is just messy, but you will lose viewers when you shut out the crowd.
Sorry this is all rather vague and theoretical — there’s no single magic bullet to getting viewers. Don’t obsess over making a “viral” video or a video that will appeal to everyone; just figure out what your specific audience cares about. And that’s where it may be valuable to bring in a social media professional to assess how you can best promote your client through video online. It’s an entirely different realm than traditional television, with different conventions and different audience expectations.
