{"id":5190,"date":"2018-06-08T16:12:52","date_gmt":"2018-06-08T20:12:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.highedwebtech.com\/?p=5190"},"modified":"2018-06-08T16:38:09","modified_gmt":"2018-06-08T20:38:09","slug":"make-better-videos-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.highedwebtech.com\/2018\/06\/08\/make-better-videos-now\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Simple Ways to Improve Your Videos Right Now"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been seeing a ton of sales and marketing videos on Facebook and LinkedIn lately. It’s a great way to show your expertise in an area in a new and exciting way. However, I’m seeing a lot of room for improvement in these videos. In today’s age of microscopic attention spans, you need to capture someone’s attention quickly. Here are some tips and tricks\u00a0 you can use to improve your videos today.<\/p>\n

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Watermark Your Videos<\/h2>\n

This is one the easiest things you can do for you videos. Always put a watermark of your company logo or branding in the bottom right of your video. This helps reinforce your brand throughout the video, and helps the user know its your company’s video even during segments where you’re showing graphics or animations. Here’s a great article from Videomaker<\/a> on adding a watermark or bug to your videos.<\/p>\n

Here’s an example I saw on LinkedIn today. As you see, there’s a small LinkedIn logo in the bottom right corner. This helps the viewer know the content is from LinkedIn and they can take whatever level of trust they have for that brand into account. This is a video even though it looks like a single image.<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/a><\/p>\n

Here’s an example from my time at John Carroll University. Yes, sometimes your logo is hard to see or obscured, but it’s always there.<\/p>\n

\"Watermark<\/a><\/p>\n

This can also be helpful in case your video is freebooted<\/a>, or reused without your approval. You see this on Facebook all the time. Someone will take a video, put their border or caption around it and share it. You lose the credit as well as some visibility.<\/p>\n

Watch Your Length<\/h2>\n

So many things are competing for my time on any given day. With so few minutes and hours in the day, it helps to come up with one topic for your video and stick to it. Get to your point quickly and dispense with the pleasantries. Videos should follow a similar pattern: quick intro and right into the meat of the video. Your video should close with a clear call to action. This could your website or social media links, or an invitation to subscribe to your channel or follow your profile.<\/p>\n

So what’s the magic length to get everyone to watch your video? There’s no easy answer here. It varies given your topic and audience. This is why it helps to have a plan for your video. Map out with notes or bullet points what you want to cover. This will\u00a0 help you stay on topic and get through the material quickly. If you just turn on the camera and start talking, you’re going to go long. Or at the very least, forget key pieces of information.<\/p>\n

If you are presenting a topic that has lots of layers or valuable subtopics or tangents, take the opportunity to break your video up into multiple parts. This will let you have multiple touch points with your viewers to help reinforce your expertise about your subject.<\/p>\n

Tommy, Can You Hear Me?<\/h2>\n

I am going to bold the next sentence because it’s the most important nugget in this entire blog post. The most critical thing any creator can do when making videos is to make sure your audio is very, very good.<\/strong> If you are using your computer or phone’s built-in mic, please stop doing that. It’s going to sound like whatever room your in, which is fine if you’re in a sound-proof recording studio. If you’re in an office or large conference room, your audio is going to sound very echo-y. It’s fine if your viewer is watching with headphones, but if they’re using their laptop or computer speakers, the lack of quality is going to be made even more apparent.<\/p>\n

If your videos are made up of you talking to a camera that’s nearby you, I have three recommendations.<\/p>\n

Good Sound<\/h3>\n

If you are using your computer or laptop to record your videos, often the microphone isn’t great and will pick up a lot ambient noise or room echo. Use a USB microphone like this Blue Snowball to connect to your computer to greatly improve your audio. No drivers or additional software are needed, just set it as your audio source in your recording software. You can hide this off-camera so its out of sight, though many video creators regularly show their mic in the shot, so it’s not a huge deal.<\/p>\n