Everybody is a Spielberg, it seems.
The rise of affordable – and increasingly ubiquitous – devices for capturing video is making life more challenging for video production professionals working in corporate America. Essentially, lots of people are thinking they can do your job better than you, without realizing the complexities behind the process of making “good” video into “great” video.
To stay ahead of the curve, video production professionals have to develop an understanding of how their videos build business value. That means it’s time to develop a working knowledge of the tools that make video more worthwhile for business use.
It’s not just about getting good lighting or having an engaging communicator to put on tape. I’m not downplaying the importance of developing high-quality video content. That’s a pre-requisite. But, over time, even the guys with a handheld camcorder will figure out at least some basics for making video look better, channeling their inner-Spielberg.
The path to differentiation for corporate videographers today lies in understanding how technology can be used to get videos to the right person at the right place at the right time. Doing this increases the impact of video on an organization and gives companies more reasons to produce even more videos over time.
While no one expects videographers to have a complete grasp of every technology solution available in today’s market, it will pay to familiarize yourself with how software can be leveraged to make video more relevant in day-to-day business communications. Here are five issues to keep in mind that can impact the extent to which organizations boost their production of high-quality video.
- First, do no harm with video: The biggest concern for companies as they consider incorporating video into their communications toolbox is security. Executives want to be assured that embracing video will not open up their corporate networks to unwanted, malicious attention, and that outsiders will not be able to gain access to internal videos with proprietary information. Most advanced software solutions provide more than adequate security, but videographers should recognize and be able to address concerns about security that are commonplace among executives not familiar with tools and services enabling online video distribution.
- Content management is vitally important: No library works well without a filing system, and the same is true for large video archives. But content management software is about more than just keeping files organized. Rather, it can play a central role in developing automated portals of relevant content that can be programmed based on a user’s profile in a corporate director. This means marketing executives will get videos relevant to marketing, while manufacturing executives get content important to them. Helping get the right video to the right person at the right time makes it possible for executives to spend their viewership time watching content highly related to their business duties.
- Develop an understanding of social media: Online social media applications can play a central role in promoting video content, particularly to audiences outside of your corporate firewall. Offerings like Facebook and Twitter can be used to raise awareness of a specific piece of business video content. Most importantly, many advanced video publishing and distribution tools make it easier than ever before to integrate social media notifications into the video tagging and distribution process.
- Look to target multiple screens: Business video is relevant from the tablet device in the executive’s hand to the plasma display in the employee break room. But good software is a pre-requisite for managing the distribution of video in a multi-screen environment. Different viewing venues may imply different video communications approaches, creating more video production work even for a single video project. Understanding how and why executives would use video in each environment gives videographers a leg up on understanding how content should be captured to maximize its communications value in each environment.
- Recognize the power of analytics: One of the greatest differentiators for video delivered in the online environment is the ability to track exactly how and what end users watch. Software analytics tools can deliver far more information than just simple aggregated viewer totals. Advanced systems can keep tabs on when viewers abandon a specific piece of video content, providing clues on the elements of a video that fail to hold viewers’ interest. Over time, expect more and more software solutions to keep tabs on how users behave after they watch a video – a development that offers the promise of identifying the business impact of a video more precisely than ever before.
