Tell Me a Story…
I, like most people, enjoy a great movie. The ones that I find most memorable are the ones that tell a great story, like:
“Little Miss Sunshine”
“Juno”
or even “Dances with Wolves”
A great movie takes you on a journey, or puts you in positions emotionally that you may not normally think about or experience. The art of storytelling is no doubt an important part of the human makeup and how we are affected by what we watch or experience. Authors, poets, and philosophers have often noted the impact stories have on our plight as humans. Harold Goddard said, “The destiny of the world is determined less by the battles that are lost and won than by the stories it loves and believes in.” And if your goal is to achieve great results through video marketing, you must learn to be a great storyteller.
Most videos attempt to convey a certain amount of facts but far more important, the video must tell a story, and evoke some kind of emotional reaction to the viewer. And that’s where too many productions fall short. They can relay information to an audience, but they often fail to engage the audience with a story that can create an emotional response. As an old Scottish proverb says, “Many a good tale is spoiled in the telling.”
I recently finished producing a short video called “My Oasis” that gives viewers a sense of the personal side of me. There is a reason I enjoy being behind the camera, that is where I am most comfortable. But in this case, my goal was to let folks get a sense of who I am, away from the daily activities of producing stories for clients, to allow the viewer to have a sense of what I am like and some of my personal interests. As a company, we are planning to create videos for our entire staff, so that our clients and prospective clients can enjoy our unique group. You can watch my video at http://pentavision.net/creative-team/ryan-geist.html
Statistically, branding through the use of online video has shown phenomenal growth in the last 12 months. According to TurnHere.com, a sizeable majority of companies (83%) see video as an integral component of their online marketing efforts in 2010. In the same survey, 80% of respondents prefer professionally produced content over user generated content.
So in your own video marketing campaign, look at your message as a story and learn to ask the right questions. Don’t be content with listing dry facts in your video. Find the story within your business. What is its human interest element? Great storytelling creates a much stronger, more personal connection with the message if it evokes an emotion.
