Is Your Company “Video Active?”
There was a time when doing a company video, whether an image or branding piece or a sale and marketing video was a big-budgeted affair designed to have a shelf life of one-to-three years, even five years. But times, they are a-changing. According to a 2009 MediaPost article, the average online video is 3 and 1/2 minutes long. Gone are the days of the 12-minute epic corporate video; between the Internet, websites, and the ever expanding world of social media, no message or image can stand that test of time. The need to keep your web presence up to date and fresh is the key to bringing visitors back to your site. And the demand for video content has become the norm.
How many websites do you frequent that drive you crazy because there is rarely anything new to look at? After awhile you feel like a fool to visit these stagnant web sites with the futile hope that there’s something new to view. A good web site is “active” with frequent updates that compel you to return often. Nowadays, the key is to become “video-active.”
This trend can either be seen as a burden or, as I believe, it can become a blessing. Instead of laboring with that big “every two or three year” video that requires distilling everything into one memorable message that has to last (in the web world) a lifetime, now you can produce numerous small-scaled videos that don’t have to cost you a lot of money, can tell a larger variety of stories, and deliver a variety of messages all while keeping your web site fresh with regularly updated videos.
You can have fun with it, get more creative, and step out of the box more often. You will give people the feeling that there is always something interesting happening in your world.
My three favorite advantages to this “video active” approach are:
1) Smaller, more manageable hits on your budget that can be spread out over the year.
2) In the long run, you build up a larger library of stories and images that can be re-edited into that larger corporate video that still needs to be done.
3) You may create a video that really creates a “buzz” and become the next Internet sensation!
If you’re looking to creative engaging content that can be updated often and with ease, shorter, more frequent videos are the way to go. But don’t take it from me; take it from the billions of people watching online video every day. If you’re looking for a place to start, check out YouTube. The online video site is now the #2 search engine in the world (second only to Google).
