{"id":335,"date":"2016-11-29T12:22:21","date_gmt":"2016-11-29T12:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/socialmedia\/?p=335"},"modified":"2016-11-29T14:12:50","modified_gmt":"2016-11-29T14:12:50","slug":"six-principles-of-doing-video-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/socialmedia\/2016\/11\/29\/six-principles-of-doing-video-better\/","title":{"rendered":"Six principles of doing video better"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s been a massive growth in online video consumption in the last two or three years. According to the latest stats, half of us are regularly watching video on mobile\u00a0devices.<\/p>\n

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And the trend is set to continue. No big surprises, then.<\/p>\n

But the definition of video is changing: we watch video on a plethora of platforms, in a number of different formats.<\/p>\n

We watch disposable 15-second clips, filmed in portrait and covered in scribbles and doodles, on Snapchat and Instagram. We watch two-minute semi-professional instructional videos, product reviews and comedy skits on YouTube. And we watch live streams on Facebook and Periscope.<\/p>\n

Video has grown sideways as well as upwards.<\/p>\n

This trend brings a problem for the content producers: saturation. As organisations cotton on to this trend, they shift their focus to producing\u00a0video content, and social media users become overloaded, swiping and scrolling past your carefully-crafted video.<\/p>\n

So there’s a need to adapt. These are some of things I’ve been doing to adapt. You might find them useful too.<\/p>\n

My six\u00a0principles of doing video better<\/strong><\/p>\n

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  1. Make shorter videos. Vine may be dead, but short viewing times are here to stay. They say a photograph should say one thing \u2013 it should have one idea to communicate. Video needs to be the same.<\/li>\n
  2. Subtitles. People are watching with the sound down, so bite the bullet and sub your videos if they’re\u00a0for social channels.<\/li>\n
  3. Make it about people. If you can, make it about your audience. Who are they? What do they want? Tell them a story\u00a0that answers those questions, and I guarantee they’ll engage with it. This graduation video is an example of it working for us<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  4. Do less, but better. Stop posting badly-edited, shaky smartphone videos, and invest in a decent bit of kit. Even a basic camcorder on a tripod will get you better results. Look at how the most popular\u00a0YouTube vloggers do it.<\/a><\/li>\n
  5. Make paid-for promotion a part of your strategy. If your videos have a call-to-action, or you’re trying to achieve huge online consumption of your content, stump up for a bit of advertising. You don’t need a huge budget to reach new people on social, but you do need a budget.<\/li>\n
  6. Make it for the platform it’s being distributed on. Someone looking for pretty things on Instagram wants a very different\u00a0experience to someone searching and browsing YouTube.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    These are principles I’ve adopted over the last few weeks, and they’re working for our social channels. During graduation fortnight we posted eight\u00a0graduation-themed videos on our Facebook page<\/a>, including a live broadcast from Sheffield City Hall.<\/p>\n

    Those videos generated\u00a0a combined organic reach of 185,000 over two weeks, and a couple of the posts generated a ton of comments from users who wanted to share their own pride in being a Sheffield Hallam student, graduand or alumnus.<\/p>\n

    We did OK for likes, comments and shares on Twitter too.<\/p>\n

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    Today we made #Sheffield<\/a>'s squash champion @nickmatthew<\/a> an honorary doctor of the University. #WeAreHallam<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/3z8sY43bqS<\/a><\/p>\n

    — Sheffield Hallam Uni (@sheffhallamuni) November 22, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n