Informational website videos are a valuable part of a business website. They give the viewer information about the company, introduce products, show why they’re the best ones, and explain how to use them. Let’s explore Using Video to Educate Your Website Audience.
YouTube has more viewers in the 18 to 49 age group than any cable network, and that’s counting just mobile viewers. It costs nothing to put a video on YouTube and embed it into a website.
Using Video to Educate Your Website Audience
What does a website video do?
A video needs to be more than just an ad to draw an audience. It needs to give people a reason to watch it and to recommend it to others. It needs to entertain them or offer practical value.
A website video can introduce the viewer to the company and what it does. It should feature top executives speaking on camera and aim for a personal connection with the audience. The background should show the company’s premises, not just a blank screen.
An introductory website video for a product should show it. If it’s a physical product, that’s easy. It should demonstrate its use if it’s a service or software application. Viewers should come away with the sense that they’ve learned something about the product, not just that they’ve been subjected to a promotion.
A how-to video can feature someone who worked on the product’s development. It should engagingly provide useful information.
How do you make a great video?
Making an informational video doesn’t necessarily require a studio, but it takes some care and reasonably good equipment. The location should be free of outside noise and have strong lighting. The background can be a backdrop or a work environment, as long as it’s free of distracting activity.
Eliminate all sources of background noise. Sounds like air conditioning and distant traffic, which we’ve learned to ignore in daily life, will be noticeable in the video. Use soundproofing material such as blankets over off-camera walls and furniture, or the speaker’s voice may echo too much.
Almost any camera or mobile phone can make a video, but a good one will do a better job. It should be able to make HD movies and have a manual focus option. Using autofocus can result in the speaker’s shifting in and out of focus. Set up the focus for the speaker’s position, and don’t move too far backward or forward.
A camera’s built-in audio isn’t good enough. Use a directional microphone or digital recorder, and avoid cheap microphones.
Use video editing software for final assembly. Cut off the start and end at appropriate points and fade out at the end. Combine the video and audio tracks here, getting the timing close enough that it doesn’t look like a badly dubbed foreign movie. Being within a tenth of a second is a good target.
A short video should be no more than eight to ten minutes. If you have more to say than will fit into that much time, split it into multiple videos. The rule is to make it as long as it needs to be, but no longer.
Hosting the video on your own website is usually not a good idea. It consumes a lot of bandwidth. You can post it to a video site such as YouTube and embed it in your own site. If you have the budget for it, you can use a content delivery network for fast streaming. That allows the video to look like native content, with no external branding.
Video content makes people who view a website feel that they’re dealing with actual people, rather than a faceless organisation. Done right, it conveys a sense that they’re excited about their creation and care about more than just making a sale. It can be a vital part of an Internet marketing strategy.
Pixel Fish will work with you to deliver an online presence that will really draw in your audience. Please contact us to learn more.
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