Making better research videos, part four
Things to think about before standing in front of the camera
What video is good for: Why make a video anyway?
Video is only one of many ways to share your ideas. So what is it that makes video such a powerful way to connect with your audience?
With video you can share information in a way that is educational, entertaining, and inspiring.
Video is perhaps the most effective way to express who you are. While it allows for the succinct delivery of an idea, perhaps most importantly, it lets you express your personality. Through expression and body language you can convey to your audience why they should trust, follow, and support you.
In our increasingly saturated social feeds a good video grabs attention.
Good videos raise brand awareness. Whether you like it or not, you need to think about your personal brand and raising your profile.
High quality creative content can demonstrate your capabilities and your capacity for innovative thinking, and establish or reinforce your reputation.
And good videos drive traffic to your profile or your website.
Aim and objectives: What do you want to achieve?
A sure-fire way to ensure your engagement endeavours are unsuccessful is to lack purpose.
Take a step back and ask yourself: where am I going and what do I need?
Think about how video content might help you to achieve your goals1.
Some other questions to ask yourself:
What are your goals?
What is your agenda?
What are your priorities?
What is unique about you and your work?
Why should people care?
Target audience: Who is this video for?
Your target audience is intrinsically connected to your objectives.
Think about who you need to talk to to achieve your goals. Who do you need to get your work in front of?
Then flip your perspective.
Your project will be answering somebody’s question. Solving somebody’s problem. Or adding value to somebody’s life.
Who is this somebody? They’re your audience.
Frame your story, and your project, for this audience: their needs, wants, desires, hopes and dreams.
Distribution strategy: Where are you going to put it?
Much like your target audience, where you put your video content will be influenced by your objectives.
Different distribution channels have their strengths and weaknesses.
YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram have great potential for broad public engagement. But it will be difficult to be heard above the noise2.
If you do upload your video to YouTube, or any other video social media, it is up to you to make sure people see it.
It is unlikely that your target audience will stumble across your video. You’ll have to get it in front of them somehow. So once you’ve posted your video, share it3.
LinkedIn is a great platform to network with colleagues in your field. And your LinkedIn network should already reflect your target audience. Comment and engage, share, and post your own content including videos4.
You can either publish your video directly to LinkedIn or share a YouTube link. If your priority is broad public engagement, and growing an online profile, maybe send your network to your channel on a chosen video platform. If your priority is targeted engagement within your field or industry, keep the conversation on LinkedIn.
ROI: How will you measure success?
Unless popularity, and simply getting your work in front of as many people as possible is your aim, don’t get too caught up with views, comments, likes, and shares. They are important, but they aren’t everything.
So how can you determine return on investment for your online content?
Once the video has been published, reflect on your objectives and ask yourself: has this video, in some way, contributed to achieving something?
But do undertake quantitative analysis.
If you upload your video to YouTube take advantage of the deep analytics reporting that is available. Of particular interest might be demographics - are you reaching the right people? And retention - how much of your videos are people watching?5
LinkedIn also provides basic analytics, such as post impressions - the reach of your content. But it is well behind YouTube in terms of measuring video success.
Okay, so let’s do it!
Next, is part five: Doing it: your manifesto
If this is your first article in this series, head back to the start
Actually list your goals and think about how video, or other creative mediums such as a podcast, might help you achieve them.
On average more than 150,0000 new videos are uploaded to YouTube every minute, that’s more than 500 hours of video. This equates to around 30,000 hours of newly uploaded content per hour, which is over 700,000 hours of video uploaded every day. Find interesting YouTube stats here.
Think about starting a Substack; share your video on relevant Discord servers, subreddits, Mastadon, Slack Channels, and Facebook groups; send your video to podcasters and YouTubers in your field and try to get on their show. Find out where your audience hangs out and post your content there. Make your content work for you!
And here’s a little more information about video on LinkedIn.
This can be a sobering reality check, to see that everybody is switching off after a few seconds. That’s why the hook is so important.