Guest post by Andy Havard
You have undoubtedly seen the slick, professional video blogs Google and its representatives have churned out lately.
Videos shot with pristine white backgrounds, inviting speakers and a whole lot of views. They’re impressive video blogs right?
Well, the following article explores how you can make the same professional looking corporate video blogs from the comfort of your own home.
Why Create A Corporate Video Blog
A video blog is a great way to showcase your brand or business as an approachable and engaging organisation. Corporate video productions allow organisations to connect with potential clients and show a human side to their brand or business.
A prospective client will always feel more comfortable using an organisation if they feel they know the people behind it. Sales pitches, adverts and marketing strategies can’t connect with an audience like a personal one-on-one video can. This is why so many organisations of all niches and sizes are starting to create video content to engage with their future customers.
Where Should I Film My Video Blog?
You don’t actually need to step foot outside your house or flat to find a great filming location. A garage, spare room or simply just a room that has a bit of free space to set up your equipment could work perfectly as a makeshift studio.
What Background Should I Use?
The infamous Google white background can make any video look powerful and professional. It’s a background technique used by many corporates in their video blogs and it works like a charm. Surprisingly it doesn’t actually cost an awful lot to create this effect. If you’ve got a bit of a budget then perhaps you can afford a film standard white screen, but you can create the same effect with some white sheets or even just by painting a wall in a glossy white shade.
What Camera Do I Need?
Depending on the style of your video, whether you want to appear sat down for a desk-side chat or standing up for a more animated performance you may need some different equipment. If you’re sat down you could use anything from a standard Webcam to a high end film camera depending on your budget.
If you’re presenting a standing presentation you’ll need either a Flip cam or a standard camcorder and you’ll definitely require a tripod to position it. If you’re shooting at desk height you may find you can rest your camera on an object nearby to save you purchasing a tripod. The quality of your images will depend on the quality of your camera, but even the most poor quality visuals can be boosted in post production.
What Lighting Should I Buy?
Your lighting is what makes both you and your background look slick. You can use anything from household standing lamps to industry standard florescent lighting. The brightness of your image can also be boosted in post-production so don’t fret if the lighting isn’t as bright as you’d hoped. You’ll need to position your lighting as follows; one light to the right of your background, one light to the left and one left next to your camera positioned at a 30 degree angle to the subject you’re filming (perhaps yourself). This three-point lighting will help to give you the best quality lighting for your video production.
What Microphone Should I Use?
If you’re using a Webcam or any type of video camera you may find you have a built in microphone that works rather well. Whether you opt to buy an external microphone will depend on your cameras positioning and whether it can efficiently pick up your voice from your presenting position. If you have to get an external microphone choose a lapel/lav mic. These mics capture great quality audio and are very easy to hide during filming.
What Do I Do When I’ve Finished Recording?
When you’ve wrapped finishing your video blog it’s time to get editing and work on the post production side of your corporate video. You can get a variety of free editing software if you’re a Mac or Windows user, but it might be worth paying for a more extensive piece of software, which will offer some extra tools in post production.
When you edit your video try and keep it as short as possible, short and snappy is always a winner. The post production stage will allow you to increase the brightness on your video and alter any aspect of your image you wish to enhance whether its colour, shadow or light to make your videos look really professional.
By following these six steps to creating effective corporate video blogs you can create professional quality video blogs and present your brand or business as a powerful and approachable organisation.
Andy Havard is a Marketing Executive at Skeleton Productions, a UK based video production company.
About Guest Author
Have to agree – companies are missing the boat if they aren’t including video blogging into their marketing efforts. We finally started a couple of months ago and its amazing how putting a face with a name can jump start a business. As far as where to film, we actually put up a white sheet over our white board and filmed there – works like a charm!
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Many businesses are missing out by not being involved in video marketing. They think that it’s going to cost a lot of money and that the video needs to be up to Hollywood standards. In fact, the opposite is true. Some of the best and most effective marketing videos are simple in nature. Think client testimonials or a tour of the business. Most phones have adequate cameras these days and many editing programs are free or very inexpensive.
Video blog is one of the great directions to increase readers into the blog.So, almost of the bloggers are having video blogs.
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Every aspect in creating a video is important if you want to make your finish product look professional. Videos are now a valuable part marketing and promoting your business and i am one of those who are learning the right way of making a quality video. The guide is great by the way and i’ll check on it every time i’ll make a video.
This is very ideal for internet marketers with huge amount of budget. However, for those small businesses, you can download a video maker software like camtashia and it would help you achieve a professional corporate videos.
Twitter: Janis167
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And if you get it viral… booya! You got a winner :)
I have first time read about the video blog.It is novice idea for me.It is complete tutorial for newbie.
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Hello Andy. I’ve never really done any kind of ‘corporate’ videos. I should probably look into that. All I’ve ever done are screen capture videos. B.T.W. are there any specific tools and software you could recommend for that? (Screen capture). I’ve looked at Camtasia and it just seems too expensive. But Techsmith seems to dominate the market what that is concerned. I’ve also recently looked into a corporate sales video and we’re talking between $600-$800. Crazy right? It would do everyone well to learn how to do it yourself.
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Hello Andy. I resonate with the white background. I used to make videos with bad lighting and eerie shadows. Then I got stuck into Gideon Shalwicks teachings, and my videos changed forever. I bought myself an Sony HD Flip Video Camera and started shooting. A HD video makes you feel GREAT abolut your videos, and builds your confidence.
My latest background is a white wall with a small bookcase mounted on the wall with soem random books. I think I should place soem relevant books on it and I’m golden. The white background looks REALLY good!
I have also recently purchased a HD editing suite and can’ wait to sink my teeth into it ;)
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Any video to the blog inceases the popularity of the blog a lot and your tips here are very useful and in fact you have mentioned every possible moment and even the background and what camera to use. It is just cool!
Twitter: Life2Learning
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These are great video ideas, I have not gotten to video yet, I am trying to conquer blog articles right now. Thanks
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For lighting, you can also try DIY lights as they provide more light and people can really see you in the video. Nice points on the topic!
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If you have a small budget, the place to spend it is lighting and the microphone rather than a more expensive camera. If you’re buying a new camera, choose one that has a jack for an external microphone. Even when videocams have fairly good built-in mics (which isn’t often), they’re designed to pick up sound from as wide an area as possible–which can make you sound like you’re in a barrel and increases the amount of sound you pick up that isn’t your voice (i.e., noise). Some brands of video cameras almost always have microphone jacks. Even a simple PC webcam is fine if your computer has a microphone input jack.
If you’re always going to be alone on camera, an inexpensive lavalier mic is your best bet. If you’re using a prosumer videocam or better, you can get great sound from even some of the budget shotgun mics. They focus on the sound in front–great for one or two people in front of the camera. And remember to turn off any air conditioning or fans before you hit the record button.
And you want a lot of light. There are some inexpensive light kits online that use 5 daylight-balanced fluorescents inside each of three softboxes. The stands aren’t as sturdy as you’d find in a professional video studio, but with a little care, they’ll give you great light for many years. Since they’re fluorescents, they are relatively easy on the energy draw and stay cool. Since they’re daylight balanced, you won’t have trouble with trying to color-balance out any outside light that gets in.
With a lot of light well placed and a good microphone, even most inexpensive cameras can give you results that look solid and professional on the web.
Video blogging puts a face to the company and the services or goods your company sells.
It’s a good way to promote your services.
At the same time, you should be aware that videos may not be the best in terms of SEO. So, optimize your titles and if you have the budget go for video transcription to provide text to accompany your videos.
Video transcripts cater to the deaf and hard of hearing. And, also to people who prefer reading to watching or listening.
In any case, you will have more relevant keywords and long tail keywords on your site.
Good luck with your videos!
Videos are going wild right now and every business should be using in them one way or another. In terms of SEO, if you’re using a lot of videos on your site then be sure to create and use video sitemaps. There’s a good guide to this here: http://www.reelseo.com/how-video-sitemaps/ Of course, just as you said the titles and keywords are important too. ~David Walker
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