These days, video is king. Whatever your promotional or marketing goals are, whether they’re personal or for a business, you can’t have a legitimate campaign in the modern era unless you incorporate a YouTube aspect and upload some videos for the world to see. YouTube sees an immense amount of traffic, and hands-down- it’s the easiest way to share videos across social media networks and other channels such as text and email. But creating a few videos is one thing – creating videos that will maximize your impact on YouTube is something else entirely. You may have the editing skills to take some footage, some stock, and some simple effects and make a video – but how do you get the most out of your tiny portion of YouTube’s attention?
Short and Sweet
Step one is to keep your videos short and fast-paced. The main attraction of video for people these days is the instant gratification aspect – people like to click a link and instantly see something great. Lengthy intros, sluggish pacing, and repetition are not only sure signs of “padding” out a video to a certain length (a relic of an older age when length was perceived as quality), they’re sure cut ways to drive your audience away. Go for fast edits, and keep bulky transitions to a minimum. Think in terms of sleek and slim – use only the effects and transitions that make a difference, and don’t let any shot linger more than a few seconds.
Grab Visual Interest
Make certain the shots you select are interesting – forget the old rules about composition and quality if you have to. On YouTube, the Rule of Cool is all that matters – people have an infinite choice of videos, so they have to see something amazing right away or they’ll move on. People will watch a grainy, smartphone video of a surprised kitten millions of times – but your perfectly shot, crystal clear videos of a boring talking head against a white background? Forget it.
Ensure Quality
That being said, if your video doesn’t have a surprised kitten in it, make sure you upload a format that YouTube can easily work with. Your video may look amazing on your home deck, but if you upload it in the wrong format or wrapper it will look grainy and lo-res on YouTube – and that will be a turn off unless your video has some serious viral potential (we’re talking sleepy kittens again). Even then, if your video is meant as branding for your company or even yourself, having a bad-looking video won’t help you look good to the world. YouTube is like any other huge market: There’s potential for tremendous success, but that’s offset against the real danger of looking bad and doing more harm to you than good. Think about the platform you’re editing for and make smart decisions about your video before you even plan an edit list. This way your YouTube campaign will pay real dividends.
– Video Caddy
