By Ian D Spencer
Since its release in February 2005, YouTube has changed the way we use the Internet, as it was the first real video website that had enough videos to make it worth using and also had the technology to make it feasible for millions of people to use it at the same time. Started by three former PayPal employees who could really see what the Internet needed at the time and purchased by Google back in 2006, YouTube has become a household name across the world.
With many millions of videos on YouTube and other video sharing websites including Dailymotion and Google videos, it can be really hard to make a video that will not only get seen by users but also have a chance of making them send it onto their friends via the various social networking websites or email.
One of the most famous videos in the UK was “Charlie Bit My Finger”, which Wikipedia reports as having achieved around 250 million hits since it was released. This not only shows that if you get a video that people adore you will get viewers, but it also shows that the Internet community is ready to watch anything that you throw at them and then make up their own mind about how good it is.
Some of the things that make a good marketing video on the Internet include:
- Length – The best videos tend to be those that around 2 – 3 minutes in length, as this seems to be the ideal length of time for Internet viewers. This also ties up with TV advertising where the maximum length of an advert is normally around two minutes else people just lose interest and look elsewhere.
- Picture Quality – One of the biggest issues for viewers is the quality of the picture, with many businesses thinking that a quick upload from their mobile phone will do the job. For home video makers this might well do, but if you are a business trying to promote a product or service then you need to invest in a decent video camera to really produce something of quality.
- Audio Quality – Another big issue is the quality of the audio on a video, with many of the standard camera microphones not really being good enough to record sound in high detail. You can either buy a really good microphone or you can overlay a different audio track on top of your video once it is completed by using a piece of video editing software.
- Content – Before you begin your video, sit down and work out a rough plan of action, a flow structure and then start thinking about how you are going to make the video to match your plan of action. A video that has been thrown together and has not had much thought put into it will shine through, so make sure that you think about why you are releasing this video and what you want it to achieve.
- Message – Make sure your video has a message that this message is clearly identifiable as you want people to finish watching your video and then understand exactly what it was about, especially if it is a marketing video.
- Usefulness – Some of the most watched videos on the Internet are ones that teach people how to do things, videos like “how to fix a plug” or “how to mend a broken washing machine”. Even things likes changing a tyre on the car or removing moles from your land get literally thousands of views, proving that the thirst for knowledge has never been so great, fed by the Internet.
