Part Three – Setting up your video shoot:

With a rapid increase in the popularity of online video, how can you get your message heard above all others?

Part three of this blog series, offers useful tips on how to shoot your video so that it looks and sounds more professional. There is an extensive amount of production tips and advice out there. I am highlighting just some of the main ‘tips and tricks’ to give you an overview of the broad spectrum.

With the advances in mobile phones and digital cameras, video making has become widely accessible. Anyone can pick up a camera, shoot some footage, string it together using a basic video editing software, but the finished result (more likely than not) will not utilise the professionalism needed to make a marketing video stand out.

Setting up your shoot:

• Steadiness Techniques: Get as close to your subject as you can without causing them distress. This will enable you to work at the wider angle end of your lens thus avoiding the instability caused when working on full zoom. However, avoid full wide angle as this is likely to distort your subject.

• Shot Sizes and Angles: When setting up your shot, keep in mind which shots will be edited together; two images shot from the same angle with the same sized subject, will cause a problem with visual continuity.

• Lighting: Video recording systems tend to have a weakness in their inability to cope with contrast and backlighting. A good test to apply for all shooting situations is the “squint test”. Screw your eyes up until they are just slits and you can just about see the subject. Look into the shadow areas. If you can still see detail in the shadow areas then all is OK. If not, you can use reflectors to reflect light back into the shadow areas.

• Sound: Get the microphone as close to the subject as possible. This could entail moving the camera closer to the subject. If this becomes a problem, look to using external microphones that can plug into your camera mic socket and monitor the sound with headphones.

• White balance: To get a more accurate white balance, best way to do this is to set your camera’s white balance to a manual setting. You can then place a white card/board in front of the camera, zoom in so it fills the viewfinder and press the white balance button to adjust the colour cast of the light.

Many organisations are unsure about whether online social media is an appropriate way for them to build their brand. As I mentioned in my previous blog, social media is not right for every brand and finding the right type of social media is critical to developing your brand successfully.  If you’re interested in developing your brand using interactive online ‘conversations’, then social media is right for you.

There are many benefits for using social media to develop brands online:

1. Low cost – Social media marketing is very appealing to organisations due to its low cost investment. The majority of social media sites are free to join so it only costs your time to build your brand effectively online.
2. Wide audience – Social media sites can reach a large audience, especially the major sites such as Facebook.  Social media is increasingly being used, with the majority of internet users becoming a member of a social media site. For example, Facebook now has over 200,000,000 active users (http://thefuturebuzz.com/2009/01/12/social-media-web-20-internet-numbers-stats/). Social media sites used to be associated with the student community but it has now attracted a wide range of ages with different demographics. Niche social media sites have a huge potential due to their diverse audience.
3. Loyalty – Building a strong brand community online is likely to encourage brand loyalty among members due to the relationship building advantage. Consumers often affiliate with the brand and become part of the brand so they are more likely to trust the brand and recommend the brand to others.
4. Increased traffic – By developing online relationships with social media users, they are more likely to visit your website and increase the traffic to your website.
5. Immediate – Social media has the ability to share information almost instantly so consumers are always up to date with the latest news. Social media can help monitor any negative comments online, such as by using Google Alerts, in order to quickly respond and avoid the brand’s reputation from being tarnished. Social media helps to manage the reputation of your brand online to make sure the desired image is being created.
6. Increased awareness – Due to the increased popularity and reach of social media, consumers are increasingly becoming aware of brands and are using social media as an alternative to find out more about your brand compared to traditional methods.
7. Market Research – Social media can be used as a great way for collecting market research due to its potential to monitor a large audience in one place.

As I mentioned in my last blog post, social media is a great way to help build and develop brands online. However, finding the right type of social media is critical to developing your brand successfully.

Social media is about interaction and dialogue and the conversations your audience have about your brand. It is extremely important you choose a social media site which your audience use and has the key features that you require.  Choosing the most popular social media site may be ineffective if it doesn’t include the features which you need. Also, not every brand is a conversation starter so social media may not be for everyone.

The key things to consider when choosing which social media sites are right for you are:

• Target Audience – It is important to find out which social media sites your target audience use.  By researching the user’s demographics in their profiles on different social media sites, you can find out which social media to target to reach your specific demographic.

If your brand is in a specialist industry it is important to choose a social media site aimed at that niche market as it will help build high quality relationships with the relevant audience.  For example, if you want to develop you restaurant online a popular social media site you may choose to use is: http://www.fohboh.com/

• Choosing relevant content – Make sure your content is relevant to your target audience by looking at the content on the social media sites which your audience use.  If your content is interesting and relevant to your audience they are more likely to join your online brand community.

• Your objectives – Find out what features different social media sites offer and whether they will meet your objectives. If your main objective is to network, you may want to choose a social media site that allows you to send messages and share links with other users and create groups. As social media is used to interact and develop conversations, it is important that this is a key objective.

These important considerations will help you decide which social media site is appropriate to build your brand. Ideally, choose a general social media aimed at a large audience to increase your brand awareness but also focus on a niche site to help build your brand and relationships.

Social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, are increasingly being used by organisations to help build and develop their brand online. Branding is essential for organisations to stand out and develop a superior status.

The brand’s personality must be clearly conveyed so that consumers can relate to the brand as it is the consumer who ultimately creates the brand’s meaning. One key way which social media helps develop the brand personality is by creating a community which allows consumers to affiliate and become part of the brand. By building the brand online, loyal communities are likely to develop with consumers who trust your brand. However, organisations have to ensure they are genuine about communicating the brand’s personality to avoid confusion and so consumers can relate to the brand and feel that it matches their personality.

There are several key things to do to ensure you successfully use social media to build your brand:

• Define your objectives – Define how you want to use social media to develop your brand. Social media will not have long term benefits to your brand if you do not have a clearly defined objective of how you want to position your brand
• Identify your target audience – Once you have determined your target audience, you can choose the appropriate social media sites to reach that audience. You can then create targeted and relevant content for your audience so they will be interested in joining your brand community. For example, if you want to develop a fashion brand online you may want to target a community interested in fashion, such as Fashion Network.
• Networking – By actively networking with other social media users, relationships are more likely to develop with your target audience, who will visit your site and help build your brand.
• Link Building – By including links to relevant sites with a similar or higher status to your own will potentially increase your own status and traffic due to developing a positive association.  By including frequent referrals in your own blog posts, other social media users are likely to reciprocate and refer to you as well. This will ultimately help develop your brand community.
• Monitor your reputation – To make sure you reach your branding objectives in using social media you have to monitor what other social media users are saying about you. This way you ensure you are conveying your intended message and you are creating the right brand image.

By following these key tips, you can use social media to successfully develop your brand online.

Chiefs do Tweet

Everyday I talk to many business people and, whilst they usually have a personal Twitter account, they can’t quite see how it could benefit them as a business tool.

So we need a frame for this; a context within which Twittering as a business makes sense.  Wikinomics and the trend towards mass collaboration in business is already upon us. The rules of this game are openness, sharing, socialising (peering) and acting globally. Marketing is moving towards peer to peer generated conversations (pull) rather than the ‘push’ of mass broadcast campaigns. 

Twitter is fuel for the fire of buzz and collaboration around your business or brand.  But to be successful in the world of ‘Business 2.0′  you need to be ready for a culture shock (perhaps): what matters here is openness, authenticity and transparency.  You have to be prepared to be yourself, and show the person behind your company.

Here are some tips on Twittering for business:

1. Embrace the new rules: make sure your Twitter presence (profile, picture etc) and your tweets show your organisation as non-hierarchical, open and authentic and transparent. Tweet regularly and include a mix of business, but keep it informal, and personal, revealing bits about your unique personality. People buy people, especially those they trust; openness, authenticity and transparency build trust.
2. People to people: Be informal, forget hierarchy. Social media breaks all that gumpf down. Show your personal side in your bio; reveal the person (at least have a photo of yourself).
3. Ask and ye shall recieve: It goes without saying that sharing information will increase your popularity. In fact sharing information and forwarding what you know is the new networking according to Harvard Business. All the best business networkers share to get ahead. You can do this on Twitter by retweeting (RT), sharing links (use URL shorteners such as bit.ly, not tinyurl), and advertising your (interesting) blog posts.  But you can also power up your sharing by asking. Ask your followers for advice, input, questions for research – of course, feel free to offer them little rewards in return!
4. Admit your mistakes: all great samurais do this, and all the best leaders in business. If you get it wrong, admit it
5. Get socialising: get to know your followers and socialise with them. Ask them questions and share their information. Use @, RT’s, direct messages (DM) to engage and you will get more out of your Twitter network.

Many CEOs are Twittering. Twitter is micro-blogging and leads to exponential sharing of information and news in no more than 40 characters – what business leader would not be attracted to that!!Check out the following for some good examples:

• Tim O’Reilly - Chief Exec O’Reilly Media
• Christine Perkett - Chief Exec of PerkettPR
• Michael Hyatt - Chief Exec of Thomas Nelson

Other posts you might like:

• Getting Your Head Around Facebook for Business
• Use the Science of Influence to Leverage your Network on Twitter
• 7 Ways to Use Twitter to Power up your Online PR