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Walking the dog this morning, I mulled over the troubles I had putting useful thoughts about television commercials together. Yesterday I'd reviewed my master class video with commercial Director Simon Levene and was hoping to distill his insights for you. After writing page after page of notes, I found it was too specific to Directors and not befitting a business audience. But the idea of short videos wouldn’t go away - I turned my attention to ads appearing on Facebook and Instagram.
There are hundreds of webpages written about FaceBook/Instagram advertising and you'd need days to peruse them all. Hopefully, this boiled down version serves you well. Here are seven takeaways from my dive into FB video ads: Get attention early - people will tune out if the content takes too long to deliver the goods. Keep it short - the FB recommended, and backed by their statistics, says 5-15 seconds. Get your branding in right away - see tip one. Optimize your ad title and description - check which phrases work best with A/B testing. Caption your ads - more people watch with the sound turned off then you’d imagine. Go vertical or go square - no one is turning their phone to watch landscape videos. Think mobile - over 65% of users watch video on their phone Bonus Have a clearly defined objective for your video ad - ultimately, the objective defines why the video exists. Are you after brand awareness, engagement, app installs, lead generation, conversions, store visits? Facebook and Instagram are hot right now. Some thought must be put into them but they are or can be, an effective tool in the marketing game. PS - here’s a link to my favourite Simon Levene TV commercial ( https://www.simonlevene.com/portfolio/workopolis). His class inspired my “dreams” video on the front page of my website (http://www.picturestoryproductions.com/). Drop me a line if you're keen to know more about Simon's insights.
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We bought a garden shed the other day from Rona near Duncan. I drove up-Island to get it and decided to take a side trip to Sansum Narrows and get in some hard physical activity climbing a route on a cliff overlooking the ocean. It's high above the water and boats of all sorts pass by, giving their passengers a good look at my progress.
The route took about an hour to complete and along the way, I began to dwell on the issues of objective and subjective camera angles. Glancing down at the boats, I’m sure the folks were wondering about my state of mind. Their voyeuristic/objective viewpoint would allow them to come to any conclusion. If privy to the subjective view, the one inside my head, they’d probably have been more richly entertained. If you’re telling stories about the products and services you supply, knowing how to use these two perspectives in your videos is important. It’s relatively easy to plop down a camera and record a wide shot of an event or person doing a demonstration. With exceptions, this omnipresent point of view offers no real emotional clues. The subjective angle, on the other hand, is invested in the emotional state of the participant, it gets the viewer involved. It wants us to experience what the character experiences. I was using a pair of board-lasted climbing shoes, ones I normally reserve for hard crack climbing. The subjective angle would showcase my experience with them - happiness at their great grip on the first big holds, progressing to unease on small edges to fear and near panic as the crux (the hardest part) demanded great certainty on polished nubbins. From the objective angle, none of this was “visible” - it was just some dude climbing a cliff. In my head, it was a much different experience. If you want your videos to connect emotionally with your audience, your story must get them invested emotionally. Knowing how to use subjective and objective camera angles will make this much more possible. Although it’s concerned with cinema, here’s a great link to a video on perspective. https://vimeo.com/219223876 Have a great day - Allen Agopsowicz, Picture Story Productions. PS - I successfully negotiated the crux and finished the route safely. Next time, I’ll use my slip-lasted shoes to see how they do. If you’re thinking about making a good preforming video, send me an email and we can talk story and how to get your audience involved. Driving to a training session I was to give to a Search and Rescue (SAR) group, my mind wandered over the outline of my talk. Noting the outcome was the most important part of the session, I reconsidered my talking points. Was I introducing tools, concepts and skills in the right order? Was a deep understanding necessary or could I just cut-to-the-chase and allow a demonstrated proficiency?
In-person training differs greatly from making videos for businesses but I ask many of the same questions. What is the outcome we’re looking for? How should we structure it? Are we demonstrating properly? What questions must be answered? Additionally, videos must be paced, have the right tone and be on target with the audience and branding. Whoa, seems a lot more difficult than giving a talk and demonstrating skills. Nevertheless, here are five mistakes not to make when prepping for your business video. Not knowing the purpose. Not knowing the audience. Not being concise. Not knowing what you’re selling. Not having a narrative flow. In the SAR session, I began my talk with the point of view of the “client” and what they were going through. We progressed to how we’ll help them and introduced the tools and skills needed to get to the desired outcome. We then practised, engraining the lesson. Like making a business video, I knew the purpose, the audience, I stayed concise, knew what had to be sold and wrapped it all in an engaging story. In a few days, the SAR group will be using their new skills at an event where we can make no mistakes. I’ll be on-site, double-checking their proficiency and making notes as to my teaching effectiveness. Your video probably won’t put people’s lives at risk but maybe it’s time to think about it in the same manner. Have a great day - Allen Agopsowicz, Picture Story Productions. PS - send me an email and I’ll reply with a wonderful short read, The Seven Pillars of Storytelling - an excellent primer on engaging your audience. |
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November 2019
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