Screen capture applications specialist TechSmith has been evangelising the benefits of YouTube for businesses, and how corporate video producers can make the most of the platform giant’s services.
In a blog, TechSmith’s Matt Pierce explains that some three in every four US-based adults uses YouTube, which means the platform can reach millions of users.
“For businesses in particular, YouTube is becoming more and more of a must-have rather than a nice-to-have,” he writes.
“There may be no reason to upload your internal training videos to YouTube, but that doesn’t mean the video-hosting giant isn’t useful to you.”
Pierce goes on to quote principles and tips from established YouTubers to help business users decide what content to produce and publish on YouTube for optimum results and exposure.
“There are some great lessons to be learned from these seasoned video experts — whether that’s getting more comfortable on camera, streamlining your video creation process, or hoping to improve your training/customer education/instructional design videos,” he says. “Your video doesn’t have to be perfect.”
Watch the full Visual Lounge video blog episode with TechSmith’s Matt Pierce here.
Creating video can be time-consuming and expensive, notes Pierce, but it’s a mistake to get caught up in making one piece of content as perfect as possible — especially when you could have produced two or three useful videos in the same amount of time.
Pierce quotes Nick Nimmin, YouTube Certified Creator, as saying not to fall into this trap of overdoing just one video.
“You can avoid this by creating a video checklist or asking yourself a series of questions. For example, is the key information getting across? Is this video going to help my audience?” Nimmin is reported as saying about video creation.
“Are audio and video clear and understandable? Then consider if there’s any part of the video creation process you can skip or change to make it faster.”
For inspiration, try this list of Spiel Creative’s top corporate videos from 2021.
Be tough at the editing stage, but don’t bypass the planning, scripting, or storyboarding stages either, in part because they can help you save time later, Pierce says.
“Amy Landino, co-founder of Aftermarq and host of AmyTV, advises really focusing on developing an efficient video creation process and overcoming the fear of perfection to help you find that consistency,” says Pierce.
“If you’re in a situation where your audience is waiting on your content, they’ll likely prefer your video to be good enough and on time, rather than perfectly polished.”
However, ensure you know and fulfil your specific audiences’ expectations and needs. While they don’t likely expect a corporate video to be Hollywood quality, they do require something specific, Pierce notes.
“Consider where you’re spending your time and if it’s creating value for your audience or not,” he says. “Talking to your audience is one of the best ways to find out what they really want from you. But the other thing you can try is experimenting.”
One strategy is to target your videos at one type of person and keep that persona in mind at every step while planning and creating the video, says Pierce.
TechSmith is the maker of screen capture and recording software including Snagit, Camtasia, Screencast, Audiate and Knowmia.
