Posted by Catie Foertsch on Mon, Jun 01, 2009 @ 08:30 AM
In the relatively recent past, if you wanted video on your website you had to hire a video production company because they had the equipment and the know-how. You'd probably decide to make one single video for your home page, because video was expensive and complicated. And when production was complete, you were glad to have that one single video on your home page, because it made you stand out. The idea of shooting one or two videos per week for your blog, or populating your site with 10 or 20 or 30 videos, or more, wasn't really considered. The cost was too high, and what would be the point? One video was enough.
Now, everything is different. Now, you can buy a $150 camera and shoot your own video, upload it to YouTube and embed it in your site, all without any professional help. Now, the question is whether your video has to be excellent, or whether it's good enough to just have video. In other words, do you have to hire a production company or can you make it yourself?
The answer is that there isn't one answer. Video has gone from an expensive, one-of-a-kind custom-made bauble for your website, to a major, mainstream, indispensible element for companies that plan to grow and succeed. Video is now like text: you need text that gets the job done and that presents your company as professional and capable and credible. Whether you get your text from a copywriter or write it yourself doesn't matter. You'll probably get your text from both sources: a copywriter for some or most of your website pages, and you for your blog and some pages.
Which brings us back to video. It doesn't really matter whether you make it yourself or hire a production company. What matters is that all of your video content presents your company as professional, capable and credible. That all of it supports your brand and communicates your message.
The challenge for the video production industry is to stop fretting that the advent of companies making their own video means the end of us. To the contrary: this is a time of enormous opportunity for the video production industry. Enormous opportunity. But we must figure out how to provide quantities of video to populate a company's website at a reasonable price. And, we must accept that companies will be making a lot of their own video content. More than that - we must help them do it. We must understand that we need to - and should - provide far more than straight video production. We should be your media company, your go-to source for all things video, not just the final, finished product.
And - the challenge for companies like yours is to understand that all of your video content, regardless of who made it, must support your brand and present your company as professional, capable and credible. This means that if you're making your own video and it's looking like your 11-year-old daughter and her friends made it, then it might be wise to ask for help.