Video is a great way to highlight the exciting things you’re doing at your company. It’s also a great way to build long-lasting bonds with clients and show prospects how you value relationships.

Once you’ve produced your “About Us” video, don’t stop there. Look for ways to promote your clients.

The best way to do this is to think about your audience. The people following you on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and beyond. What value are they getting from your content?

Now think about your clients. What types of things are they doing at their business that your audience can learn from?

Have something in mind? There’s your video.

We’re doing this ourselves. T60 is producing a whole series of videos this year featuring our clients and their video strategies. Why they use video and how they use video.

See the first video in the series featuring Goose Island Beer Company.

Our clients get added exposure, our audience gets some fresh PR and marketing insights, and we’re the company that brings it all together.

It’s content that isn’t about us, but it is about us.

–Tony Gnau

We’ve all heard the old adage… if you try to please everyone, you’ll end up pleasing no one. Why would anybody think this is any different when it comes to producing a video?

Some of the trouble spots to avoid…

• Picking participants to be in the video. Some people might be disappointed they were left out. Tough. You need to select the best people for video. If that’s going to create some hurt feelings, sit down with that person. Make sure they know how valuable they are to the company. Find other ways to make them feel special, but if they’re not right for the video… they’re not right.
• Everyone wants to give their two-cents. The script starts floating around… the preview of the finished video hits the office… and everyone has an opinion. First, try to prevent this from happening to begin with. Second, if it’s too late, block out most of that feedback. It might be good to share scripts and previews with a few trusted people, otherwise… too many cooks in the kitchen.

Those are just a couple of examples. There are certainly more, so when they come up just remember… you can’t please everyone, so don’t try. Produce the best video you can and let the critics remain just that.

–Tony Gnau

The advantage of a tight, perfected corporate message is that it allows you complete control over the image you’re putting in front of the public. The disadvantage of a tight, perfected corporate message is that it sounds like you’re trying to keep complete control over the image you’re putting in front of the public.

Viewers these days are sophisticated. If you trot out a company video that sounds like the marketing department has crafted it and managers have polished it, your audience will likely pick up on that.

Maybe that’s no big deal to you, but it is for that audience. What it says to them is that this has been sanitized for their viewing.

Why should we watch something like that?

Ditch your pre-written script and let your team members speak their minds. What you give up in message control you get back in authenticity.

–Tony Gnau

VIDEO: Y-ME Hotline

The Y-Me Hotline is a breast cancer telephone support service. As a video producer, I look at an organization like this and start thinking of the shots we would get. Women with their families, telephone banks, mammogram images… all things that come to mind.

You won’t find any of them in this video, and it still works. When you have a good story, sometimes it can simply stand on its own. Hearing these women talk about their experiences, all the b-roll I mentioned seems pretty trivial.

Now, this isn’t a recommended technique for everyone’s video, but it is a good reminder that if you put the story first your video will turn out well.

–Tony Gnau

That’s why storytelling is so powerful. Anyone can list facts and figures, but they’re unlikely to grab people on an emotional level. That’s what storytelling can do.

Simply producing a video isn’t good enough. Add storytelling to video and you have a combination that’s really going to grab your audience.

–Tony Gnau

His book is Act Like You Mean Business: Essential Communication Lessons from Stage and Screen. I haven’t read it yet, but after seeing his program it’s officially on my must-read list.

Some of the themes he touched on for good PR… storytelling, less is more, knowing your audience. Sound familiar? I told my wife afterwards that I felt like I was hearing the T60 blog read back to me, or maybe what I must sound like at client pitches.

Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed the luncheon and I’m excited to start following Rob via social media.

–Tony Gnau

The problem with many of them is that they’re too long. If your target audience is on the web, you need to keep your video short… less than 2-minutes.

A lot of business leaders balk at this time limit. They think there’s too much information they want to share with viewers, and they won’t be able to cover all of it. I have a solution.

Don’t produce a single video that runs too long. Create a series of short videos. Each one can highlight different aspects about your company that you want to communicate.

The video series puts the audience in control of what they want to watch… guaranteeing you won’t waste their time with information that’s irrelevant to them.

–Tony Gnau

Anyway, I heard during a WGN-TV news story that the City of Chicago has a new website (Chicago Shovels) that lets people track the location of city snow plows and learn about other snow-related resources. I got curious so I checked it out and was excited to see video embedded on the home page.

Guess what? It’s not bad. It looks professionally done, tells a pretty good story, and I actually learned a lot. It even made me interested enough to want to get involved in the Snow Corps program… volunteers who shovel sidewalks for the elderly and disabled.

Go figure… quality storytelling informed me and drove me to action. Sounds like a concept business leaders might want to consider.

–Tony Gnau

Video: Wisconsin Football Experience

One of the things I try to get through to clients is that you can communicate a lot without saying much. Video is about emotion. If you have great visuals, all you need is music and a storyteller who can weave everything together.

This video is a great example. There’s a little gameday audio, but not much. The rest is well-shot video, music and atmosphere.

You want a corporate video that paints a picture of your business? Don’t get hung-up on the company “script.” The more you script, the more it sounds scripted.

The less you script… the better your video will feel.

–Tony Gnau

This isn’t a post about that issue… it’s just about a really lame video produced by the Centers for Disease Control.

The video is intended as an educational piece on why people should immunize. They gather a small group of mothers in someone’s family room and they ask a pediatrician questions about the vaccinations.

All of this would be fine if the moms weren’t so phony. We know all of this is staged, and you know the problem with that? It takes away from the message.

When the video looks staged, we feel like we’re not getting authentic information. It’s been sanitized for us… the audience… and we know it.

The whole thing feels dishonest. Not exactly the impression you want to make on people.

Speak from the heart, be honest with people when producing videos. You shouldn’t immunize the audience.

–Tony Gnau