Top 4 tips for making DIY videos for your small business

Videos make complicated things into simple ones. Hope everyone will agree to this.

Have you ever watched a demo/installation video of a product instead of going through the user manual? Your answer will be definitely YES. This is because the visual form of information attracts the user more than the written content and also makes people understand difficult things in a simple way. Likewise, including videos in your marketing strategy helps you to expand your small business faster than ever. Nowadays, many small businesses use videos for communicating with customers. They create good quality videos to explain about their products, new features that are updated in their products, their services, etc., and to stay on top thereby keeping in touch with the customers.

Today, because of this pandemic situation businesses need to close for everyone to isolate. But, to communicate with customers they need to make videos. Many small businesses adopted the way of making DIY videos to promote their products and to improve sales since they could not bring technical expertise for making videos.

DIY video production is affordable and easy and it gives a genuine glimpse of what is happening around you. One example is Facebook Live which is a trendsetter these days.

So, as a part of continuous communication and marketing initiative, you have to go for DIY videos. But how to make DIY videos? Here are the top 4 tips on how to make DIY videos.

(1) Type of video

Now, you have decided to make a video. What is the first step? The first step is to decide what type of video you want to make. There are many types of videos, but most of the videos that are used for marketing in small business is either animation / live video. You can prefer live videos when you want to speak about your company story, sales, any technical concepts related to your business, or while explaining your services to customers.

Live video can be either one person speaking about company/sales/services or it can be a conversation between two persons. For example, in the conversation type, one person can gather queries from customers about the product and post them to the other speaker. The other speaker can give the answers with screenshots. This will definitely get the customers closer to you.

You can prefer animation video while promoting brands, explaining your product features, apps that you develop, etc. You can either explain the screenshots in the video by giving your voice / add pleasant music if the animation itself is clear for understanding.

(2) Video Equipment

You can make videos of good quality by staying at home. This is one of the important things in DIY video making which has become a boon in this pandemic situation. Now, all that we need to do is to get equipment which will help you in making a video of good quality. Below are some tips which might be helpful:

• For video making, most of us would be definitely preferring a camera on iPhone or Android devices. So, the need for a separate camera is the least choice.
• Next, you will need a tripod device. The main use of a tripod is to avoid a shaky camera shot, proper positioning of your smartphone, and also improve the quality of the video.
• Even though there is a mic on the smartphone, it is better to get a microphone separately. This will definitely improve the quality of the voice of the person who speaks in the video.

Also, apart from equipment, select a relevant topic and prepare a good script that conveys the essence of the topic with clarity.

(3) Setting up the environment

Once you have got the essential video equipment, then you need to go for setting up the environment. You may not find a professional environment at home. But you can definitely make arrangements to bring the feel of the environment which is similar to that of your office where you record the video. Now, how to create an environment for video recording? Below are tips that might be useful in selecting a better environment for recording a video:

• Select a place in your home which is clean and also where you do not get many interruptions
• Try to keep your background perfect for your video. Keep a flower pot or make some arrangements from where you are going to record the video.
• Lighting is very important for video recording. So, you need to take care that a good amount of light falls on the person who speaks in the video.
• Position your smartphone carefully in the tripod and this arrangement needs to be properly set up based on the position of the speaker. For example, if the speaker is going to sit and speak, then the smartphone arrangement can be placed on a table in front of the speaker in such a way that camera is towards the person and at a height where it focuses him/her with clarity. Similarly, set up the tripod for the person if he/she stands and speaks.
• Make sure to record the video in landscape mode as it gives a professional feel
• Close the room to avoid sound and then record the video with clarity
• Keep the timings of the video within 5 mins

(4) Video Editing

After recording the video, the next part is editing the recorded video. This part is very important as the quality of your entire video depends on the way you have edited your video. You can use editing tools like Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Premiere Elements, Lumen 5 to make your video more professional. At this point, you need to take care of the following things:

• Adjusting colors, sound, lighting, etc
• Adding good music if required
• Adding relevant images or screenshots of apps in between the speaker’s image for conveying the information with clarity

Now, you have completed your video. Before launching your video on YouTube, have a review with your team members to know the quality of your video. Once you get the comments from your team members, modify the video and then you can check with the revised video. If everything is fine, then you can launch your video on YouTube. You should also be careful while making DIY videos as the quality of the video should be similar to that of normal video which is recorded in a conventional way. This way of DIY videos is essential to prove your presence during the pandemic and also to keep you on top in business.