These days, video is perhaps the leading format out there for conveying a strong sense of brand identity to prospective customers.
As visual technology has become more and more advanced and dominant, the old adage that “a picture is worth a thousand words” appears to be more true than ever before.
Video has a way of reaching people on a deep and emotive level within a few seconds – in a way and to an extent that is difficult to match with all but the tightest and most well-crafted prose.
Of course, conveying a strong brand story via video requires a good deal of finesse, and is an art in and of itself – not just something that you can casually rush in an hour or two.
Here are some key elements of a successful brand story video – more specifically, here are a few things that you need to do in order to ensure that your video does a good job of conveying your brand story and identity in a way that will resonate with your intended target audience.
First things first: if you don’t have a clear sense of the vision you’re trying to impart and the story you are trying to tell, there is absolutely no chance that the people who are going to be viewing your video will be able to figure out what’s going on.
Every video project needs to begin with a clear message, and a clear direction. This might require spending some time brainstorming and refining your core brand identity and “USPs,” but at the very least, it will require you to identify a core motif or impression that you want to convey.
Video-making is a fairly involved and resource-intensive process – and it’s easy to try to do too much, and to end up with a jumbled and confusing mess as a result. Sidestep this entire issue by focusing your energies and cutting out anything that is likely to be extraneous.
Plan your brand video script carefully to make sure it really hits the spot, you can always make adjustments as you go but having a clear path to the end goal will help keep you on point with your messaging.
One mistake that people often make when trying to market their products or services, in general, is focusing on “features” rather than “benefits.”
In other words, it’s easy to end up waxing lyrical about the technical specs of a particular product or service of yours or to get completely caught up in presenting tables of numbers that you consider to be impressive and striking.
When all is said and done, though, this is rarely ever what prospective customers are actually looking for. Rather, they will have some problem that they need to be solved, and they will be looking for a company that can offer clear solutions and benefits.
In other words, it’s about the story and narrative of what your services can do to improve the life of your prospective customer. Therefore, when putting together a video, you need to focus on that narrative. You need to be emotionally evocative, and you have to paint a picture of how life will be better thanks to whatever it is your company provides.
This is the art of storytelling in its essence: a focus on the human element, rather than on data points. Of course, this doesn’t mean that you can’t or shouldn’t use references to data at all – but it does mean that you should only use those references insofar as they help to advance the narrative you’re trying to present.
If your prospective customers have particular expectations from the companies that operate within your niche – or, at least, if they have particular desires for how those companies should appear and conduct themselves – you will generally be well advised to try to meet those expectations rather than to go completely off in your own direction.
That is to say, when you’re putting a video together to display your brand identity, you should do a bit of research in order to see which sorts of motifs, images, and stories are popular with your prospective customer base.
Have a look at what your competitors are doing, get information from focus groups wherever possible, and attune your imagery to match those desires and expectations.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that you have to – or should – be completely “by the numbers,” or that you should plagiarise or parrot anyone else’s content. But if – for example – a major desire among your customers is for an aura of respectability and affluence, you probably shouldn’t create an urban-inspired video featuring kids in casual-wear, with hip-hop music playing in the background.
A professional video hosting platform can go a very long way in helping you to actually optimise your video and get out there in a way that will most benefit you.
Among other things, professional video hosting platforms can help you to effortlessly stream your video wherever it might be best placed, in addition to allowing for live broadcasts and streaming, the creation of playlists, access to assorted agency tools, and more.
If you’re going to go to all the trouble of working on an effective video, the last thing you should want to do is to undermine it at the last possible moment, by going with a clunky free-to-use platform instead.
It’s often said among authors that “all writing is rewriting,” and there is no doubt something similar at play when it comes to video making, too.
You might have an excellent concept for a video in mind. You might then do a great job of choosing your setting, arranging the right motifs and elements, and all the rest.
But, you could still sabotage the entire project by being too hasty and sloppy with your editing process.
Generally speaking, all prospective customers will look for key indicators of professionalism in your content before they are willing to give you the time of day. A typo in your video, or an untidy and obvious jump cut, could therefore really sink the entire endeavour.
So finally, go the extra mile and comes editing your video carefully – and spend as much time as needed to do it well.
If you decide to go live with your business, then creating a content calendar for live videos will allow you to produce regular posts and interact with your audience in a way that interests them. Zidivo is a live streaming platform with loads of information and advice. Read more about creating a content calendar.
Once you’ve decided to take your business live, broadcasting regularly becomes really important. It’s how you build your live streaming audience and achieve the goals of your live streaming campaign. A content calendar allows you to create regular video content that’s topical, helpful and achievable.
Download and print our content calendar worksheet to help you plan your live videos!
Before you start creating your live video content calendar, evaluate your goals so you can ensure your content is focused.
When you’re beginning your live streaming campaign, you need to know your audience. Who are your customers? Who are you targeting with your videos? You might have a few different kinds of audiences that you want to target, but being precise with this will help you to focus your video content to each audience.
Why are you going live? What do you want to accomplish through this campaign? When you know what your goal is in going live, you can tailor your video content to help achieve it.
You should also ask the same questions of each individual video that you create so you can make sure that your content is contributing to the whole.
How often do you want to stream a live video? It’s good to be regular and consistent with your streaming so you might want to choose a specific time on a specific day. This could be once a week or once a month, depending on what’s realistic and helps you to achieve your goals.
Once you know your audience, goals and how frequently you want to produce content, you can start to brainstorm topics. Live video is extremely versatile and would allow you to explore a huge number of topics and even presentation styles, so you should be able to come up with a lot of ideas!
Assign each idea to a slot in your content calendar so you know what you’re covering and when.
Here are some good places to start or things to consider:
Write down a list of FAQs. These are things you already know that your customers or audience are interested in. You could create an FAQ series in which you answer a question in each video. It’s a great way to engage your target audience as you know that they will want to watch the content.
You could even consider a live FAQ session. People can message their questions to you throughout the video and you can answer them as they come through.
Your business might sell certain products or services differently depending on the season. If you specialise in gardening, for example, spring might be a big time of year for you. Consider how you can make the most of seasonal trends and highlights through the content you release. You could cover seasonal topics, but also look to push certain services at certain times of the year.
Christmas is a big season that affects most businesses! Can you tailor live video content in the lead up to Christmas?
From International Women’s Day to National Weatherperson's Day, national and international days are scattered throughout the calendar. They could be a fantastic way to generate relevant content for your live videos, celebrate things that are important to your audience or honour important events.
Whenever your company has news, you can share it via live video. Launching new products, hosting lectures, or hiring new members of staff… whatever it is, you can talk about it via live video. If you know something new is coming, plan it into your content calendar.
Be sure to plan your content calendar several months in advance -- or even better, a year -- so you’re always prepared for your next video. It can help you to create effective video series that your audience will want to watch!
Use our content calendar worksheet! It has a summary of all our points to help you create an effective calendar for your live videos.
If you’re looking for a professional streaming platform, Zidivo can help. Why spend lots of time perfecting your video content, only to choose a free, poor quality platform? Zidivo is affordable (at just £20 a month!) and allows you to stream in professional HD quality.
Live streaming is a brilliant tool that can be used to engage viewers, share your event or build brand awareness. However, there’s little gain in live streaming when no one’s watching — so how do you build an audience for your video stream? Read 7 easy tips from Zidivo to build your live streaming audience.
If you’re looking for a professional live streaming platform, then why not try Zidivo? It’s free for 30 days and comes with unlimited customer support.
You may only have a small audience, but it’s still vital that you understand your current audience and know who you’re trying to target. This will shape everything about your live streaming from the content to the marketing.
Demographic is an important part of this. Think about age and gender, as well as where your audience is located in the world. One of the great things about live streaming is that it can bring people from across the globe to an event, but it’s important to consider how you cater for international people, time zones and cultures. Getting this right will make it easier for international people to be part of your audience.
You should also consider what kind of people you’re targeting: your own customers? Businessmen? Parents? This might vary from video to video, but it will impact the content of the video, the time you stream it and how you promote it to build your audience.
People will only watch live videos, or any video, that appeals to them, interests them or is helpful. If it’s appropriate for you, you can cover trending topics or recent news as this is likely to capture the interest of your audience.
Think about what topics are relevant to you and will also appeal to your specific audience.
When you know your topic and feel confident that is interesting in itself, you have to think about how you produce your content to continue the engagement. People will tune in to a topic that interests them, and stay if you continue to deliver. This is how you build a long-term audience that will return to watch your live streams in the future.
Producing a good live steam video requires good lighting, sound and video recording equipment, but also considerations such as choosing the best colours for your clothing, writing an engaging script and incorporating other visuals.
When you know your topic, you’ve got to promote it. This will look different for every business or organisation, but it’s essential to build your audience and so people know when to tune in.
The most effective way to do this, if your topic allows, is to tease your audience with snippets of information that add intrigue or capture the person’s interest, but don’t fulfil it. Be sure to let them know when and where they can view the full video though!
Ask questions and don’t yet give the answer, show interesting photos of the production, or give small facts that you’re going to build on in your video — there are loads of different ways to capture the interest of your potential audience ahead of the live stream.
Make the most of your social media channels to build awareness of your event. Post lots in advance to let people know what to expect and why they should tune in. You could use various paid advertising methods — on Facebook, for example — to promote the video ahead of time. Try to give people a way to be reminded, like opting in to an email or encouraging them to like your page, so they don’t just forget!
If you have an email database of subscribers, email marketing can be a great way to engage people and let people know about your video ahead of time. You could incorporate it into your newsletter, or send out a special email reminder just for the event.
Combining different marketing channels is the best way to promote your video ahead of it going live and therefore build your audience.
Producing a high-quality video is really important, thinking about content, equipment and how you engage your audience. However, the quality of your video itself will be wasted if you don’t use a quality streaming platform. If you’re paying for professional video production, it’s essential that the high quality can be seen through the streaming.
There are a few different live-streaming platforms, including Zidivo. A paid platform will allow you to produce significantly better results than a free platform would.
If your video stream is of low quality, then your audience is likely to switch it off and move on to something else, and are less likely to return in the future.
Live streaming is amazing because you can react in the moment to what your viewers are saying. The trick to building a lasting audience is to make your viewers feel like they’re participating and in on the action, not just spectating. The more a person feels part of the live event, the more they’re going to enjoy the video and want to return.
Encourage people to send in messages in real-time and respond to them on the video. Engage with your audience in any way you can. If you’re streaming an event or talk, you could give a shout out to the people joining you remotely.
Conversation can continue after your video. Talk with viewers about what they found helpful and what they want to see more of in the future. This will help you to continue to create content that people want to see.
You won’t be able to build an audience for your live video if you stream sporadically. The more consistent and regular you can be, the more likely you are to build a loyal audience.
If you stream once every week, choosing the same time of day can mean people know when to tune in and are therefore more likely to catch your video while it’s live.
Zidivo is a professional live streaming platform that’s suitable for a huge range of organisations and professionals. Why not try our 30-day free trial to discover how Zidivo can improve your video live streaming and help you to build a bigger audience?