Just like we preach about written content, telling a relatable story on camera will help your audience care about your product in a way that rote information just can’t. If it’s something that anyone could talk about, it’s probably not worth your time. Whether you’re telling a a story about strife or not, your branded video should focus on one character’s objective and her struggle to achieve it. Though not everyone can afford to hire a director like Spike Jonze or film in such a grand location, brands can still find ways to infuse videos with their unique voice. Don’t show us talking heads Featuring a human is great, but make sure this human is interesting and actually doing things in your video. If the answer is nothing, then you either need to tell a different story in your video or find a way to make it more visually compelling. Don’t assume that because it’s a video, it’s automatically entertaining It’s important to remember that just because your content format is a video, that doesn’t mean people won’t click away. Too often, brands think that by creating a video, they’ve automatically made something interesting. People generally give video two seconds before clicking away, especially on social platforms. Just make sure it’s something they want to be seeing.
When I was a senior in college, I made a series of online videos with one of my best friends. We called the series “Real Life Sammies,” devising something that was half cooking show, half comedy-nonsense, in which we filmed ourselves (poorly) constructing an ideal sandwich to eat during specific experiences.
The post-break up sammie, for example, consisted of two microwaved chocolate chip cookies with Nutella, cookie butter, and rocky road ice cream stuffed in between. We wrote about thirty-five of these recipes and planned to film us making them all, but we stopped after only producing three videos. Disappointingly, the videos were only funny to us and about three of our friends. We had wanted to make videos for the sake of making videos, not because it was the best content format for our project. In hindsight, an Urban Outfitters-style coffee table book would have been more appropriate.
According to just about everything you read nowadays, video is king. Audiences often respond better to video than text, and as technology improves, producing video content is becoming easier and easier. However, before your brand embarks on videos just because you hope the format will generate the numbers you crave, keep these important guidelines in mind.
Do tell a unique story
Even the most dry informational content needs to live within an engaging narrative—if you want anyone to pay attention. Just like we preach about written content, telling a relatable story on camera will help your audience care about your product in a way that rote information just can’t. If the narrative naturally strikes an emotional chord, even better.
It’s also important to ask why your brand has to tell this story instead of your competitors. What makes it truthful and unique to you? If it’s something that anyone could talk about, it’s probably not worth your time.
Do center your videos on human characters
Numbers and abstract concepts are too nebulous to inspire shareable, watchable brand videos—leave those in the board room. Individual human stories, on the other hand, trigger our empathy and make us care.
When we hear a statistic about a disease affecting tens of thousands, for example, it’s hard to conceptualize the size of that story. But when we’re told the story of one patient—her personality traits, family members, hobbies, and values, it’s much easier for us to feel for that single character. Whether you’re telling…
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