6 steps to prepare a company video

In the last decade social media has contributed massively to PR and how businesses communicate with their publics; and with the recent news that YouTube has taken over Facebook as the largest social network, receiving more than one billion unique visitors every month, businesses need to move to video if they want to ensure they are communicating with all of their stakeholders.

Here are a few tips on how to prepare for your video coverage.

1. Prepare a script for speaking roles

No one knows your business as well as you do, but unfortunately video speech is something that cannot be improvised, even if the subject is something you know very well. This is because you need to keep your speech within a specific time frame, and to do so you should write a script and record yourself to ensure it is within the time allocated. It also means that you won’t use fillers such as ‘erm’ as often as your speech will be nearby to read from.

2. Ensure you have a speaker prepared

It is important to allocate the speaker role to someone who is confident and reflects the image your business wants to give. Sometimes the business’s MD or an employee works best as it shows the transparency of the organisation. However, if there is no one suitable, the best way to maintain professionalism is to use an actor, or if the video will be of visual material, a voiceover.

3. Have an open that grabs the audience’s attention

Ensure your script starts off with a hook which grabs the audience’s attention. If the video does not attract its audience then viewers will not listen to the message you are trying to put across to them. Use rhetorical questions to draw the listeners in as they will relate better to what you are saying if it is addressed to them.

4. Keep it to one message

If the video is limited with time, only give one message per video as you don’t want to confuse the listener and the message you are trying to get across. Keeping things simple will allow you to communicate more clearly and more effectively.

5. Focus on the audience’s point of view

Write the script as if you are targeting the listener and focus on the message you are sending to them. Instead of using pronouns such as ‘I’ and ‘My’, steer towards ‘You’ and ‘Your’, this will give a more conversational element to your video and encourage two-way communication with your publics.

6. Capture all news and events

Even if the videos are short, collecting additional footage on a range topics will always help when editing your videos for the best visual material, and even if it isn’t used, it is important to keep a record of the work you are doing.