It’s important to develop an aesthetic and a shooting style for your brand, but equally as important to push boundaries and experiment. So on a whim, I emailed our friends at LensProToGo and asked to borrow an 800mm super telephoto lens. They said yes!
Trying new gear, like new lights, new background paper, or a super-specialized $13,000 telephoto lens, can help keep things fresh and inspire creativity. We learned some good lessons from shooting with the 800mm Canon f/5.6 super telephoto lens, and we boiled it all down to four main takeaways for this post. ### Background compression With a lens this powerful, you can create some wild optical illusions. I knew the fundamental rule that zoom lenses will flatten out images, but I had never used a lens that compressed everything like the 800mm. During our time with the 800mm, we successfully recreated the iconic landing strip scene from the movie Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. We also recreated the “hamster wheel” visual effect from The Graduate, when the main character, Benjamin, is running towards the camera, and the visual effect communicates that he’s not getting anywhere. Every lens can help to tell a different story visually. The lack of depth in each shot was new and fun to work with. The gears started turning for me and our creative director, Dan, when we began to imagine different ways to use this flattened image effect in a video.
“Every lens can help to tell a different story visually.”
### Stabilization is hard I knew that getting a steady shot would be a challenge with this beast of a lens. So I mounted the lens on the largest tripod in our fleet. Even with the lens on the tripod and the lens image stabilizer turned on, it was so incredibly difficult to eliminate camera shake. While we were outside, the wind was knocking the lens and causing shake. Inside the office on the second floor, the camera would shake anytime someone walked within 25 feet of the camera! I must be doing something wrong here. How do you get stable video footage with this thing?! If you know how… let us know in the comments. In the end, I had good luck applying the Warp Stabilizer plugin to our footage in Adobe Premiere. This did a dang good job smoothing things out and minimizing the jello effect. ### Sneaky shots are fun Within the first few hours of renting this lens, we began sneaking around the office, shooting footage of teammates from way far away. Once we set up the shot, we’d send them the “you’re on camera!” message on Slack, and they’d start searching for us. The aha moments were pretty hilarious.
Being able to shoot from that far away and still get a quality close-up image was totally eye-opening. It was an entirely different shooting experience to be a fly on the wall. Just like in the movies, you really could be inconspicuous with this lens and still be getting super sharp close-up visuals.
“Being able to shoot from that far away and still get a quality close-up image was totally eye-opening.”
With all that being said, this lens is truly made for the great outdoors. The Wistia office is pretty big and all, but the 800mm wasn’t even breaking a sweat shooting all the way from one end to the other. ### Experimentation breeds creativity For me, this is where the real takeaway is. New gear will give you new perspectives, which ultimately supercharge creativity. It’s like a crazy powerful brainstorm session. In a business setting, it can be hard to justify spending time experimenting, but the truth is, the new ideas, team-building, and creative energy that these sessions inspire make it all worthwhile. If you’re eager to try some new gear, I highly recommend renting. It gives you the opportunity to try something on, see if you like it, and return it at the end of the day. Do we know how we’d use this super telephoto lens for a business video? Not yet. And while the 800mm lens will never make my desert island gear list, I’m really happy to have experimented and ventured past the 200mm mark.
LIBRARY » VIDEO GEAR
Get Creative with Lenses
Chris covers advantages and disadvantages of a fast lens, telephoto lens, wide-angle lens, fish-eye lens, and more.
Marking your clips during your shoot can be crazy helpful when you’re sifting through footage in editing. One easy way to help your future self find a good clip during editing is to use a technique we’ve dubbed “the hand trick.” ### The technique When I’m shooting, as soon as I know I have a good take, I use my hand to cover the lens for a second or two. This makes my life so much easier when I’m scrubbing through my footage in editing. I’ll fast-forward the footage until I see my tiny hand over the lens, and then find my clip.
“When I’m shooting, as soon as I know I have a good take, I use my hand to cover the lens for a second or two.”
I learned about the hand trick from friends who make skateboarding videos. Since it can take a whole bunch of failed attempts to land a tough trick, the person shooting would use this handy technique to mark when the skater finally completed the move. ### Every rose has its thorn A word to the wise: don’t bite the hand that feeds. My rule is to never EVER mark clips when I’m doing an interview or a testimonial. Once talents catch on to this pattern (and they will), they might become self-conscious when they don’t see the hand fly up to the lens. Trust me, I’ve learned this the hard way. So my philosophy is to only mark clips when you’re working with a scripted video. ### Just because And now, here are some hand puns about the hand trick: The hand trick: helping you edit your videos faster, one hand at a time!
The hand trick: hands down the handiest trick to speed up your editing.
The hand trick: give your future self a helping hand.
The hand trick: giving you the upper hand in post-production.
The hand trick: get your hands dirty while shooting.
Okay, this list is out of hand.
LIBRARY » PRODUCTION
Editing Basics for Business Video
A guide to some basic editing theories that you can apply in any software
On February 11, we hosted a #WistiaChat with Sprout Social’s social media expert, Darryl Villacorta. This #WistiaChat focused on how to make social media video a core part of your marketing strategy, and folks had some excellent tips. In case you missed the live chat, we documented some highlights in this post. You can also see the Storify to look through some of our most helpful tweets. ### Social video is different from the rest Video made for social media has some limiting factors—it’s shorter, it should be really engaging, and most importantly, it should qualify as a “thumbstopper.” In a world where we scroll through feeds all day long, social video has to be engaging enough for someone to stop scrolling—a big ask in today’s social-heavy web. Wistians agreed that social video has to be short, sweet, and to the point, all while being super shareable. - “Social videos allow us to experiment. We can try out new concepts that are short and sweet!” @animoto - “I liken social videos to snackable, bite-sized pieces of content that best utilize social platforms as their venue.” @TheMiddle ### Tailor your videos to your platform Your audience differs across your social media platforms, so why don’t your videos? Content you make for Facebook may not work as well on Instagram, and vice versa. One of the largest differences between the platforms is their time limitations. Be sure to pay attention to video length! Wistians across the board agree that catering to the needs of each platform will give you more engagement and a better rapport with your audience. Think about what does best on each platform and what your audience wants to see. From there, you can create social videos that shine. - “Definitely. Each platform has own audience which engages with different styles of content. Start w/ experiments/research.” @iservin - “Tailor social video content to the strengths of the network it will be published to. One size doesn’t fit all.” @TheMiddle ### Make videos that don’t need sound Autoplaying videos have made “mute” the default setting on everyone’s laptop. Being interrupted with high-volume videos is a terrible experience, and we’ve learned to adapt. Therefore, so should our content! Creating videos that excel without sound has been a tricky challenge, but Wistians had some great tips. For example, use text in creative ways to draw attention and tell a story. - “Internal Facebook tests show that captioned video ads increase video view time by an average of 12%.” @TheMiddle - “Strong visual opening is key. It’s kind of cheesy, but we ask how is this content a thumbstopper?” @iservin ### Great video is meant to be shared Great video should be shared, but there’s no formula for making it go viral. Wistians agree that it’s better to focus on your audience. What would they value? What helps them, and what do they enjoy? Once you have those answers, you can start making video that folks will love to share. - “Never try make something viral. Try make it relevant to your audience.” @Office_Zombie - “Yeah. Virality is a flash in the pan that’ll be forgotten. Helpfulness is how you build an empire!” @fixingyourvideo ### Integrate social video into your marketing strategy Video on social media works, and incorporating it into your marketing strategy doesn’t have to be a hassle. Choose some short video ideas, script them out, and start shooting! Social video doesn’t need to be perfect. Use it as your playground and experiment! Your concepts can engage your audience, explain your product, or just liven up your audience’s day! Social video can reinforce your brand’s identity and help folks feel closer to your company and your team. - “Hands down, social loves video - not that difficult for brands to produce, should be worked into social strategy.” @sarahkwalters - “Social videos help w/ brand awareness. We highlight company culture that helps support recruiting potential job candidates.” @TheMiddle ### Get out there and create! We love seeing great examples of video on social media. Have you created some “thumbstoppers”? Seen any brands making creative and inspiring shorts? Let us know in the Community!
LIBRARY » STRATEGY
Crafting a Social Video Strategy
Tactics, best practices, and creative ideas for social media videos
With great automation, comes great responsibility (and opportunity). As our campaigns and workflows multiply, our customers receive increasingly tailored treatment (great). Relevant content sails in at opportune times, and assuming companies set it up correctly, the whole system is scalable (even better). That’s all well and good, but as humans and content creators on the other end of this automated system, we have a responsibility—an opportunity—to shine. Now that marketers are spending less time thinking about delivery and segmentation, we’ve got more energy and resources available to take our content to the next level. We’ve got more time to make our communications more captivating, more personable, and more human, than ever. To offset these efficient systems, we’ve got to double down on those personal touches. At Infusionsoft, a software company that offers a CRM and marketing automation platform geared toward small businesses, their lead development team relies heavily on video and email to make their email campaigns more “human.” ### Infusionsoft’s automation architecture With over 30 different email campaigns customized for specific user behaviors, Infusionsoft’s lead development team is able to cater to different people’s demonstrated interests and use cases. Jared Kimball, Demand Generation Strategist at Infusionsoft, explained, “Our lead scores are made up of two parts—one is based on demographic information, the other is related to their engagement level on our site and email activities.” If lead scoring—the process of prioritizing and ranking your sales leads—is new to you, check out this blog post on lead scoring and video to learn more. When prospective customers perform certain actions on Infusionsoft’s website (like watching product videos or entering their email addresses to engage with content), they accumulate scores. When their scores reach a certain threshold, they appear on the lead development team’s radar. Based on this information, members of the lead development team will call prospective customers and gather more details. ### Video for every behavior Phones can be tricky. In an ideal world, your prospective customer picks up the phone, you have a friendly chat, and you connect them with your sales team (if the chat goes well). Sounds easy enough. But what if they don’t pick up? What if they entered the wrong number? What if you start a game of phone tag? Woof. No one likes phone tag. These one-to-one communications quickly become complicated and time-consuming. Enter video. Combining video and email can go a long way when you’re trying to reach your customers and leave a lasting first impression. Instead of sending a generic email saying, “Sorry we missed you. Call us back at your convenience,” why not take the opportunity to delight someone with a video that speaks to their experience with your company? #### “Wrong Number” campaign When a member of Infusionsoft’s lead development team attempts to call a prospect and realizes they have a wrong number, they send an email that includes a link to this video:
In only 30 seconds, this video conveys personality and elicits empathy from the viewer. Obviously, this scene exaggerates the experience on Infusionsoft’s end, but it also reminds the potential customer that there is an actual, friendly human (with a sense of humor) who is eager to help them. With 91 plays to date and an average engagement rate of 88%, this video has delighted leads and encouraged future action, all with a relatively small amount of effort up front. #### “MIA” campaign When a lead doesn’t answer a call, they qualify for the “MIA campaign” and receive an email with a link to this video:
You’ll notice that the production for this video was pretty much identical to the previous one—a smart strategy for creating videos at scale. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to making several small, low-pressure videos. For important pages on your website, it’s worth the extra time and effort to make your videos unique. On the flip side, for one-to-one communication meant to deliver a simple message, there’s no need to spend hours on concepting and production. Knowing when and why to crank up your production value is important for a comprehensive video strategy. With 226 plays so far and 86% engagement, this video has been a success for the lead development team. While 226 may not seem like a large number, that’s 226 people that Infusionsoft’s team didn’t have to keep calling. More importantly, it’s 226 people who developed some familiarity with their brand and the people behind their product. #### “Phone Tag” campaign Often, Infusionsoft’s team finds themselves caught up in games of phone tag with leads who’ve demonstrated considerable interest. It’s frustrating to try to call back and not receive an answer, so why not preemptively defuse the situation with an absurd video depicting a literal game of phone tag? You’ll notice this video’s production required more time and effort than the previous example (and a team-wide cardio workout), which makes sense, given that the prospect is already well-qualified.
### Making online business more human Think about the last dinner party you threw. How did you welcome people at your door? Was your greeting the same for each guest, no matter who they were? Chances are, it wasn’t. I’m guessing you didn’t give a 10-second bear hug to a friend of a friend whom you’ve never met. That would be weird. When creating email campaigns to welcome your prospective customers, think about that dinner party. Are you treating people differently based on their behaviors, preferences, or familiarity with your brand? Are you taking the time to create a personable first impression? If you’re not, you might want to start thinking about it. With marketing automation gathering data and qualifying leads, we’re perfectly positioned to offer dynamite, tailored experiences to our customers. So instead of following up with sterile, automated interactions, stand out from your competitors with memorable, personal touches. It’s all within your reach with video!
Sign up for the webinar on video for lead generation!
Post-production can be daunting when you’re just getting started, and it may seem like you have to know your software inside and out before producing impressive effects. In reality, getting comfortable with a few tools and techniques can go a long way. For this post, we’re going to focus on one of our favorite techniques: keyframing. Keyframes can be thought of as beginning and ending points. When you set more than one keyframe, you can create smooth animations over time. Using keyframes in video editors, you can animate things like a video clip’s scale, motion, opacity, rotation, crop… anything! The following are four concrete examples of ways we use keyframes in Adobe Premiere to add effects to our videos at Wistia. Please note: there are many more use cases for keyframes. This is just a sampling. ### 1. Mimic camera movements Sometimes what we envision in pre-production doesn’t work out as planned, whether it’s framing, how we rack focus a shot, or something like snap zooming. Most of the time, I find myself using keyframes to heal a shot, or to copy an effect that would have been captured in production (snap zooms, rack focus, framing).
For the shot above, we used keyframes to animate the scale of the clip and achieve that snap zoom effect. It was a quick way to accomplish an effect we wanted without having to re-shoot this scene.
Here’s another example where we did a rack focus at the end of the video using a blur effect. We ramped up the intensity of the blur with keyframes to create a lens blur you could create in production. ### 2. Animate split-screen shots This technique is probably the most popular use case for us. The best example that comes to mind is the intro to Parks and Recreation. There are a ton of split screens that are animating in and out of the frame to create an interesting high-energy sequence for the show’s intro video. This technique takes a little time, but can be done without heading into a graphics-heavy program like After Effects. Basic video editors are super capable of this. We’ve applied a basic version of this technique in our own library of videos, most recently in our Help Center.
We wanted the video thumbnail to display the editing software with a logo, but we knew we wanted to show a human in the video. Using keyframes, we were able slide my face onto the scene after showing the logo and the software for the first couple of frames. This created a smooth transition between the thumbnail and the first line of the script. ### 3. Give more energy to photos in video If you have to use photos in your video sequence, keyframing motion, scale, and rotation can create interesting effects. Read: it makes photos appear way less boring. So why not just use the Ken Burns effect? While this does a similar thing, you can’t achieve more custom effects like animating opacity or rotation.
We recently used this technique in our 2015 rap-up video with a few photos of our team. Bet you didn’t even notice, did you? ;) ### 4. Create custom animations You can use keyframes to animate anything you want. Maybe you want to animate the perspective of a shot in a screencast. Or maybe you want to create an old-timey vignette at the end of your video as a sign off.
Or, maybe you just want to create a simple motion graphic in Premiere, like this:
Either way, you don’t need an effects program to achieve this result. Editing programs like Premiere and Final Cut allow you to do this fairly quickly and simply. ### Want to learn more about other editing techniques? We recently released a guide on “Editing Basics for Business Video” that includes a video tutorial on keyframes, L-Cuts, and working with stabilization in post. There’s a bunch of other tips in the guide, so be sure to check it out!
LIBRARY » PRODUCTION
Editing Basics for Business Video
A guide to some basic editing theories that you can apply in any software
At Wistia, we’re used to shooting videos about software. We’ve tackled issues like glare on screens and editing screencasts, and we’ve tried our best to make otherwise boring videos more visually engaging. After we published our guide to Shooting Your Laptop Screen to share what we’ve learned, Jeremy Wick, Head of Video at Sticker Mule, reached out with some exciting news: “Recently, my team came up with a pretty neat method for making screencast videos,” he said. “We created an After Effects template that cuts out the ‘shooting your screen’ step. We don’t even need the camera any more.” “Holy casserole,” we said. “Tell us more.”
Want to try for yourself? Download the After Effects template:
We chatted a bit with Jeremy about the motivation behind the template and how it’s improved his production workflow. ###### WISTIA: What are the largest challenges of shooting product videos for software? ###### JEREMY WICK: One of the biggest challenges of shooting a product video is filming the computer. This Wistia guide definitely helps a ton, but there is still a lot of time, effort, and equipment that goes into shooting a screen and making it look professional. And then once that’s finished, you still have to edit everything. This gets really labor-intensive if you need to produce a bunch of videos.
“There is still a lot of time, effort, and equipment that goes into shooting a screen and making it look professional.”
###### WISTIA: What prompted you to build this template? ###### JEREMY WICK: We used to have a really time-consuming process for making screencast videos. Basically, we would recreate the web page in Photoshop, and then animate all the mouse moving, button clicking, and UI animation in After Effects. This let us get really close up on things without losing resolution, and we could add some cool blurs and 3D motion. This video Wick Videomade for RealScout demonstrates the effects you can achieve using this method:
The result was really good, but it took a lot of time, and it wasn’t scalable. The Shooting Your Laptop Screen guide sparked the idea of creating a template that would allow us to use actual screencast footage, but still look pro. ###### WISTIA: In what ways does the template improve your production process? ###### JEREMY WICK: The template allows us to skip the entire process of filming the screencast on the computer. All we need is a still image of a laptop and the screen capture footage, and we’re good to go.
“The template allows us to skip the entire process of filming the screencast on the computer.”
###### WISTIA: How does the template improve your videos? ###### JEREMY WICK: The template lets us change “camera” framing with the click of a button. This means we will always be able to show the exact part of the screen that we need to show, like a close-up of a button click in the upper-right hand corner. Editing the screencast lets us simulate anything that might ordinarily take time. For example, if we’re showing the Sticker Mule proofing process, we can show the “order” button being clicked, and then immediately cut to a different angle to show the proof arriving. ###### WISTIA: What do you need to shoot before using the template? ###### JEREMY WICK: We recommend scripting, narrating, and screen recording beforehand (just like in the Shooting Your Laptop Screen guide). We use QuickTime and a MacBook Pro with Retina to record our screencast footage. This lets us do the close up shots without sacrificing resolution. You’ll want to edit the screencast before bringing it into the template. This means cutting out all the loading screens, and matching it up perfectly with the voiceover. Export the edited screencast footage at the highest resolution possible. You can drop the footage into After Effects, then cut to the different angles you want, all with a single control. Secret: We used the template to record the video (about the template) at the top of this page!
LIBRARY » PRODUCTION
Shooting Your Laptop Screen
Our technique for making your screencasts more exciting by putting them in context.
You’ve spent weeks conducting keyword research, building out tightly-knit campaigns and ad groups, and crafting click-worthy ad copy… Pop the champagne, you got the click! But wait, what happens after the searcher clicks on your ad? Unfortunately, the click doesn’t come close to guaranteeing the conversion. Remember, your lead isn’t paying for that click. They have no problem bouncing back to Google, and visiting your competitor’s more intriguing landing page, which is where video comes into play. According to eyeviewdigital.com, using video on landing pages can increase conversions by 80%! Video gives you the opportunity to grab your visitors’ immediate attention with an attractive thumbnail, and influence them in an often emotionally charged way.
“Using video on landing pages can increase conversions by 80%!”
Wistia convinced me to work for them through an inspirational video, so trust me, it works! Unsure of where to start? Follow these 5 video strategies to make more engaging PPC landing pages. ### 1. Build trust Would you trust Uber to drive you home if you’d never heard one thing about them? Probably not. In most cases, when you purchase something online or offer your contact or financial information, it’s because you trust that company. Trust is hard to gain, but once it’s established, it often leads to brand loyalty. For instance, I feel safe purchasing songs through Spotify or renting a dress from Rent the Runway because these are services I’ve utilized time and time again with recurring positive experiences. These brands have gained my trust, but often with paid search, people are visiting and possibly even hearing about your brand for the first time. So this goes back to my original question—how do you make a stranger trust you? Video is one genuine way of doing just that. People are more likely to trust other people, so showing the humans behind the brand can lay down the groundwork for a long-lasting, trusting relationship (e.g. a loyal customer). This is even more critical for industries that are managing sensitive information, like financial and law firms.
“Showing the humans behind the brand can lay down the groundwork for a long-lasting, trusting relationship (e.g. a loyal customer).”
One of our customers at Wistia fits into an even more challenging industry, summer camp! Personally, I’m not a parent, but I have a nephew and an over-protective sister and brother-in-law, and I can’t picture them dropping their son off at summer camp without conducting some extensive research first. Steve & Kate’s Camp condenses the need to over-investigate by providing interested parties with a variety of videos showing happy campers, nutritious food options, and the engaged and approachable summer team ensuring the safety of each child.
Beware: after spending a few minutes on their site, you’ll likely consider quitting your job and becoming a full-time camp counselor. ### 2. Elicit emotion Recently my former colleague caught me crying after watching a gum commercial. That’s probably not something I should admit in my first blog post for Wistia, but it’s all in the spirit of proving a point—emotions drive us to purchase. Ok, so I didn’t run out and immediately purchase 20 packs of Extra’s spearmint gum, but I did share the ad on social, I’m talking about it now, and it clearly resulted in a memorable brand interaction. Video is an effective medium when it comes to creating an emotional reaction. When visuals, sound, and speech are tied harmoniously together, our brains are awakened. Why do you think a relatively large percentage of Americans spend their free time binge watching Netflix? Videos provide us with emotionally fulfilling experiences. But, how can you tie emotions into a PPC landing page? You first need to spend some time brainstorming what emotion you want to elicit. Fear? Bliss? Desire? Jealously? There’s a laundry list to chose from, but you can marry your product with chosen emotion(s) to form a compelling video for your landing page. When searching for an “apple watch,” I stumbled upon a prime example of this with Microsoft’s video landing page for the Microsoft Band. Upon watching, I experienced yet another emotional rollercoaster, as feelings of loss, sympathy, and inspiration swept over me. ### 3. Explain a complicated product Imagine your manager tells you to research cloud control. The only thing that comes to mind when you hear the word “cloud” is the white fluffy objects that appear in the sky, which are actually visible masses of condensed water. Either way, your boss is referring to another type of cloud that your brain has not wrapped it’s head around. What now? Well, the smart companies that make complicated products are utilizing video to sell them. For instance, VM Turbo has an entire landing page explaining to searchers how they work, and luckily there’s a video to help the viewer visualize how their system operates.
“The smart companies that make complicated products are utilizing video to sell them.”
### 4. Create human connections As marketers, you’re constantly hearing all this chatter about how companies need to shift away from the B2B and B2C mindset to become B2H (Business 2 Human). But how many of you are actually doing this? The answer is, not enough! Back to point #1, trust will never be gained if your business appears as an abstract logo on your website, with no breathing, living humans behind it. Utilize videos on your landing pages to show us who’s behind the brand, because humans relate to other humans, not logos or text. Hootsuite does an incredible job of this, showing that they’re not just another social media tool, they’re a company comprised of vibrant, passionate employees. ### 5. Showcase talent Most companies can’t grow and thrive without adding talent to the team. More and more brands are using Google and Bing ads to find and acquire ripe candidates, but it isn’t easy to convince an employed individual to abandon their current gig and work for you instead, especially if that person is unfamiliar with your business. Hello, it’s me. No, not Adele. It’s the internal video showing off your company culture that you should be placing on your recruiting landing pages to intrigue talent. If you have a positive company culture, then there’s no reason to not be creating and showing it off through video. The energy technology company, Enphase Energy, does this well, showing passionate employees discussing what led them to join the team, and how they’re making an impact in addressing energy deficiency.
By building trust, eliciting emotion, clarifying the complicated, and showcasing the people behind your product, your future videos could help turn clicks into conversions. Think of it this way: A landing page without video is like a weekend with pizza. It’s just not as good as it could be.
We recently announced the launch of the Agency Partner Program at Wistia, and we couldn’t be more excited about it! We can’t wait to start helping agencies and their clients thrive with video marketing. The launch of our Agency Partner Program also coincided with Digital Agency Day. Go figure! This was a day of virtual events on topics relevant to digital agency professionals hosted by our friends at HubSpot and Unbounce. We held a #WistiaChat on #digitalagencyday that was all about mastering your marketing strategy. Bluleadz—an inbound marketing agency—joined us as experts and special guests for this chat. Spreading the word about the effectiveness of video marketing is one of our core efforts here at Wistia. You can read all about the highlights and takeaways from our #WistiaChat in this post. ### Make your content work for you This isn’t exactly a novel revelation (“inbound marketing” is the new “marketing”), but providing your audience with content they’re really hungry for is crucial to actually growing that audience over time. Creating valuable, engaging content on a regular basis is pivotal to any marketing strategy.
A1 We identify top of the funnel search terms & blog about those topics to place high in organic search. It’s working! #wistiachat
Agencies in the content-creation business should also be aware of the importance of content curation. It’s not enough to be entirely self-promotional. Sharing content from other businesses that might be of interest to your target audience can only benefit you. There is no shortage of content out there in the world, but sharing content that strikes a particular chord with your client’s audience? That’s a home run.
### One metric does not fit all We asked which analytics were most important to focus on when showing how a campaign performed, and we received a surprising array of tweets! Our guest BluLeadz said, “Visitors, leads, reconversions, customers, subscribers, submissions or views,” were the best metrics to watch. Many other folks pointed out how great engagement rates were when determining whether or not a campaign was successful. What are your client’s goals? What did they hope to achieve from the get-go when they hired you as an agency? These will affect what you measure and report on. Don’t forget—different types of marketing efforts yield different results, so analyze accordingly!
A2: Relevant analytics depend on initial goals. Want more buzz? # of views. More leads? Number of conversions #digitalagencyday#wistiachat
When it comes to proving ROI to clients, the proof is in the pudding. It’s all about the goals you set up at the beginning of a project. Establish clear goals and measurables, such as increasing traffic or generated leads. Then measure against those goals.
A3: Proving ROI starts at the very beginning by estab. clear goals. Are we boosting foot traffic, sales, leads? Then we measure. #wistiachat
### When pitching video, come prepared How do you convince a client that they should incorporate video into their marketing strategy? For some agencies, this might be a harder sell at first. Show your client how effective video can be by providing examples of other companies who have done it well. Take baby steps. Test out a video versus text-based blog post. Which performed better? Having the numbers to back up what you claim is a great way to get your clients on board with video. Did you know that on-site video has been shown to grow website traffic by 200-300%? That’s not only true, but it’s convincing. It’s likely your client already recognizes the importance of video, so come prepared with the information and resources you seal the deal.
### Connect with your audience, and then learn from them Social media is not just a “nice to have” in this day and age, it’s a priority. Agencies use social media in all sorts of unique ways, from prospecting and sharing content, to learning more about their client’s audience and customers. Finding out what channels are appropriate for your client’s market is a really important step in making sure the content lands, whether it’s a blog post or a video. These channels are also perfect for starting conversations and making your client’s brand feel more human.
A8: Less glib answer: social media gives clients unprecedented insight into audience and helps me make more relevant content #wistiachat
Want to dig a little deeper? Check out our Storify for some other highlights. Interesting in joining us next time? You’re in luck! Our next #WistiaChat is Thursday, February 11 at 1 pm EST. We’ll be talking about producing video for social media and how these videos differ from other types of video content. Hope to see you there!
Testing your marketing videos empowers you to make better decisions and unlock conversion potential. Allow me to explain. Picture this scenario: you recently published a new product video on your website. You spent three weeks designing, producing, and editing it. Your creative team crushed it. It holds your attention, it clearly explains your feature differentiation, and it’s fun. Awesome! Some marketing collateral that shows off your brand’s personality. But suddenly, your signup rate plunges. Shoot. Is this a coincidence, or was it the video? Video is a powerful conversion tool. It humanizes your brand, and it compels your viewers to take action. But, publishing new videos on your site without understanding their impact is not the way to go. You might accidentally shrink the numbers you meant to grow. Even worse—you might not even know it.
“Publishing new videos on your site without understanding their impact is not the way to go.”
You wouldn’t make a major update to a page on your website without testing its impact on conversion, would you? I hope you’re shaking your head no. Similarly, you shouldn’t publish an important video on your website without testing it. You need to A/B test your videos. Especially videos on pages with lots of traffic. ### You will be wrong (and you should expect it) As long as you’re testing… Here’s a real-life example of something that happened a few weeks ago at Wistia: We set a goal to increase the number of new users who upload a video during our onboarding flow. Video is a big part of our user onboarding strategy, so naturally, we designed a new video to help accomplish this. After putting a lot of thought into the video design, we wanted to know whether it made a positive impact on our upload rate. We decided to test the new video against the previous version. Boy, were we wrong. Although some of our assumptions were correct, the test outcome was not what we expected. Every single metric we were tracking went down. Our video experiment failed. By a lot. But hey, at least we knew. If we had implemented the new video without testing it first, that decision would have cost the business thousands of dollars in lost revenue in the coming months. Not a good move for any internet marketer interested in career growth. You’ll be glad that you tested your assumptions instead of blindly making decisions that hurt the business (and potentially your career). If you’re someone who makes lots of gut decisions that are never wrong, we’d love to have you join the marketing team at Wistia! Kidding. Kidding. It probably means you’re not being aggressive enough and should take more chances. ### Develop a system to find the right answers That system is testing. If you have data from your videos, you’d be crazy not to be testing. Imagine all the opportunities you might miss, and all the wrong decisions you could avoid.
“If you have data from your videos, you’d be crazy not to be testing.”
To start, identify your main success metric, then write down a few ideas that could help you improve it. 1. Choose a success metric. In the onboarding video test I mentioned above, our main success metric was how many new users uploaded a video during onboarding. 2. Brainstorm a bunch of good ideas. We started our testing process by brainstorming ways to use video to increase that number. 3. Rank your ideas. Our team uses an ICE Score to categorize our ideas, which was made popular by Sean Ellis of growthhackers.com, but you can prioritize in other ways if you prefer. Here’s how Sean describes the ICE Score: “Score every new idea based on its potential Impact, your Confidence that it will be successful, and how Easy it is to implement. In other words, an ICE score. Once the ideas are scored, it’s easy to sort them and find the best ideas in the areas to prioritize first.” Now, you’re ready to cherry-pick the best tests to improve your main metric. ### Test and measure (rigorously) Make sure you’re making the right decisions based on data, not your gut. There’s nothing worse than spending a lot of time and effort on a new video that hurts your important metrics… except maybe doing so over and over again, without knowing. That’s why you need to be sure to test and analyze your data. #### Use a basic experiment framework to guide you In the paragraphs above, we talked about a previous video test that failed. It’s a bummer, but it happens all the time. Here’s the TLDR: the first video that we tried was a longer, more straightforward overview of Wistia’s feature set. The second video that we tested it against was shorter and punchier. The shorter video failed the test. We still thought we could increase our upload rate, so we decided to go back to the drawing board to try a different approach. #### Develop a new hypothesis from previous test data We hypothesized that we could increase our new user upload rate by editing the original, longer demo video (our control). We believed making two simple changes would make a big impact: - Changing the video thumbnail would increase our play rate. - Shortening the video would increase the video’s engagement rate. Our new users are excited to use Wistia. It turns out that they’re even more likely to use it when we show them its core value right before they sign in. We wanted to highlight that, and decrease the amount of time it took to deliver Wistia’s value propositions. We were confident that making these 2 changes would be likely to produce a positive lift in our upload rate. In case you’re curious, our original onboarding video (the control) is on the left, and the variant is on the right:
### Win (with test data) With the right system, rigorous testing, and helpful data, you will find wins (and avoid catastrophes). You will be wrong more than you’ll be right (and you’re expecting that). But by gathering data, you’ll be making the best decisions in one of your most impactful channels—video.
“You will be wrong more than you’ll be right (and you’re expecting that).”
Here are the actual results from the test we just ran. The data shows that our upload rate increased. Go team! Though it wasn’t a dramatic increase, it was enough for us to implement the new video. The best part was, we could be confident in our decision-making, because the data was behind us. ### Video testing for everyone If you’re not testing your videos, you’re wasting one of your most influential communication tools and potentially making bad decisions that could hurt your business. If you’re new at testing, don’t be afraid. Start by identifying your main metric. Then, brainstorm video ideas that can increase that metric. Organize the ideas to optimize your time. Implement, test, and measure. Now go high five the person sitting next to you. Success is a few tests away.
BLOG » STRATEGY
Onboarding New Users With Video
The best onboarding videos demonstrate your product’s benefits and answer your users’ most pressing questions, so they can hit the ground running.
In February 2015, we began experimenting with spherical video content creation. This is the video we wished we had when we were starting out:
360° video (often referred to as ‘spherical’ or 'VR’ video) is basically a video recording in which footage from every direction is recorded at the same time. A year ago, we began to get excited about producing 3D 360° video. Instead of dipping our toes in, we decided to jump in head first. The gear list included the following: - A custom 3D-printed rig from 360Heros - 14 GoPro 3+ Silver cameras - Kolor Autopano Video and Giga stitching software
After a lot of experimentation and time with the software, we successfully created some 3D 360° content to mess around with. It was incredibly immersive to consume spherical video in 3D! But man, was it time-consuming. After a few goes at stitching footage from 14 cameras, we shifted to a simpler, non-3D setup that required half of the cameras. While this footage wasn’t quite as immersive, it was still an awesome way for us to start experimenting with producing and sharing 360° video content.
“After a few goes at stitching footage from 14 cameras, we shifted to a simpler, non-3D setup that required half of the cameras.”
During a recent Hackathon, we created a beta version of a 360° Wistia video player. Here’s the video we made to launch it internally!
The 360° player is a beta feature, and is best viewed in Chrome. ### Gear and set up for shooting 360° videos We picked up this 7-camera 360° rig from 360 Heroes. We also set ourselves up for success with some simple hacks: - We bought this 8-port USB hub so we could charge the GoPros without taking them out of the rig. - We labeled our cameras to keep everything organized. - We used text files on our SD cards to indicate which card corresponded with which camera.
### Sync or sink. Shooting with seven GoPros. Successful spherical stitching begins with synced up cameras. When those puppies are even a few frames off, all hell breaks loose. That’s why we record at the highest frame rate we can on the GoPro 3+ Silvers—60 frames per second. This provides us with more flexibility in post-production to get to a true sync point between the cameras. Instead of clicking record on each camera, we use a GoPro WiFi remote. Before you get too excited about this efficient solution, I should mention that this remote triggering resulted in slightly out of sync cameras (5-10 frames on average). As soon as the cameras start to record, we always give a solid clap as a sync point. This tiny trick is a game changer. Expert tip: Before shooting, eyeball the front LCD panel on the cameras to make sure the settings all match. One bad camera will ruin your entire stitch. Want to talk resolution? I thought you might. The sensor on a GoPro has a 4:3 aspect ratio. When you shoot 16:9 at 720p or 1080p resolutions, you’re not utilizing the full size of the sensor, which results in cropping off some of the shot. So we shoot at 960p to utilize the entire GoPro sensor. ### Mounting and camera placement In order to use our regular tripod for shoots, I bought this add-on aluminum extension that screws into the rig. The angle of the hole makes mounting the camera a bit tricky, so we prefer to use a ball-mounted tripod head to compensate for any strange angles. For best stitching results: - Position the GoPro rig so that the majority of the cameras are flush with the horizon. - Make sure your main points of action are directly in front of a lens (not between two cameras). ### Post-Production Here comes the beast—turning all of your footage into a 360° spherical stitch. 1. Take each SD card out of its camera and transfer the footage into folders labeled according to camera numbers. 2. Import the folders of footage into Adobe Premiere, and get the clips perfectly in sync. I rely on the audio from the cameras to make sure everything is perfectly lined up. I listen for my clap, use that as the in point, and drag it right into a new sequence. 3. Play all the sequences together to make sure everything sounds in sync. 4. Export each camera’s angle individually. 5. Drag all of the perfectly synced files into Autopano Video. 6. Allow this magical software to automatically analyze each camera angle and stitch together an equirectangular projection (try dropping that term at your next dinner party). 7. Double click the stitch to open up Autopano Giga for some fine-tuning. Tweak to your heart’s content. 8. Save your project in Giga, then export your stitched video from Autopano Video at the maximum resolution that h.264 can handle—4096 x 2048. 9. Follow steps 1–8 for all of your shots and any time you moved the rig position. 10. Bring all of your stitched shots into Premiere to edit them as you would with any other video—trim, reorder, add music, and export using the same settings as you did in Autopano. 11. Voila! Upload your equirectangular mp4 file to Wistia. 12. Once it’s processed, head into Customize, and click the box labeled “360° degree video” in the Controls tab. Note: You must enable 360° video in the Beta Features section of your Wistia account for this option to appear. 13. Sit back and enjoy your 360° spherical video. Bonus: You can right click the player and select 4K, if you want to watch in the highest quality possible.
### Benefits and limitations of the Ricoh Theta S Now that we’ve gone through all of that… I’d like to introduce you to my little friend: the Ricoh Theta S. This new camera shoots spherical video with two 180° lenses. That’s five less lenses than our previous setup. And get this: The stitching is all automated with their included easy-to-use software or mobile app. You might be thinking to yourself, “Why is Chris still bothering with that space-age GoPro rig thingy?”. One word—Resolution. The Ricoh Theta S is only capable of capturing 360° video at 1080p, while the GoPro rig can shoot resolutions even higher than 4k. This extra resolution will contribute to a more immersive experience that feels sharper and more realistic.
“The Ricoh Theta S is only capable of capturing 360° video at 1080p, while the GoPro rig can shoot resolutions even higher than 4k.”
The short story: Robots will soon take over. Seriously though, it’s only a matter of time before 360° video tech catches up and starts introducing higher-resolution image capture. ### Go forth and explore It’s hard to keep track of all the new technology around 360° spherical video, but I promise you this: If there’s a new gadget that I can get my hands on, I’ll mess around with it and report back. We hope you’ll do the same! We’re excited to hear about all the novel ways that businesses begin using this immersive medium. If you’re geeking out as hard as we are about 360° video, we’d love to hear your ideas, questions, or suggestions in the comments. Share links, ask questions, call out how wrong my workflow was… send me down a rabbit hole because this 360° stuff got me like:
