Here’s the big questions that will come up as you start figuring out what you’re going to do with video in 2025.
Dane Frederiksen
Video Strategist & Video Expert | Clients include Twitch, Google, Adobe, HP, Discovery Channel
When somebody at your company mentions ”video” do you get nervous??
Maybe you know that this means you’ll need to start answering some big questions to move forward??
It seems like I’m having a lot of the same conversations lately.?
I call it the “We want to do more with video but we’re not sure” conversation.?
It's on a lot of people’s minds so I thought I could walk you through how I’m approaching this. (It’s a little free form but stick with me, I think you'll get the flow of thought.)
So, we have questions...
Let’s start to work through them and get some answers, make some assumptions and then test & optimize.?
Where to start? Start with "WHY?"
Why are we doing this??
Why do we want to make video content??
What business goals are we trying to accomplish??
What is the story we want to tell?
What are we already doing with content??
What’s the biggest headache or top priority for us and why do we think video will help??
Then we need to talk about who.
Who is going to be on camera, if anyone?
What are the roles??
Who are the experts and who has the time?
Are we able to use remote video?? Like from a Zoom call - which can make video creation more convenient, frequently at the cost of quality.?
Or does this need to be shot in person?
What is an acceptable “quality” level??
This is a big and tricky one.?
The word quality can cover a lot of different parameters and people frequently disagree on what is high quality.?
Like beauty, quality is in the eye of the beholder.?
Quality standards can include:
It's complicated - so I made this video walking you some of the ways to look at video quality.
When people start saying they want high quality video, it’s interesting to see if they then can actually get the budget to achieve their goals.?
When that doesn’t happen, you need to start asking what compromises are you willing to make to balance quantity, quality, frequency and ease of production?
How can we make sure it’s high enough quality - and what does that mean to us?
This is a good time to start talking about how we can repurpose the video content into other formats, like transcriptions for posts or audio for a podcast??
I also made a video about repurposing with video as the main ingredient of your content pipeline.
You'll also need to look at what platforms and accounts are you going to use to post content??
For example, LinkedIn seems to prioritize personal accounts over company pages when promoting and sharing content.
Who’s going to be posting this content??
What sort of optimization are you willing and able to commit to vs what you might want to test??
What would be your SEO strategy for file names, tags and keywords?
How much of this might be done in-house versus outsourced??
Do you even have internal video creation capabilities, time, and tools?
What events might you want to capture footage at??
This could include interviews, event coverage, or the launch of a new product or service.
Who is going to review and approve content before it gets posted??
What happens if your internal stakeholders don’t agree??
If you’re using music in your videos, that can be a tricky area.?
People often have visceral reactions to music they don’t like.
Depending on your industry and the purpose of your content, there may be certain things that you can’t say—or certain things that you have to say—when putting videos out into the world.
Where do you stand on the issue of authenticity??
For some people and situations, having a raw, unpolished, behind-the-scenes feel can work very well.?
It can build trust, likability and aid ease of creation.
For others, that may rawness be unacceptable.
In some cases, having a highly polished video is crucial to making a big impression and associating your brand with quality.?
In other cased polished can feel untrustworthy, cheesy or stiff.
It's generational for sure - remember your audience!
You might even have different quality policies for different types of content.
For example: Your Big Brand Hero video might be highly polished but at events, impromptu raw and authentic social media videos might work well.
There’s a lot of people doing quite well with impromptu, walking-down-the-street iPhone videos.?
For some, they’d be terrified to put that out there.
Where do you stand on AI content - virtual avatars, clones of you?
New tech is coming all the time, social habits, tools, they all are constantly evolving.
This has to be an ongoing test.
So, as you can see, I'm finding that these conversations do meander and that's okay.?
These issues are intertwined and complicated.?
The real goal is to ask all the questions you can and answer them.
If you don’t have an answer, simply note that this is something to research or test.
Once you’ve got all the answers - for now - that sounds a lot like a plan, a strategy.??
And when you have a plan, you can execute.
Once you post content, measure, optimize and test again.
You just have to start asking questions, and when you run out of questions, you’re ready.
When new ones pop up - and things are changing fast - time to get new answers!
I hope this was helpful! If you have questions, let me know.
remember, it’s never been easier to test and try something new with video, if you’re not happy with it, don’t post it!
If you’d like some support, I offer a video strategy session that has been proving very helpful in getting answers to all these questions, with guidance from me—a video native with 30 years of experience.
if you're interested, let me know. [email protected]
I can see these things very clearly, whereas some people who don’t deal with video all the time might not even be aware of the questions to ask.
If you think this might be a good fit for you, I also offer a free assessment.?
We can talk about your goals and what you’re doing now to see if developing a strategy is a wise next step.
Just let me know! - Book a meeting with me so we can discuss your goals.