Video Branding Best Practices
Video Branding Best Practices
By Bill Corbett
Create Your Video(s)
If you don’t have a video for your brand, you’re falling farther and farther behind your competitors. With the growing popularity of mobile video, it is critical that you start now. This statement is true no matter what industry you are in. Why? In the mobile age people (a.k.a. customers and prospects) don’t have time and they want video content. If you are not providing video content your competitors are and guess what? These competitors are winning the battle for attention.
Getting your prospect's attention (focused time) is critical for success and for building trust as well as relationships. You have to do this consistently and better than your competitors. Actually, you have to do this better than many others because we are all competing for attention.
Long term, the problem with not having quality video content means you are falling behind in the “content war.” When you regularly create written or video content you become more comfortable communicating your messages and you demonstrate that you are up-to-date and ready for the challenges of the digital age. Communications is both an art and a skill. It is understood that communicating effectively requires practice. While anyone can fire up a camera or smart phone and shoot a Facebook Live, Periscope, LinkedIn video or post a video to YouTube, it takes practice to learn how to speak clearly and present quality messages. If you look uncomfortable, if you ramble or try to sell too hard, your efforts will drive people away instead of drawing them in.
The videos you create must clearly and concisely convey your brand message to contacts, prospects and referral sources. You need to talk about what you do but also why you do what you do. It is more important to show how you are different and how you solve problems by sharing stories and giving examples. Stay away from talking about how much better you or your services are. The fact is that nobody cares about how great you think you are. They do care about how you will solve their problems and remove their pain.
Be aware, it is the people in your audiences who will create your brand and reputation. You guide them along but in the end it is your followers, friends, clients, contacts, colleagues and even members of the media who will establish your brand and what it stands for. They tell others their thoughts about your brand and the brand’s reputation is born.
Your personal video content guides and assists the viewers in expressing their perceptions of the brand. When you do this, the understanding of who you are will be accurate. If you don’t concentrate on this and remain silent or let others control the message, your brand will be misunderstood and fail to attract the right kind of attention. When people don’t know who you are and what you stand for, you have a major problem that must be fixed. Have clear messages, state what you stand for often and lead by example and action.
4 Tips for Video Branding
- Create a personal brand video where you talk about who you are, why you do what you do and how you do what you do differently. Keep it short and concise (less than 2 minutes).
- LinkedIn is where your brand lives and video and written content is how it comes to life. Videos on LinkedIn are important now and in the summer of 2017 LinkedIn added a feature to its mobile app allowing for direct uploads. Take advantage of this; it’s easy to do. In the future, video will likely be positioned higher in LinkedIn profiles directly with or next to your profile photo. Having a personal video on LinkedIn now is valuable to have and is a competitive advantage. Today only a small percentage of LinkedIn users have videos on their profiles. In the future, LinkedIn may require videos or consider profiles incomplete without them.
- Live streaming video from Facebook Live, Periscope and others has now become much more widely used. You need to embrace these easy-to-use formats. They have the potential to reach thousands of people immediately and you can use them to educate, inform, excite customers about products and services and grow your brand. Remember that showing that you are an interesting, active and innovative person attracts attention and keeps it. We have found that when clients post videos, all of their content gets a boots. Why? By watching your videos, people become more interested in all that you do, more than just the content of a single post. Think of video as an amplifier for your overall brand. Live video is also a great way to practice and hone your communications skills.
- No fear – often people are afraid to get in front of the camera. This is understandable. Start off small with short recorded videos. Practice your brand message and your elevator speech. Answer questions that people ask you and talk about what you do. Make video creation a habit and regular activity. This will allow you to break through the fear and reach the people you need to reach. What you should be afraid of is not taking the chance to tell your story. If you don’t, somebody else will or they will tell their own story and take your client or prospect away. When you lose a client, it’s not a competitor’s fault, it’s your fault. If you simply can’t get over the fear, then use staff, friends or others to tell your story and your company story. Create powerful videos with your message and you will see people gravitating to your brand and your business.
If you want more tips on how to brand your business, check out this video where Bill Corbett helps HVAC contractors and other home improvement professionals grow their brand.