Kathleen O’Grady, a writer and researcher from Ottawa, wanted to buy a new tent. She had an idea of what she wanted, but looking at boxed items in the store left her uneasy.
“The one that we wanted was the Marmot,” she recalls. (Marmot is a midsized American outdoor-wear manufacturer. “But it’s hard to look at a picture and get a really good sense of it, especially when you’re dropping 600 or 700 dollars.”
So she did what most consumers do these days. “We Googled their website - and up popped a YouTube channel.”
What she found was a simple video in which a representative gives a simple, four-minute tour around the Marmot tent, showing its features and interior. O’Grady says it was enough to put her mind at ease and help seal the deal.
With online video increasingly cheap to create and easy to host, individual entrepreneurs and small business can use it to showcase their wares, highlight their personalities, and advertise their services in ways that text and pictures alone can’t. Done right, videos can range from dead-simple to slick, but they’ll all boost your visibility and - hopefully - your credibility.
Todd Lucier runs Northern Edge Retreat on the verge of Algonquin Park, about halfway between Huntsville and North Bay, Ontario. Mr. Lucier says he built his business primarily using the Web for publicity, and has increasingly been moving towards video as a way to show prospective clients what to expect.
His videos both showcase the natural beauty of his operation’s surroundings - yoga by the lake, for example - and answer prospective clients’ practical questions - like, a Q&A about what parents can expect when their children go on canoe trips.
What does video provide that a static description doesn’t? “Intimacy,” says Mr. Lucier. “You’re getting a real sense of what this place is like.”
Mr. Lucier’s work is polished and high-end. In fact, he’s invested in equipment, hired a videographer, and is now making professional online videos for other businesses. But you don’t need a full editing suite to make an effective video, as long as you have the performance chops.
Mark Bowden has made a career for himself as a communications consultant, becoming known as an expert in using body language. He’s used simple online videos to introduce himself to the viewers, establish his credibility, and last but not least, boost his Google ranking.
As Mr. Bowden cheerfully points out, running a Google search for “body language expert” produces a number of web pages from around the world. However, Google gives priority to YouTube videos (unsurprisingly, since Google owns YouTube), and one of Mr. Bowden’s videos appears near the top of the page.
His YouTube clips include image-enhancing media appearances, on the CBC and elsewhere. But they also endearingly low-fi efforts, like an introductory video, awkwardly self-shot at the Royal Ontario Museum dinosaur exhibit, his young son saying hello in the background. Mr. Bowden is an engaging speaker, though – it’s his job, after all. Online viewers, accustomed to all kinds of video quality, are willing to overlook some roughshod production values if the speak is compelling enough.
Interested in the director’s chair? Consider some of the following starter hints:
1) Cost it out. Making videos isn’t free, though it’s cheaper than it used to be. Marie Nicola, co-founder of Green Rabbit Media in Toronto, and blogger for Karmacake.ca, recommends the popular Flip video cameras for entry-level work, which can be bought for less than $150. Most personal computers come with video editing software, like Windows Live Movie Maker and Apple’s iMovie software. If you’re looking to make something as simple as a video slideshow, consider the website Animoto.com, which – for a marginal price - produces slick movie-trailer-like videos from collections of still images.
