With the demand for video content on Facebook and other platforms at an all-time high, the question of when to be self shooting video content and when to go ‘pro’ is more pertinent than ever…

Social media platforms and clients / customers / fans want video content and they want a lot of it.

But when should you be self shooting video content? When should you bring in a professional company (like us, of course) to shoot your content?

We believe there is a time for both and reasons why both can, and should, work for you.

Self Shooting Video Content

Shooting content yourself is ideal for Facebook live, YouTube live, Instagram stories etc. It’s quick and easy to do and can be done on your smartphone. Having some initial tips and guidance from an experienced person is a good idea to ensure you don’t fall foul of easy-to-make-mistakes. Things like bad framing, back lighting, windy and noisy filming locations can spoil a video. But other than that – go for it! It’s a great way to reach your existing audience. Show them, rather than just tell them, what you are up to and what’s new.

You might want to report from an event you’re at, interview someone on camera, show off a product or do a review. All viable options for content. For us at Silvertip, we have been utilizing the Facebook live medium for our weekly news updates. Why write a lot of text that no one will read? Let’s create (hopefully) engaging video content with our core team and special guests to get the info across. So far the response both during the live streams and afterwards has been great and show that there is an existing audience interested and ready to watch. Take a look at one of these below…

Your Audience

You might have noticed the word existing has been used a couple of times here with regards the audience. We think that the people who like, follow and subscribe to you already are invested in and interested in you and your business. Why would they have clicked on those buttons otherwise? So, they want to see what’s new and what’s going on and are more accepting of smartphone shot content which isn’t professionally polished.

But…the new audience, the new fans, the new customers and clients! If they visited your Facebook page or your website and the video content was all phone shot…how might they respond? Probably by clicking back and looking for someone else.

These new people, the ones your advertising is predominantly looking to reach will be expecting a certain level of polish and professionalism in the videos. This is the time to “go pro”!

Going Pro…

When you want to show off your business or product or service, people who don’t know you will respond better to a professionally shot video. It’s become the expected standard and more and more frequently, businesses will be mixing the content they create through the two types of output style.

You might be hosting an event and it’s the ideal opportunity to get a crew in to cover it. Shoot a great promotional video to recap the event for those at it and those who missed it and entice people to come along next time. But whilst there, you might want to also film a live video for your social media platform of choice to show your existing audience what’s happening…further building them up to want to see the pro video when it launches.

Budgeting…

There is also the issue of budget though! We would like to shoot all of your content…of course we would! But we are aware that it simply isn’t financially viable for all businesses to hire us to film everything. Neither is it possible! Someone might be coming in to see you at short notice and be an ideal candidate for a live interview. You are better placed to shoot that decently yourself. We may not be able to get in to do it at short notice.

We have been making a mix of content over the last few months. Our existing client base sees Facebook live videos whilst the new client base are seeing our vlog. This is shot with a presenter, in a new location each episode, showing off recent work. This too goes on Facebook as well for additional audience reach.

Talk to us about how to make the best of your self shot content and how we can support that content with pro video production work…