The storytelling mix, staying findable and giving people options

So, you’re on board with video and starting to churn them out regularly, well done! Management is probably stoked, everyone is feeling proud and maybe you’ve even had something go viral on social.

Best of all, your clients or customers that have watched the videos are probably feeling an increased sense of emotional connection to your work or your brand, have a better understanding of what you’re all about, and are well on their way to becoming your #1 fans.

Do you know what the key words in that paragraph are?

“…that have watched the videos.”

Video content is compelling stuff. People love it, social media loves it and so does the board.

However, what about your customers who…

• Don’t know the video exists (hard to reach audiences).
• Have low or no data available to stream video (lower socio-economic groups, for example).
• Have a vision or hearing impairment that means video isn’t that great for them (we have a rapidly ageing population).
• For whatever reason, didn’t have time to watch your masterpiece (TL;DR*).
• Googled you, and didn’t find it.

It’s easy to get caught up in the hype and disregard these scenarios, but I’d caution you not to. And indeed, if you’re a public service you have a duty not to.

If you’re going to pay good money to produce videos, I think it’s safe to say you want to maximise their value and reach, yes?

Keep telling your stories

First off, I’m not telling you to stop making videos.

Video needs to be one part of your overall storytelling mix. It can even be the biggest part. But alongside your video, make sure you think about how to reach the people who don’t, can’t or won’t watch them.

Effectively engaging your audience means understanding who they are, how they consume information and, importantly, their barriers to access. An effective communications strategy will take that information into account when outlining a suite of tactics.

A storytelling mix that supports video

Make video an integral part of your communications strategy and ensure you have a good mix of other storytelling channels supporting it.

You might do some, or all, of these things depending on the project.

• Send brilliant emails and newsletters that include and/or promote your videos. Make sure you use a subject line people will want to click.
• Write compelling case studies, profiles and media releases. If the main subject of your video has an interesting back story, write it up and use it. The story will help drive people to the video, and people who loved the video will appreciate the opportunity to find out more.
• Produce engaging infographics that make sense of tricky data or reinforce the message of the video. Visual infographics help people process complex information, and remember it.
• For longer videos, make a 30-60 second summary version for social media and the TL;DR brigade. Consider subtitles or other text – on Facebook 85 per cent of videos are watched with the sound turned off.
• Use social media wisely to get more eyeballs on your videos. Sharing a video once is not enough.
• Write great, findable web content that points people towards your video (and gives them the nitty gritty that might not have been included).
• Make a transcript of the video available so that deaf or hearing impaired people have a way to access the story. This will also help make the video more findable by Google.

* The abbreviation TL;DR means ‘too long, didn’t read’.

Image credit: Photo by Nick Seliverstov on Unsplash.