Video Production Oakville – The Captain’s Blog

Another Rule of Thumbnail: Colour

Make Your Thumbnail Image Stand Out with Colour

Bright colours will make your thumbnail image pop. Of course, that doesn’t mean to go completely overboard. Do just enough to differentiate your video from the others. Don’t settle for the existing colours in your image. Use photo-editing and graphic design software to boost the saturation in the thumbnail image just enough to make the colours stand out over other thumbnails. Even small adjustments to the hue and saturation can attract viewers directly to your thumbnail. Consider applying a filter to your thumbnails. Even something as simple as sharpening the edges can have a subliminal effect on thumbnails. Remember, video production in Toronto is highly competitive. Edge out the competition with an appealing thumbnail.

The Next Rule of Thumbnail: Include a Face

Include an Enticing Image of a Person

Putting the extra effort to create a winning thumbnail is a great way to ensure success in the competitive word of video production in Toronto. People are naturally drawn to faces. Try to choose an image that will draw the eye and entice people to click. Emotional facial expressions can also go a long way to engaging viewers to watch. Extreme close-ups are one type of thumbnail that can amplify emotions. Thumbnails that show laughter, joy, sorrow, anger — all can draw attention to your thumbnail. Make the viewer wonder, “what made this person feel that way?” — and compel them to click on your video thumbnail to find out!

Here’s another Rule of Thumbnail: The Action Shot

Find an Image Packed with Action

Another way of capturing attention in the fierce competitive world of video production in Toronto, is to use an action shot as the thumbnail. The added sense of motion will encourage viewers to click on your video to see what it’s all about. The Slow Mo Guys are known for conducting crazy experiments, and along with optimized titles, they almost always include the main action shot from their videos on their thumbnails. The amount of clicks they get shows just how effective this approach can be.

Video Production Oakville – The Captain’s Blog

Why are your Video Production Thumbnails Important?

Your video’s thumbnail is the equivalent of a movie poster. A good thumbnail will attract the attention of viewers and persuade them to click through and watch your video. Because corporate video production in Toronto is so highly competitive, don’t ignore this underrated asset. An effective custom thumbnail can make all the difference when it comes to a viewer choosing to watch your video, or deciding to watch another. Many companies in Toronto and elsewhere fail to take advantage of this optimizing feature.

Most hosting platforms automatically generates three optional thumbnail images whenever a video is uploaded, but often these images don’t truly represent your video. A good “rule of thumbnail” is to manually select a still that is visually striking and accurately depicts your video content.

Nothing beats a custom thumbnail image that ties in with your video, your channel message and your brand. Apart from making a quality video production that viewers want to watch, companies should follow some basic guidelines when creating and optimizing its thumbnail.

Watch for our future blogs with more tips to optimize your thumbnails and attract more viewers.

Video Production Oakville – The Captain’s Blog

About Face

While online video production in Oakville continues to expand into new horizons, it’s important to understand that not all videos are created equally. Depending on your products, services, and message you’ll need to properly plan out your video production strategy prior to getting the cameras rolling.

For instance, new research is showing that it best to include faces in your videos. Faces capture attention and build a sense of familiarity. This is because human brains are hardwired to recognize faces. But the importance of having a person speaking in your video goes much deeper than simple familiarity. A study by Princeton psychologists found that in just a tenth of a second, we form impressions of strangers from their faces alone. Our amygdala automatically responds based on how trustworthy we determine a face to be. Once this quick judgement has been made, our amygdala then begins to alter brain processes and coordinate appropriate responses, depending on whether we decide to approach or avoid that person.

So how can we make the spokesperson in our videos seem trustworthy? A combination of factors appealing to both the visual and auditory senses can have a significant impact on the whether viewers will trust your spokesperson or not.

Tips for your on camera spokesperson:

. Be truthful with what you say. Make sure you’re delivering information clearly, so it doesn’t seem like you’re trying to hide details.
. Be yourself. The audience can sense if you’re uncomfortable, and they’ll mirror that feeling.
. Caring for people. If you’re wishing someone well or caring for your audience, they’ll notice it.

Other important tips to make it easier to hold your audience’s attention:

. Keep your background free of distractions. You want the focus to be on the speaker and not, for instance, on the dog running around in the frame.
. Put important points in onscreen text. If your video is on the longer side, it’s easy for people to zone out and forget the main points. Emphasizing larger points in text onscreen will also give your video more structure.
. Mind your body language. Your body language speaks just as loudly as your words. Make sure to stand tall and gesture with confidence.
. Use verbal cues. Say things like “once that’s done” or “next” to direct the flow of the video, so it feels like things are moving.

These are just some of the points to consider if you are producing a video and planning on incorporating an onscreen spokesperson. As we all know, a video production can be a very powerful sales and marketing tool… but as we have stated in our blogs for years, videos need to be produced properly in order for viewers to believe your message. And in that regard, it is always best practice to hire a professional Oakville video production company for all your video marketing needs.

Video Title Optimization

Oakville is a highly competitive city and market regardless of the company or sector. Oakville based companies really need to think outside the box in order to make themselves stand out and grab attention. Although producing high quality videos and ads can give companies the edge they need to engage with their target-customers, little attention is given to the importance of video titles. The reality is, regardless of the quality of your videos, they need to have compelling titles in order to grab significant viewer attention and bring in the engagement you want.

Flashy keywords that cleverly explain the subject matter are important and can impact search results, engagement, and views. However that’s not all. One thing many Oakville marketers tend to miss is that the length of a video’s title can also impact these areas.

YouTube titles are limited to 100 characters. That said, Youtube recommends that titles be shorter than 70 characters as any more than that will usually be cut off in the search window. In fact, according to BuzzFeed’s analytics, videos over 70 characters performed almost 40% worse in views compared to BuzzFeed’s YouTube average.

On Facebook, BuzzFeed actually got below average engagement with every video title over 40 characters. In contrast, video titles that were under 40 characters received around 44% higher engagement than their average posts. This may be due to the fast paced nature of the Facebook news feed and the necessity to attract attention as fast as possible. Oddly enough, this didn’t seem to be the case on YouTube, as Buzzfeed’s videos seem to perform roughly the same regardless of whether a video title is under 70 or under 40 characters.

This proves that just because a title may work on one platform, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will work on another. So if you are posting videos to both Facebook and YouTube, we’d suggest creating a 70 character or less title for YouTube and then creating an alternate title under 40 characters for Facebook posts.

On a side note, there is a common misconception in the Oakville video marketing world that making your video title into the form of a question builds intrigue and mystery. But this is not really the case. Titles have to compliment the content of the video. On average, Buzzfeed’s Facebook video posts performed 22% worse when they began with a question. In the case of Youtube posts, results were 24% worse. When you’re talking about a global network like BuzzFeed, that’s more than 500,000 views lost due to titles.

Whether your company is aiming to get views or simply make engaging content to boost your brand awareness, the trend remains the same for the length of titles. Shorter is better. There is definitely a sweet spot on YouTube for keeping titles at around 41-70 characters and a significant benefit on Facebook keeping them under 40. In a competitive market like Toronto where properly produced and marketed videos can give you an edge, it’s very important to be mindful of the seemingly “small details” of video marketing.

We get a lot of questions from our clients and associates in Oakville about video production procedure and how we go about writing our scripts. Script writing for a video is of course one of the first steps in the production process and requires a substantial amount of skill and experience to be done right. There are many variables involved in creating a great video script. Here are a few rules of thumb that we always follow in writing our scripts.

The term “elevator pitch” has become a popular catchphrase in business. The idea is to find a short summary that quickly and simply defines what you do and/or what your company does should you find yourself sharing a short elevator ride with a person of importance to your business. In a situation like this, you would be prepared to pitch your products or services to that person in that short period of time in the hopes of procuring new business.

In many ways, a video can be seen somewhat like an elevator pitch in that you must capture someone’s attention quickly to deliver your message (or pitch). Although there are exceptions, for the most part we approach our scripts from that perspective. We know that a video has upwards of five seconds to grab attention and compel a viewer to continue watching. Within these crucial first seconds, the viewer must get a clear idea that your company and brand are awesome and that your products or services are something they need…. NOW. A balanced combination of voiceover narration, compelling video shots and/or animated titles and text, are some of the many elements that can be written in to achieve this.

With video, one size does NOT fit all so we always keep the target audience (client’s target customers) in mind when developing our scripts. This comes down to having efficient dialogues with our clients and developing a thorough understanding of their target customers. Additional market research is often necessary on our part. The goal here is for the target audience to be able to easily identify with what is being expressed in the video. We ask ourselves the question: “What is the problem that this product or service solves?”. Often, creating a simple scenario or case example can help viewers get the point quickly. From there we present the solution. We explain what makes this product or service ideal and why the viewer should choose our solution over the competition. The solution needs to create a desire for the viewer to act fast.

In terms of duration, today the most effective marketing videos are between 30 and 60 seconds. 90 seconds and beyond is where you start losing viewers unless your content is really exceptional. Keeping a video to within 30-60 seconds means really keeping your information and content to-the-point. Narrations, actors’ lines, shots, call-to-action text, etc. must all be properly planned out to fit within this time rage. It helps to keep sentences and on-screen text short and to use simple language…. no insider-industry jargon…. always use layman’s’ terms. Once the working draft is complete, we read through the script and time it with a normal speaking cadence to confirm that the duration falls between the preferred 30 – 60 seconds. Revisions are then done as needed and the process is repeated until we’ve achieved the right duration for the script. This works very well if the video has narrations throughout and also helps us imagine how the visuals will play out on screen. It’s also important to allow for the right amount of time for the call-to-action shot at the end (the next step the viewer can take to get started). When the working draft is complete, we submit it to the client for feedback and apply any necessary revisions. As soon as the client approves the script … it’s lights, camera, and action time!

Script and concept development is the first step and a decisive factor in whether a video will be great or if it will be a flop. If you are interested in joining the millions of companies world wide that are enjoying the benefits of having video in their marketing plan, contact a reputed corporate video production company today. Remember, video is no longer just some luxury marketing tool in it’s infancy, utilized by early adopters. Video marketing is essential NOW. And it all starts with a great script!