When a consumer sees the video you create, it is an automatic reflection of your brand. No matter what type of video you make – humorous promotional video, product showcase or explainer video – you are cementing your brand image into the minds of an entirely new audience. In order to ensure you make the right impression, be sure you avoid the all-too-common mistakes that are found here. The old adage you have likely heard time and time again “when you fail to plan, you plan to fail” definitely applies when making a video. You must ask two essential questions when creating a video and have definite, concise answers in order to create a great video:

What is the strategic purpose? Why is the video being made?

If you cannot provide an answer to these questions, take time to revisit your plan. When someone lands on your website, you have approximately three seconds to grab their attention. While the attention for a video is a bit longer at about 10 seconds, keeping your video short and sweet will yield the best results. If you do successfully capture the attention of a visitor, at most they will spend three minutes watching. If what you want to share runs over this amount of time, consider making a series of videos. This will keep your audience engaged and coming back for more. The last line of your video should be a call to action, such as:

“Follow us on Twitter.” “Click to Learn More.” “Sign Up Here.”

It does not matter what the CTA is, the key is to make sure it is present so your viewers know what they should do next. Without a call to action, your video is pretty much a bunch of pretty visuals that will do little-to-no good for your actual business. No matter how wonderful of a masterpiece you create, it is essential that you edit your video prior to publishing it. A video that has not been properly edited will actually hurt your business and your reputation. Be sure you view your video, and you have others view it, prior to releasing it to your audience. With the help of the team at Spiel Creative, getting your video edited will be a breeze. The professionals who work for this company will be able to bring the vision you have to life. Once you are ready to post your video, you need to add in additional text and tags. While this is extremely easy to forget about, it may also cost you in terms of results in the search engines. If you create a stellar video, good for you! However, if you simply upload it to YouTube and expect the traffic to come, you are kidding yourself. No one is going to find this masterpiece unless you promote it. There are thousands of different videos uploaded to YouTube each hour, so if you don’t let people know it is there, chances are you will not get very much traffic. Creating a great video is just the first step in this marketing effort. You must also take the time to edit it and include all of the necessary information. This is the only way that this marketing tool will reap the benefits you want. In most cases, prospective customers will be more apt to watch a video than they will be to read a long blog.