Quickly & Easily Create Pro-Quality Video Content Using Nothing More Than Your Smartphone!

Video is one of the most effective content channels, along with blogging and podcasting. Video allows your audience to engage on a deeper level, digest and understand in more detail and get a very real feeling of getting to know you. The willingness of people to consume video means that email open and click-through rates, search engine results and website visitor retention times all benefit from the inclusion of video content.

This is just the tip of iceberg of evidence supporting video as an extremely effective tool to engage, inform and connect with your marketplace. In my opinion, video is an essential tool for any business using (or thinking of using) content marketing to grow a community around their brand.

So, what’s the downside? Typically, video is difficult, expensive and time consuming to produce. This is especially true for smaller businesses without spare resources.

There is a silver lining to this cloud! In today’s world of increasingly capable smartphones and powerful (but free) apps, any first time film-maker can quickly create impressive mini promo-films following this simple step by step process that I’ve put together. With barely a learning curve and almost as little effort, you’ll be able to regularly create engaging, professional looking video content that’s tailored to your community and boosts your brand’s Authority and Clarity and helps you Connect with them emotionally.

Firstly, a bit of foundational work for you. If you haven’t yet read my blog on smartphone photography, it’ll help you with composition and how to get the most out of your smartphone camera’s small sensor and lens. Watch the video and check out my midrange smartphone photos for inspiration! These same tips and tricks also apply to smartphone video making.

Secondly watch the video in this post. It has a short tutorial showing how, in less than 10 minutes, I made a cracking short film using my midrange smartphone and free software!

Once you know how to do it, download and print off a few copies of the storyboard template, map out your idea and follow the comprehensive step by step guide. It’s time to put your director’s hat on!

Five Keys to Boost your Short Film!

Here are some key pointers for making this sort of film more engaging and more memorable (on top of the  more technical smartphone photography rules!):

1. Keep the shots short and snappy. You’ll be surprise how short you can make each shot without losing the story (most of the shots in my film were one to three seconds long). Too many long shots will definitely lose the attention of your viewer!
2. Make sure it’s a fun topic. If you can make people laugh, they’ll remember your film and are much more likely to like, share and comment!
3. Put yourself in the film. Yes! Don’t be shy. Start building your personal brand alongside your company brand. Let your audience get to know you. Don’t take yourself too seriously either, people love it if they feel like you’re a real person – the kind of person they want to do business with.
4. Make an effort to hold the camera steady – this will help in making a more professional looking film.
5. Put some effort and imagination into your storyboard – and then stick to it.

This is but a content asset building-block

Beyond the ability to make great little films in no time at all, again I urge you to think about your marketplace and what kind of content will entertain, engage, inform and bring value. This is a big picture concept. I’m a huge advocate for building an integrated, connected, content asset, not a random collection of content bits and pieces based on whims and hunches.

I am going to cover this topic in great details once I’ve covered a few more basics of content creation but in the mean time, think about themes and patterns in your content and how it will all fit together if someone finds you 7, 12 or 21 months from now. Just the act of keeping this in mind will help you bring greater congruency and therefore efficacy to your content marketing efforts, both for your brand and your community.

Create in Plain Sight

Okay, so my challenge to you is to forget about being safe with this stuff! Get into it, and get it out there! Stick it on Facebook and Youtube and even in Instagram and Twitter! Adjust your process based on feedback and learn on the fly.

I’d love to see anything you make so bring it along when you come and join the new Rocketland Facebook group at facebook.com/groups/rocketland.

Happy film making and happy growing!

Thanks for reading and catch you next time when I’ll show you how to use a professional design app to create your own logos, icons and other useful graphics °¬)

jonas stuart.

Jonas Stuart is the founder and content director at Rocketland Media. He is a visual communications and content marketing expert with 20 years experience helping brands connect with their marketplace. In that time he’s helped countless businesses struggling to communicate with and engage with their target audience including start-ups, SMEs and PLCs. Today he utilises online video and social media to help companies grow a dedicated community around their brand.