Planning your video is much like planning a podcast. There are numerous things that you must decide, before you ever turn the video camera on. Of course, you must determine what style of video you will make, what format you will follow, and finally, you must write the content or at the very least a very well defined outline of the content.
Planning is the longest part of video blogging. Again, there is much that you must decide, and a good place to start is with the style of video you will make. Here are typical video styles:
- Interview Style - This is of course a video that will capture you interviewing someone else. These make great videos, and they are quite popular, depending on your niche.
- News Reporting Style - This is the same as it is for a podcast, wherein you literally report the news that concerns your niche – CNN style.
- Conversation Style - This would be a video of two or more people having a topic centered conversation. It is not to be confused with an interview, because it is more of an open conversation about the topic, where each person gives their views. Think of ‘The View’ when you think of this style.
- Course/Lesson Style - Video makes a wonderful tool for courses and lessons. Generally, with this type of video, you would use visuals and such to teach the topic.
- Monologue Style - Just as with podcasting, think Rush Limbaugh here. You give your views on your topic.
- Other - There are numerous styles of videos. You can do ongoing ‘journal style’ videos, funny shorts, full length movies – the possibilities are endless.
There is no hard and fast rule that says that you must create the same style of video for each video blog post that you make. However, in terms of business video blogging, you will most likely want to stick with a combination of news reporting, courses/lessons, monologue, conversation, and interviews.
Once you’ve chosen your platform, you need to choose your format. Again, there are not hard and fast rules here. You can do what you want, but ideally, your video should be laid out in an orderly, logical fashion. You want it to make sense to your audience, and it is a good idea to stick with a similar format for each video, so that your audience knows what to expect from you.
A sample video blog format may look like this:
- Lead in music, intro screen
- Welcome
- Announcements
- Main Content
- More Announcements
- Lead out music, credits screen
This is a very basic format for your production, and your specific video may have additional items – or completely different items depending on the type of video that you are producing.
It helps, at this point, to determine how long your video will be. As with podcasts, thirty minutes to an hour is a good length. Longer videos may be harder to produce, take longer to upload, and may actually be too long for your audience. Shorter videos won’t give you enough time to get your point across. Choose a video length, and assign a time limit for each item of your format.
Remember that 150 to 160 words can be spoken, on average, per minute. With this in mind, you are ready to start writing your content – or your outline. If you feel that you will be able to speak more naturally, stay focused on your topic, and get your point across in a logical fashion with the use of a well defined outline, as opposed to a script, go with that.
If not, you will need to write a script. You can use a teleprompter for this, as long as your computer is close enough to where you are shooting your video for you to see the teleprompter. However, you never want to sound like you are reading a script. Write a five minute outline, and a five minute script, and shoot a practice video of each one to determine how you do best at delivering your content.
The same concepts apply here as they do for planning podcast content. Be sure to refer to that section of this ebook for that information. Remember that there are ideas out there everywhere. But you will need to determine how often you plan to post to your video blog, so that you can better determine what content, and how much content should go into each video.
It is also at this point that you will create or gather any visuals that you plan to use. This could be a variety of props or items, depending again on your niche and your topic. For example, if you are shooting a video that teaches people how to groom a poodle, you will need a poodle – preferably one that actually needs grooming, and all of the tools that are needed for grooming the poodle.
You aren’t quite ready to turn the camera on yet…there are still a few more issues that you need to work out before you say ‘lights, camera – ACTION.’
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