Vlogging for B2B marketing can be a great way to connect with your business customers. Vlogs are a way for you to demonstrate how a product or service works, introduce members of your team, create a human face for your brand and connect with others in your industry.
Visual content is vital to the success of any marketing plan, and vlogging is one of those visual elements that can drive traffic to your site. Your vlog creation need not be expensive, or production quality, but it does need to be an effective tool of communication.
The following list is collated to help you understand how you can create vlogs for your campaign without fumbling through some of the most common mistakes amateurs make.
1. Use Your Smartphone
Your smartphone is likely to have high-quality video capture. What is more important than the quality of the video is the consistency of the filming. Set the smartphone on a table or solid surface and avoid using zoom or moving the phone if you can. A still shot can capture an interview, a talking headshot or a demonstration without distraction.
2. Provide Context
Your vlog is part of your story. It is an element of your brand awareness efforts. Write a story for your vlog before you film. Make sure you have something of value to communicate with your audience, and remember that all-important element of consistency.
3. Add More B-Roll in Your Clips
Storytelling is about capturing the smaller moments. If you are travelling to an event, show a shot of a sign indicating where you are. If you are showing a client how to use your service, film yourself walking into the location. If you are interviewing an industry leader, have shots of that person interacting at events or working in their industry.
4. More Perspectives
If you’re in selfie mode the entire vlog, then your audience will get bored. Use different perspectives to create dimension. This might require you to take more than one or even five videos of the same scene and then cutting them together to create a final vlog.
5. Include a Soundtrack
Soundtracks set the mood. However, using them to create moments of tension, humour or sadness can be tricky. You need to include sound. You also need to ensure that any music you use is either free to use or you’ve paid the royalties to use the music.
6. Walk With the Camera
Disregarding point 1, when you feel you have the right tools to stabilize the camera you are using, you can include walking scenes to suggest that the story is moving forward. It is a device often used in storytelling on screen and it works. However, you need to be careful not to overuse the device in place of real content.
A wabbling camera can be annoying and distracting, so if you are going to walk and film, be sure to use a stabilizer and limit the movement to about 30 seconds to 1 minute unless it is necessary to film longer for an action scene.
7. Look Straight into the Camera
You want your audience to feel like they are connecting with you, so look down the barrel of the camera and talk to that audience as if they are sitting in front of you. This will take time to get used to. If you do some research online, you’ll find that the people who are most successful when vlogging are those who know how to make the audience forget that they are staring at a screen.
8. Company Content that Sells
When you’re in the B2B space, take advantage of all the things that make you unique. You might include snips of company meetings, moments where you celebrate wins, or interviews with people you work with. People are interested in who works for you and their background. It helps people to understand the real expectations your company has of its employees and their skills.
9. Overall, B2B Content Works
The content that attracts an audience is the content that is authentic and value-adding. If you can show people what your business has to offer and how it achieves success through a regular vlog, you have the chance to attract a loyal following, create connections, drive traffic and secure new leads.
