Video has been proven to be the most powerful and effective content marketing tool. It’s great to get as many videos as you can produced for your website, social media pages etc., but over time it can get pretty expensive if you’re paying another company to do it for you.

If you’re looking to cut back on your video marketing expenditure, why not make your own? You probably won’t be able to do every video yourself, but if it’s a simple idea e.g. a talking head video, you could easily create it yourself.

According to Phil Nottingham from Distilled, there are two types of video content: hero content and home content. Hero content is about putting everything you’ve got into one video, with the goal of captivating and making an emotional connection with the audience, whereas the purpose of home content is to provide the audience with useful information on a regular basis. If you’re going to make a video yourself, it would be a good idea to start by creating home content.  Here are a few tips on how to get started:

 

Use a Mobile Phone

“What if I don’t have the right resources?” If you’re making a talking head video, you don’t need to have any expensive or high tech equipment, as you can create an amazing outcome with pretty much what you already have. If you don’t have a camera, you can just use a phone to film your video (we would advise using a smartphone camera if you’re looking for decent quality).

 

Film in Office Space

You’ll find that a lot of companies who produce talking head videos use some kind of plain background or a green screen. Although it’s good to use a plain, simple background, filming in office space is also effective. By showing computers, people, desks, chairs etc. in the background, it proves that you are a real company, not just a person making a video.

 

Lighting

If you are going to invest any money into the video, It is recommended to put it towards lighting. Although having a good camera helps, the lighting plays a huge part in getting a professional picture. If you think the quality is good enough without any extra lighting, then you may as well go with it, but if a lot of your filming space is dark or oddly lit you’re probably going to need it.

 

Audio

Having good audio is crucial, but you don’t always need to have an expensive mic to do it right. From shooting live videos in the past, we’ve found that using a smartphone audio recorder works well. By this I don’t mean using the sound from the phone that’s recording, but instead using another phone to put in the subject’s top pocket or somewhere above them. The closer the recording device is to the person, the better it’ll sound. One thing to make sure of is that the phone isn’t in the shot. If you’re looking for a cheap portable recorder, we would recommend using the Zoom H1; It’s a basic recorder, but it can deliver amazing audio quality for it’s price.

 

Editing

You’re probably going to have to do a bit of editing to make sure that your video flows and looks professional. If you’re looking for an easy to use program, then you should probably go for Windows Movie Maker. It’s free, you can add music, captions and credits, so it’s a great option if you’re unfamiliar with video editing. If you want to go for something a little more advanced (not necessarily needed for a talking head video, but maybe for any other videos you want to produce), then you could always use Adobe Premiere Pro. It’s not cheap to buy, but if you download a 30 day free trial, you should be able to produce a few videos at least.

 

We hope you’ve found these tips useful. If you have any questions or anything to add, be sure to post below.