Over the past few weeks, the Really Bright Media Film Collective has been working on a short film entry for the Reed Short Film Competition 2012. The rules dictated the film had to be three minutes maximum in length and based on the theme, ‘The Boss’.
Our Film Collective produces a short film every week. For this project, we spent one week working on the concept and script, one week for pre-production and one week for filming and post production.
Here is the finished result:
Thank you to everyone involved!
The Really Bright Media Film Collective brings together creatives from different disciplines of film making (including actors, writers, directors, producers, cinematographers, editors, sound engineers, costumer, hair and make up, music composers, animators, runners, etc). Producing a short film every week, the collective’s focus is output and collaboration with other creatives. You can see other short films here: http://tinyurl.com/RBMFilmCollective
DOP Andy with Writer/ Director Nick, working on #BossesArePeopleToo:
YouTube is the second largest search engine, attracting as many as two billion views each day*. It is clearly advantageous for a business to output content on YouTube to increase their searchability; but many don’t.
Why? Perhaps it is the effort involved with making videos. It is much easier to type up a blog for example, than to plan, script, produce, film, edit and upload a video clip. That may well be true, but it is an opportunity too good to be neglected! And there are ways of making videos that look great, are simple, cost effective and fun to do!
Two case studies come to mind; both clients of RBM who are the face and brand of their businesses and can only meet with a limited amount of people per day. One gentleman started making how-to videos on his area of expertise as well as interviewing experts in his field. He started in mid 2009 and now has 150 000+ views on his YouTube channel. He is contacted by people around the world and is standing out as an expert in his industry.
The second individual has a similar report; she started making videos for YouTube in early 2010 and now has close to 250 000 views on her YouTube channel. She is searchable, credible and has opportunities arise due to this exposure. In both cases, these business people are adding immense value to the body of information regarding their respective niches online.
See this video made by Purple Eagle; a simple how-to clip that (at time of writing) has 145 000+ views.
So how can you integrate YouTube into your social media strategy? Here are some tips to get started:
Capture Footage Everywhere Firstly, just start capturing footage. You can use your iPhone, a digital camera, your webcam, a DSLR camera or a camcorder. Especially if you have events taking place, just start recording! If someone interesting comes into the office, interview them. Interview your team. Begin the habit of capturing content that can be leveraged later.
Remember, you do things in your business everyday that you are so used to, you forget other people don’t know how to do it! Start thinking about the value you can add.
Decide How Often to Post Set a content plan in motion, just like you would with a blog schedule or your daily tweets. Decide upon the kind of films you want to output. It might be a really hard-hitting, high quality film per month or more simple tips video every week. You may want to follow themes per week or month to help you stay on track.
Capture in Bulk When going to the effort of making films, capture as much as you can in one sitting. Film enough footage to edit them into multiple clips. This will maximise your time invested. For example, we once filmed 40 common physiotherapy exercises in one go! It took a few hours, but the results – and views- were fantastic.
Think About Content
Do you have an introduction pitch video?
Can you turn existing content, like blogs, into films?
Do you have films detailing your different services?
Do you have contacts you interview? How about testimonials?
What tips and tutorials could you offer?
Do you have films to show off your work? Remember, they speak for you and they give your viewers an experience.
Get It Done!
Use the filming equipment you have at your disposal right now, and don’t forget about great free editing software- like iMovie- that is user friendly and make your films look professional. Where possible, use a professional film company to make your stand out clips- like pitch or service videos, event highlights or products.
Leverage the Films
Make sure you then tweet about your videos, post them on Facebook, add them to your blogs. Send them out with a press release so others can blog about you and embed your videos. You now have an asset that can be shared easily and can help spread your message. Stick to a routine of posting videos and you will see momentum build over time.
For any further film questions, please tweet us @Really_Bright or email “films (at) reallybrightmedia (dot) com”.
Facebook timeline rolls out this month (the 30th of March to be exact) for all existing business and company pages. If you own a page, be sure to get in ahead of the update and adjust your page to suit the new layout. This includes adding a cover photo, checking your profile photo size, going through old posts and featuring important ones- or hiding irrelevant ones. You may want to check over your settings and details.
If you are setting up a new page, you will automatically be set up on Timeline. These are the steps you will need to take.
1. Log into Facebook and go to www.facebook.com/pages/create.php
2. Select which page you want to set up. For this example, we will set up a ‘Company’ for ‘My Beauty Company’.
3. Follow the initial set-up steps. This includes adding your profile picture, adding your ‘About’ details and selecting your Facebook web address. You can skip these steps and come back later if need be.
4. You will then be taken to your admin panel on your page. You will be taken through a few more set-up steps. Take action now or skip until later. It’s a good idea to completely set up your page before you invite friends to like your page.
5. Timeline is more visual. Add your cover photo like the example below. This is a good opportunity to express more of your business’ personality and branding.
6. Click on ‘edit’ in the top right corner under the drop down menu ‘manage’. Here you can adjust settings like your username, page name, address, description, admins who can help manage the page, and more. You can also make your page ‘unpublished’ or hidden until you are ready to launch it publicly.
7. If you click on ‘Resources’ you will find helpful options to develop your page. You may want to link Facebook to Twitter.
8. Now you can go ahead and add some content. Add several posts before launching your page- so people have something to look at when they visit. First impressions count! You can click the star on your posts to feature them.
9. You can also ‘like’ other pages on Facebook on behalf of your page. You can add apps. It is also strongly recommended that you add a few photo albums to bring your page to life.
10. From here, you can link your Facebook page to your management tool like Hootsuite and integrate this new platform into your social media strategy.
Over the past years, we’ve worked with a lot of individuals and businesses on their social media strategy, content plan, set up, and training. A frequently asked question is, ‘how do you accurately measure your social media effectiveness?’.
There are some tools online that allow you to measure the influence of your output. Sites like Klout or Peer Index are good for identifying your style, impact and comparing to your industry or competitors.
You can measure the end result in this way, but there aren’t many tools that measure the up-front capabilities of the social media user. This is an important step, often overlooked. For example, you might be able to see that you aren’t engaging well with others online, but you won’t know why.
So, we have developed the Really Bright Media Social Media Indicator. The Indicator identifies nine key areas that affect your social media results, focusing on you- the user.
After answering 51 questions, the RBM Social Media Indicator produces your chart with a percentage score for each of the areas, including; overall effectiveness, attitude, connecting, influence, potential, presentation, reliance, skills, and use.
The indicator is designed to break down the specific areas you can focus on to improve your social media profile, as many people find it an overwhelming task to tackle their social media as a whole.
Currently, we are offering the beta version of the RBM Social Media Indicator as a Free Treat! Go to the front page of the website to fill in your questionnaire and we will email you the results.
