Getting Started with Video: Types of Videos You Can Create

Video marketing has grown to be an integral piece in marketing online these days, and can serve many functions for your business. Even though many are aware of this, understanding what types of videos to create is a unnecessary stumbling block that keeps many from using this valuable and essential tool for online marketing.

Know what you want to accomplish with video first!

You want to know what you’d like to achieve with video in order to better use the medium. Just throwing up a video on YouTube isn’t a plan. Carefully consider how you plan to use video in your marketing. It’s important to know the reason you are creating these videos from the beginning, in order to boost their odds of success not to mention save you a boatload of time and effort! Here are a few ways that businesses can make use of video in their marketing.

• Building your brand
• Video as a product
• Live and recorded Webinars and workshops
• Launching videos
• Sales or promotional videos

What kind of videos can you make?

After you’ve decided how you want to use video marketing in your business, you need to choose what kinds of videos to create. There are many different kinds of videos that may work for you.

Slideshow – This one is the easiest to make. You just make slides in PowerPoint or Keynote (Mac) and record them in a video format. There are many programs that will do this, and you most likely already have them on your computer. You can narrate or add music or both.

Talking heads – This is where people are onscreen talking. These may be recorded in a number of ways, by using your smartphone, a video camera, a still camera with video or iPad, or… in any case, there are lots of ways to shoot a video.

Google Hangouts – Google Hangouts has developed into a quick and easy way to record a webinar or other presentation live and make it available for later use. It integrates with YouTube account easily.

Screenshares – This is when you basically record your screen as you narrate your topic. Software for doing this includes Camtasia, Jing, or Snagit.

Livestreaming video – There are several services out there that can get your event live streaming on the Web.

Animation – Love animated videos? Think you can’t do them? Wrong! Products like Videoscribe and Powtoon make this a reality.