This special Saturday post is brought to you by a Facebook question from Taylor. He wants to know:
Hi Amy, thanks for your great tips! We want to start using video on our blog, website (retail business) – but not sure if we should hire someone or try to do it ourselves. Probably looking to highlight products, maybe do some infommercial/how to videos. Any advice?
The beautiful thing about video blogging is that anyone can do it. All you need is a decent camera (which is very easy to come by these days), a tripod, and some editing software.
Hiring someone does take a lot of pressure off of you if you are inexperienced and want the product to turn out nice from the beginning without a lot of trial and error. But it’s not going to be cost efficient for the company unless they already have someone on payroll that will continue to do this for you.
My suggestion for a small brand who wants to get into professional-looking video blogs would be to first buy the following:
- A Canon digital or video camera (I recommend the Canon Powershot ELPH 300 HS)
- A tripod (normal size and miniature)
- Decent software, either iMovie for the Mac or I like Cyberlink PowerDirector for PC.
Once you have everything and you are too overwhelmed to start on your own, hire an experience vlogger to take care of your first videos for you. Ask them to teach you how they prepare them from filming to edititing to publishing. They can probably even set up a template in the video editing software that will help you get videos done quicker and easier as well as more consistently.
This will start you off with something nice and impressive for your viewers, as well as dip your toes in the water to eventually progress and make better videos on your own. And hiring someone for one-time help will be more cost-efficient for your business and better for your learning curve.
If you have any questions about video blogging or would like to consult with me, you can send me an email.
