Less is More

When you first realize the potential results of streaming an info-film that tells your organization's story from your website, the intial reaction is to go hog wild. By this, I mean that the initial urge will be to tell your organization's whole, painfully detailed history like a tipsy newly-wed at her baby shower. Think 4 to 8 minutes, not 30 to an hour.

But the real promise of video-centric websites are in their ability to - after a period of time - stream MANY films of various length and content. Anything from 30 seconds blurbs to 30 minute instructionals. Ideally, in our experience and opinion, the promised land is a website where all current information buttons or site nav bars lead to their own films; viewers are lead through the site by informative, entertaining and compelling MOVING images, not greeted by long, boring kiss-of-death COPY. If they eventually want your 100 pages of copy/statistics/nut & bolts, make it easily available in download form by PDF or some other software...but keep their initial voyage through your site fun, fast and enlightening.

So the point is - when creating your first film (and following the tried and true tips given in this blog) - give up your story in a quickly paced, fun filled, compelling 4 to 8 minutes. After you see and hear the responses from viewers, you will quickly realize that another film is ready to be streamed; this next film should focus on a particular point made in the first film and elaborate that point in a like manner. After that film, another, following the same process. In no time, you will have built a library of films covering all aspects of your comany. And remember, these info-films tend to have a shelf life of 3 to 5 years! Some even more. And content within a film is easily changed, provided you have a solid production company covering your back.

So tell your story, keep it brief and on point, and reap the benefits of streaming your oragnization's story clearly to the world.

What's Your Story?

Before you can effectively create and stream your organization's filmed story on your website, you have to know what that story is and what it is not. Your organization's physical history and its day-to-day operations are not its story, rather they are a chronological and methodical overview of how you arrived at where you are today. Although this can be interesting, informative and—if briefly treated in the film—interesting, it is not the heart of the story that you want and need to tell.

The heart of the filmed story that you want to tell—if firmly grasped and constantly referred to during the course of your film—is the engine that will drive your film and keep people watching it, as opposed to them taking a cursory glance, or simply turning it off. The secret of your story is this: what does your product or service mean? That's another way of asking: what profound effect does your product or service have on those who use it? This is the key. Find this and unlock your story.

Rule 1: Meaning produces emotion. And if you can produce an emotional reaction in the person viewing your film via the meaning of your product, that emotion will spur that viewer to action. Without meaning, the viewer will most likely yawn and move on.

Remember, when streaming films from your website, brevity and powerful meaning will result in web hits and views. And that means more, better, faster business.

Networking the Web — Part 2

Let’s look at our web site like a television channel. A person sits in front of their computer and stares at a lit screen, our web page. Now, given that we’ve all been raised on TV, we expect action. Sound and light, flickering and blaring. And so if our channel is static — a web page that neither flickers nor sounds, a dead page of copy and pictures — then our automatic response, anyone’s automatic response, will be to…change the channel cause there’s nothing on.

This is where the Network Chief saves the day. He realizes that, by utilizing cutting edge filmmaking and web streaming technologies, he can produce a compelling, entertaining, and emotionally involving film (show) for his channel that will tell the story of his company/product/service. Active not static. And once he puts that show up on his network, it will air — essentially for free — anywhere in the world, at anytime day or night. Not only that, but he can tell anyone and everyone to go to his channel and watch his show. And they, loving TV like they do, will watch his 4 to 7 minute show, thereby assimilating all the brilliant information he wanted them to have.

This of course is the promise of streaming filmed content on your web site. It grips the viewer unlike any other web attribute. And if you do your homework you will produce a filmed story that will elicit an emotional response from the viewer, and that response will spur the viewer to action.

One caveat however: If you’re going to tell your story in a filmed format, make absolutely sure that the quality of your presentation is on par with the way that you wish to be percieved. Amateur filmmaking is fun, but it’s called YouTube, and there’s a reason your average thoughtful adult can only take about 35 seconds of it at a time. You, however, want to create a film that will bear multiple viewings, providing education and entertainment as you market your product.

Leverage your channel with a filmed story of your product, and Network the Web.

Networking the Web

How many companies out there have a web presence and — if they aren’t actually selling product — are at least trying to educate and excite people about their product via their site? I would say most, if not all.

Now, the vast majority of those companies will never produce and air 30 second spots on national or even local television. The costs are simply prohibitive. But boy, how they’d like to. And yet, if we rethink what a website is and does, we will come to the realization that a website is — for all intents and purposes — a small, privately owned Television Network!

Right under our very noses.

Think I’m crazy? Then answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the following questions;

1) Can people tune into your website 24/7? From anywhere?
2) Can you create and post anything you like? Do you control programming?
3) Does the technology exist for you to post moving images with sound on your site?
4) Can you post these moving images in entertaining and compelling packets of self-contained story-telling?

If you answered in the affirmative, then you have a television channel, my friend. And you’re the network Boss.

Light and Sound

The mystical philosopher Kirpal Singh once said:

Through the eyes, 83 percent of all impressions enters our being and 14 percent enters through the ears.

So 97% of our perception comes in through light and sound.

And in today's overloaded world of perceptions and messages, the short film — streamed from one's website — is the key tool.

1. The short film conveys not just a message, but an experience, which elicits a response.
   
2. A film packages the entire message in 30 seconds for viewers in a hurry, yet allows the interested viewer to relax and be entertained by an in-depth presentation.
   
3. Sophisticated web viewers appreciate an honest, straightforward presentation that allows them a natural development of trust and confidence.