Make Digital Marketing Work

Over the last year, whatever trade show or marketing conference you went to  most of the noise was concerning video (apart from people often getting social media  wrong of course).  YouTube was the obvious sacrament that was held up to the awe struck masses and the commandment was given go forth and record a marketing video.

I actually remember something like that being said a year ago tomorrow when I went along to the Business Startup show.  Now its not that I am not a visual person.  I have indeed seen some highly informative videos on YouTube, (most of which have been giving advice on how to fix various parts of a bicycle), and I have seen some pretty swish video presentations either from conferences or filmed in the office that had some quite high production values.  I have viewed the mobile phone thirty second wonders which give you low production values but enough information so that it doesn’t grate on you so much, but there are also a lot of people who have tried to make videos, as commanded from the speaker’s podium and I don’t know about you but I don’t think the vast majority of them work at all.

There are exceptions like the wonderful anecdotes of yesteryear usually given by someone in their seventies or eighties on a Youtube Channel, but the reason I think they work is because there is a calm honesty to these short presentations, and it shows.  They are very different from what I am talking about and I think it can be summed up with the view that audiences value authenticity over perfection, and also an understanding that the camera doesn’t love everyone.

I know that MLM and alleged business coaches get a bad rap on this blog but they do highlight exactly what I am talking about, which is where the content takes second place to the ego.  Back when I first started designing websites we used to have a saying that if company owners started spending too much time chasing fame on the television (we were new and interesting creatures that TV shows seemed to want to talk to), then it was a sure sign that their business was in trouble and the ego was now driving the business into the ground.  More often than not this proved itself to be correct but there does seem to be something about digital marketing that unleashes a frustrated need to address the world and achieve as close to celebrity status as possible as you give your own version of Gordon Gecko’s ‘greed is good’ speech to your assembled online audience.

I’ve been trained in camera technique and so I know how difficult it is and all too often tense,  unfocused eyes stare into a camera lens and deliver a performance that is more worthy of a travelling freak show than an Oscar.  It really is like watching the very worst early auditions from X factor.  It might amuse but it won’t get the person delivering it taken seriously.  Nor will it make their dreams a reality.

Whether it is a close up in an office or set against a backdrop of the Hollywood hills, all too often there is a complete lack of sincerity in the delivery and no benefit that I can perceive.

Video is a powerful tool, but video demands respect and should not be attempted without preparation.