• Nov 28, 2022

Five Tips for Producing Video for Influencers

Producing video isn’t just about creating the perfect TikTok and, let’s face it if you’re already a TikTok influencer you’re on top of trends, making a few yourself, and you’re evolving with the platform anyway. Video plays differently on different platforms – all of which have their own requirements and types of audiences – and it’s good to know some basic ideas of how to make your videos interesting, fun, and most importantly, watchable. Here are five tips for making great internet videos.

Plan it Out

Yes, a lot of internet videos look and feel spontaneous, but so does any good TV show. Acting sells spontaneity on big shows and movies, but online it’s often the speed of the editing and the ability to integrate flavor-of-the-day concepts. Watch what’s working and you and your PR team can plan your future videos around that, and be prepared to change if something is old hat really fast. Having at least a rough outline of your future videos not only tells you what the actual “story” will be, but what you’ll need to make it work.

Keep it Short

This almost goes without saying, but internet video tends to be short. Most people’s attention span is no greater than eight seconds while scrolling online, and on Facebook videos it's only four seconds. You have to do a lot to pull people within the first 4-8 seconds of your video, so go with your strengths. If you’re funny, make it a great setup, if you’re somewhere interesting, feature it right away, if you’ve got a mystery, ask that question right up top and don’t answer it until you’ve gotten to the meat of your video.

Lighting is Key

Look, everyone has a ring light now, and that’s just fine for a lot of indoor videos, but whatever you do, make sure the lighting you have is actually adequate. This seems like common sense, but people want to see you being cute, being funny, or being interesting. Make sure there’s enough light and, if you really want to sell it, learn about three point lighting – going cinematic is going to make you stand out, and it’s not hard to have a ready-made three point lighting setup for all of your videos.

Bank Your Videos

This goes right along with planning, but if you’re posting every day, it doesn’t hurt to use one location for a bunch of videos, so you’ve got content in case there’s some delay later on. Yes, it’s harder to stay on trend within the main action of your video, but that’s where a little bit of post-production magic can happen. Titles/captions, music and voice over can do a lot to save a video that needs a reference shoehorned in.

Call to Action

This goes for whether you’re selling something, getting people to like and subscribe, or just trying to get people to keep watching – you need a call to action – an obvious, clear statement that says anything from “visit my sponsor” to “check out my channel.”