Whatever you’re doing online, don’t do anything you might one day regret. A simple piece of advice, which many follow with their day-to-day online activity, but forget when putting together more permanent online promotions, such as video.
There are millions of videos online. Many are largely only found by the people they’re aimed at. Some occasionally go viral, spreading across the internet like wildfire, because they are of exceptional quality or good humour. Sometimes though, a video goes viral for all the wrong reasons.
While many are simply poor quality, with bad shooting and scripts, the videos themselves are innocent enough. However, no matter how good a video is, an offensive script or imagery can have a much deeper and far reaching impact.
One such example is a 20 second video promoting the services of an American law firm which has been singled out as racist by many viewers, with its use of negative stereotypes to portray a Chinese car driver involved in an accident. As reports of the video began to surface, the law firm issued a denial that they ordered the video and a counter argument came from the video producers that they were just following the law firm’s script.
Here are a few tips to help ensure you don’t make the same mistake:
- Who are you aiming the video at? This is always your first decision as it will shape your message from the start.
- Consider the audience you are not aiming your video at. Is it possible that anything you’ve put together might be misunderstood? By all means use humour in your video but while you and your audience might laugh, others may not. Context is everything and even if you are aiming your video at a small group of people, controversy spreads across the internet very fast and it may not be long after the video is uploaded that news desks start calling you or customers start to drift away.
- Exactly how well does the video represent you as professionals? Yes, you need to show your human side but people still want a business that –gives a responsible approach at all times.
- Be proud. If you have a poor quality video, what might this say about your products or service? A bad video might mean customers don’t even bother getting in touch to see how good you really are.
The best way to avoid any problems is to get some outside advice. Test the script and ideas on friends and independent colleagues. If there’s a suggestion that it might cause offence, or it’s simply not working, have a re-think. If you’re hiring a professional agency to look after your video production then make sure they’re acting in your best interests.
The first thing a good agency will want to know is what you are trying to achieve. With this goal in mind they can work hard to make sure you achieve that, and not just simply agree to every one of your ideas. Of course there is every chance that you will have had some great ideas on what the video should contain. Even so a good video production agency should come up with options to consider before you go ahead with filming.
Videos give your business a really good chance to show off your services to a much wider audience. They will be a reflection of your personality, professionalism and experience. Remember, first impressions count.
