Six Simple Tips For Making A Professional Video

So you want to create professional video content for social media, but you feel shy or nervous on camera? I know the feeling. It’s nerve-wracking, especially if you’re unfamiliar with social media video posts, reels, TikTok, Lives, YouTube, etc. And if you are over 40 years old, you know well that creating content for videography wasn’t a subject we learned in school. Unless you wanted to specialize in this sort ofo media, knowledge of content creation was limited to writing articles and essays in high school and university.

Achieving a professional video that attracts an audience requires simple planning and tools. Often, you will find articles and blogs outlining the technical aspect of video recording. Many editorials skip the planning and content creation part of professional video creation. There aren’t enough how-to blogs that outline how you can come up with video content and how to seamlessly record it. I learned from trials and errors and from analyzing other social media videos. That’s why I decided to write this blog for beginners where I share important tips to ease the process and make you feel comfortable with the process. In this blog, I focus on the planning side first, followed by a brief section on setup and tools.

How to create professional video content for social media

Let’s take a step back to high-school days and how we learned to prepare essays. We learned to follow these steps when writing compelling articles:

Pick a topic

The first thing you want to define is a topic for your video. You can start by listing popular topics your audience can connect to and find valuable. That shouldn’t be hard to find online and on social media. In addition, you can find trending topics in newspapers, magazines, or blogs published by your competitors.

For example, let’s say your niche is wellness, and you want to create a video that showcases your expertise in this field. You can find endless topics on popular wellness sites like Goop or credible publications like Healthy Living Magazine. Pick one of their most recent topics related to your business for your video and start crafting a story.

There are other methods SEO experts rely on to find trending content. This method is referred to as the keyword search. It requires some familiarity with online marketing and tools like Google Trends, Screaming Frog, Keywords Everywhere, Keysearch, Ahrefs, Answer The Public, and many more.

Identify a purpose

Once you’ve defined a topic for the professional video, you should specify a purpose or a goal. For example, what will your video content serve? As a business owner or a corporate professional, your end goal is to promote a new product or showcase your expertise. So you do it by sharing stories, information, how-to, advice, and “secrets to.”

And speaking of secrets, here’s a good one: entertainment is one of the best tools advertisers and content creators leverage to engage and build relations with an audience. Therefore keep it in mind when creating any professional videos for social media. Nobody wants to watch a boring video that lacks humor, effects, and exhilaration.

Research

Before you start creating a script, do your research. Look for similar research articles for facts and data that back up your knowledge and claims. Accurate information is essential when creating and presenting content. It acts as proof and a credible source that backs up your content

You can find factual data easily online. Let’s go back to my example on wellness content. If you want to share wellness benefits associated with a product, legally, you have to back up this information with medical data and research. You shouldn’t be making wellness claims without a correct reference to a study, research, or data source. And this goes for any product and service claim. They must be backed up in relevant publications, journals, and research papers if you want to appear professional and trustworthy in videos.

Start scripting

Now that you have all the information, facts and value proposition, you should be ready to start scripting. For video content, it’s best to keep your sentences short and clear. You want the content to be presented in simple language, so it appeals to audiences from different backgrounds with varying English language proficiency levels.

Start your script with a catchy phrase and attention-grabbing sentence. This is the hook that will drive curiosity and keep your audience engaged. A catchy statement can be a question that you have the answer to. It can be a listicle such as “Five ways to…”. Or a story when you had a problem and how you resolved it. Remember that your audience is looking for your insight, expertise, and recommendations (in the form of a product or service) to solve their problems.

Rehearsal

Once you’ve finalized the script, it’s time to rehearse and memorize it. You want to sound confident, then memorize your script for these reasons: Firstly, it’s easier to record when you’ve learned the script. Secondly, and most importantly, you’ll sound skilled and believable—nothing worst than reading a script on social media or stumbling on your words.

Record your professional video

Now the fun part. It’s time to record your script. There are three things you should have for a flawless and professional-looking video: Your appearance (face and apparel), your tools, and your recording style!

Recording style

Alright. First, I’m going to explain the recording style. Record each paragraph separately. And record at different angles. When you break down recording into paragraphs, you are able to edit each section or re-record the paragraph instead of the full script. Recording from different angles creates excitement and versatility. Just move the camera from one angle to the next back and forth while you remain seated in the same position.

Your appearance

Keep it simple and clean. You don’t need to wear heavy makeup or get a hairdo for a professional video. I do recommend putting on some makeup to hide blemishes and avoid looking too pale or tired. Keep your hair away from your face as you record, so you don’t have to touch it during recording.

As for clothes, what you put on should reflect the image you want to depict. For example, if your video is crafted for businesses, follow the business-casual rule of crisp and neutral tops. You should also take into consideration lights and backdrop. Therefore, I highly suggest you test recording with different outfit colors to find the ultimate look and feel of the video.

Tools you should have to shoot the best videos

You may consider investing in some basic video tools such as a phone/camera stand or tripod, lighting, and microphone. Here are some of the tools I use in my social media videos.

The LED video light projector is better than the selfie ring light. It’s more durable and projects better light quality for any type of video or photo capturing.

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A phone tripod stand is a must for video and photo capturing too. This is a sturdy tripod that you can convert to mount a phone or a camera.

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I also recommend a smaller tripod to place on tables or in tight spots such as your bathroom sink or kitchen sink. It works well if you want to do makeup or cooking videos.

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For high-quality audio and to isolate white noise, I also recommend a small microphone that you can attach to your collar.

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