Shooting at Nancy L Ford Studio B - 52 Franklin Square Utica NY

If you’re not making some kind of video content right now, you’re losing. Period.

Online video is quickly becoming an essential way for people to get information. According to Cisco, video will account for nearly 69% of all consumer internet traffic by 2017. Don't believe it? YouTube alone gets over one billion unique visitors per month -- more than any other channel besides Facebook.

A little while back, Omnicom advised businesses to move 25% of ad budgets to online video, ultimately slashing TV budgets. Why does this matter? Back in the days of TV, businesses would hold 90% of their advertising budgets for distribution simply because of the expense of TV airtime. That's probably why you've seen so many horrible "local" commercials on the tube. Only 5-10% of the advertising budgets are going towards actual production if anything at all! In fact, some stations even offer FREE production of your advertisement, your BUSINESS your FIRST IMPRESSION, your LIVELIHOOD with the purchase of air time. Remember, you get what you pay for.

Times have changed however. On the internet, you won't get to humiliate yourself in front of a million viewers with crappy advertising videos. I guess you can thank YouTube for this. With the amount of videos uploaded to the web daily, not only does your content have to be worth your audience's time, but your production better be top notch. And as far as distribution goes? Online distribution can be as cheap or expensive as you wanna make it. It can also be as cheap or effective as you wanna make it, but you better know what you're doing. Otherwise just throw your money in the trash. There are a few very effective ways if you're looking to get serious with video.

Successful professional video production companies are successful not because they have the best equipment or because they have a handle on technical camera & editing skills. They are successful because they are not just video technicians, but because they offer the experience of knowing how to create & deliver a message(story) that motivates a viewer to take action.

So what matters more? Great content or great production quality?

To play devil's advocate, let me argue for both sides here...

Great content with crappy audio/visuals-

+ People are watching your videos for the content. They want your information and they want it now. Good content is going to keep people coming back for more.

- If the production quality is bad enough, it might drive your viewer crazy enough to close out of the video before they ever get to the awesome content. If this happens, they won't come back.

Crappy content with awesome audio/videos-

+ Viewers will have something nice to look at with easy-to-understand audio which allows for your information to get to them quicker and easier.

- If your content isn't valuable to them, what is the point of your viewer watching your videos in the first place? They probably aren't coming back to waste their time again.

How do you keep audience retention?

Simple.

MAKE AWESOME VIDEOS

-Matt O