Jonathan Jenkins
Many businesspeople shy away from putting videos on their websites. The aversion is simply human nature, says Jonathan Jenkins, videographer and owner of Progressive Production Services. “When email came out, there was an aversion to it, too.” Email, of course, is now ubiquitous – and video should be as well, Jenkins says.
Jenkins has been interested in video since the 1960s, when his father produced family movies on a 16mm camera. Jenkins likens videos to “a mini-website” that points back to your site. Optimized video never fails, he says. “It’ll be out there in cyberspace, and it’s never going to go away, unless you take it down.”
“Think about your website as a planet,” Jenkins says. “Every planet has satellites, and they all connect to the planet. Videos and blogs are the satellites – they’re a conduit for information to direct you back to the planet. If you have 100 videos out there, and each one is optimized to point back to your website, imagine the power of that.
“It’s advertising that never stops growing,” he adds. “The more clicks, the happier Google is.”
Here are Jenkins’ other tips about videos:
- It’s important for your video to have a professional look. “People are used to watching TV. If it’s not even close to TV quality, people aren’t going to bother,” he says.
- A video shouldn’t be more than two or three minutes long. As for the content, it needs to solve a problem. Testimonials from satisfied customers are excellent video content.
- What to look for if you plan to hire a videographer:
- Ask to see the prospect’s portfolio.
- Find out how much experience the videographer has.
- Check into the videographer’s education.
- Look at the equipment he or she is using – is he making videos with an iPhone or with state-of-the-art video equipment?
- What kind of personality does the videographer have? He or she has to be able to coach the people who will appear in the video, and make them feel comfortable.
