I’ve been blogging a lot lately about when DIY videos are okay. My theory is if you’re a tiny business with zero marketing budget, by all means produce your own videos.

On the other hand, if you’re a more established company, it’s better to turn to a professional storyteller.

I think the subject has been on my mind a lot because I’m basically putting my money where my mouth is. No, I’m not turning to someone else to produce a video on T60. That’s crazy talk. I’m talking about web design.

When I started T60 eight years ago, I sat down at iWeb (does Apple even make that anymore!?) and created the company website. Honestly, I think I did pretty darn well for a novice, but creating it and updating it over the years meant me learning a lot about web design and stumbling my way through it.

Thankfully, T60 has come of age, and in the next couple weeks we’ll be going live with a new website… one produced by pros.

Julie at We Cre8 Design and Brian at Net Elevation have done an incredible job. They’re the reason I’ve been thinking so much about DIY lately. They created something I never would have been able to do on my own. They’re the pros, and I’m glad I turned to them.

I’ll take expert help over ineptitude any day.

–Tony Gnau

We’ve all heard it before, but it’s true. Content is becoming a more and more valuable tool for businesses, and the better they do it the better it makes the company look.

It’s one of the biggest reasons to make sure you’re picking a good storyteller to produce your videos. You want to create content that’s going to appeal to your clients and prospects. I’m sure Ted in accounting puts together some terrific home movies, but we’re talking a higher degree of storytelling sophistication here.

A quality storyteller will be able to take what you want to communicate and deliver it in a way that draws in an audience. There’s no point in creating content for content’s sake. You want something that will connect with people.

I guess the point is that content isn’t king… quality content is king.

–Tony Gnau

Last week I was blogging about when it’s okay for a business to produce its own videos. Basically, it boils down to budget and size. If you’re a small business owner with zero budget for marketing, please feel free to produce your own stuff. Everyone else… you should look for a video pro.

What I didn’t get into was WHY everyone else should get professional help. So… here it is…

You want people to take you seriously. You want clients and prospects to look at your company and have a sense of confidence. You want them to look at you as professional.

Your reputation is on the line

So why would you entrust your company videos to non-professionals? Video has never been more accessible to the masses. Anyone with a smart phone can shoot, edit and post videos to the web. The problem is most of what they post is garbage. Not exactly the image you’d like to give people about your company.

If you’re a small shop and people know and understand this, an amateur video is kitschy. It can work to your advantage.

If you’re a solid business with an earned reputation, an amateur video is cheap… and it makes you look that way.

Show some pride and find a video pro to tell your stories. They get paid to make your business look like it deserves that reputation.

–Tony Gnau

I’m not supposed to like Jim Harbaugh, but I do. I’m a Trojan after all. I won’t go into the details because they’re irrelevant here, but suffice to say Harbaugh has few USC admirers after his tenure as Stanford’s head coach.

The reason I’m a Jim Harbaugh fan and was disappointed to see the 49ers Super Bowl comeback fall short is because of what he taught me as a teenager. It’s stuff I carry with me to this day and makes a difference in my business.

Jim taught me to compete

I was a good athlete growing-up, but I wasn’t the best. I supplemented my football training at a place that held classes focused on balance. We performed all sorts of exercises while balancing on beams and balance boards. Among the athletes taking the classes were a few of the Chicago Bears… including a backup quarterback named Jim Harbaugh.

I was the only high school kid in the group. Everyone was else was either a pro athlete or a college athlete looking to go pro. Needless to say, I felt like somewhat of an outsider.

Everyone was nice, but I always felt like they were going easy on me. Everyone accept one guy. You guessed it… Jim Harbaugh.

Jim was always competing, and it didn’t matter if it was against one of his teammates, or Tony Gnau from Lake Park High School.

He also pushed me just as hard as he pushed everyone else. While my balance may have been good, these guys were bigger, stronger and faster in every other respect… and I took a beating.

Jim never let me back down. Whenever he saw my spirits faltering, he was right there in my face encouraging me to keep going. I’ve never forgotten those lessons.

life lesson pays off

Looking back, moments like those helped propel me into Division I college football. On the surface, I wasn’t talented enough to play at USC, yet I played all four years.

Eight years ago I left TV news to start my own business. I had zero business experience. Yet, here I stand today, making a living doing what I love on my own terms.

I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. I don’t owe it all to Jim Harbaugh. There were plenty of people along the way who helped shape my character, most importantly my mom and dad, but he was one of those people.

Believe in yourself and work your butt off. That’s a recipe for success.

–Tony Gnau

If you hadn’t noticed, American Airlines recently changed its logo. I was pretty surprised when it popped up in my Facebook feed.  I like it.

A logo change is usually a big deal for a company. All new stationary, business cards, all sorts of stuff needs updating. Now imagine you have a fleet of passenger jets. Yikes!

American Airlines produces good Videos

American is pretty good about using video to inform its passengers. They produced one of my all-time favorite corporate videos, and the latest one involves giving their planes an all new look (VIDEO). While it’s not exactly award-winning storytelling, I enjoyed it and learned some interesting things.

That’s what video can do for you as a business. American picked a subject they thought would interest people (painting a plane) and delivered content to satisfy that interest.

What’s something you’re doing at your business that might peak someone’s interest?

–Tony Gnau

Mrs. G and I are terrible dancers, and yet on our wedding day we chose to do a choreographed dance in front of all our guests. I blame my in-laws for providing the dance lessons gift certificate prior to the big day.

We took lessons at Ballroom Dance Chicago. Our teacher was very good and very patient. She needed to be, but what it earned her is recommendations like this. It’s a great place to take lessons.

where am i going with this?

Ever since then I’ve been following the business on Facebook, and over the last three months they’ve been posting more and more videos.

The videos… aren’t great. Some are better than others, but you know what I like? They’re trying.

Someone they know clearly has a little editing ability, and they create their own videos. Like many business owners, I’m sure they’d love to have professionally produced videos, but this is what they can manage.

worth doing an amateur video?

There are some video pros who would tell you, if this is all you can manage… you’re better off doing nothing. If we were talking about a good-sized company, I’d agree. But what we’re talking about is a very small business, so to them I say go for it.

The lesson here is if you have a marketing budget, pay a pro to produce your videos. If you’re a small business owner with no budget (and I mean NO budget), go forth and produce your own videos.

There’s room for us all.

–Tony Gnau

Okay… what do you think of Vine?

Not up on the new social video platform? Well, you can read more about it at Twitter’s blog. Basically, it’s a new Twitter app that allows people to capture and share 6-second videos.

What can you share in 6-seconds? I think that’s the idea. Like the 140 character limit, they’re looking for some creativity from users.

business applications

I have no idea how businesses will start to use the service, but if it catches on I’m sure business leaders will be working overtime to capitalize. I take that back, they’ll have their creative teams working overtime.

6-second storytelling… I’m choosing not to be irked and to simply look at this as a challenge.

–Tony Gnau

Something interesting happened to me yesterday. I got more information watching a video than I did from detailed text.

It sounds ridiculous. Everyone knows text offers an opportunity to deliver more information than a video. I often tell clients their video is the hook to get people to further explore their website for more information.

So what happened?

I went to the my health care provider’s website to get some information regarding my plan and chronic back pain. I’ve been having some serious back issues, so I wanted to find out what sort of treatments are available.

I scanned through some text, but it wasn’t very helpful. Then, I discovered a video. It was all graphics and text, but the video walked me through potential issues surrounding back pain and the various methods to treat it. After watching, I felt pretty good about what I had learned.

The takeaway

Sometimes the video will have all the information someone needs and will provide it in a more straight forward way.

None of the text I scanned through was helpful. If that’s all that was there, I probably would have given-up. In other words, I wouldn’t have gotten any information if the video hadn’t been at the site.

Thanks to the video, I got what I needed to know and left the site happy.

I blog a lot about storytelling and how important it is to producing a good video. I mean, I blog about it A LOT! That doesn’t mean your video will be a fluff piece without any meat.

Video is a terrific way to deliver information.

–Tony Gnau

I got to watch some public speaking training yesterday. One of our regular clients hired a speech coach to teach a couple of the managers. T60 provided the video support and instant replays.

Not our normal thing, but I was really looking forward to it. The coach was good. She was pretty tough on the managers, but there was definitely an improvement from start to finish.

Getting an audience to pay attention

One of the things the coach talked about early on was the need to tell a story. She said people won’t remember details, but they will remember a narrative.

Let’s see… where have we heard that before? Duh, right here! It’s an axiom that holds true for most forms of communication… certainly with video.

DETAILS GET LOST, STORIES ARE REMEMBERED

Rattle off facts and figures… right over people’s heads. Tell them a compelling story… it sticks with them.

The trick is being able to incorporate information into the story. That’s why an experienced storyteller will almost always do a better job with this than an amateur.

When you look for a video producer, make sure they can deliver a good-looking video, but above all else, make sure they’re a good storyteller.

–Tony Gnau

I try to read spinsucks.com everyday. There are tons of PR/marketing blogs, but Gini Dietrich and her team of guest writers consistently churn out some great content.

Guess what… she’s even better in person.

After having read hundreds of her blog posts, yesterday was the first time I’ve watched her speak to a group. It was the blog come to life… really good stuff.

Gini and I met… what… a couple of years ago? She has become a client, and I’m proud that she’s recommended T60 to her clients. One of them was hosting an internal town hall meeting yesterday and Gini was presenting. I was shooting the town hall for a webcast, so I got to see her in action.

She basically gave a social media lesson to the company’s employees. Some of it was business-related, but she talked a lot about the dangers facing all of them as parents. I’ll tell you, I was pretty impressed with the company for bringing her in to do this.

Anyway, if you want to know more about the direction PR and marketing are going, you need to start listening to her. She has a book, and apparently another one coming soon. At the very least, you should read spinsucks.com.

And if you ever have a chance to see her do her thing in person, buy that ticket. You won’t be disappointed.

–Tony Gnau