When we first started creating videos for international schools, we used to create good looking professional videos and then just give them to our clients to do what they wanted with them. We often found this ineffective and with disappointing results.
Exactly where a video is placed is often as important as what message it communicates and what it looks like. Videos can – and probably should – live everywhere. A well thought out video distribution strategy is key to the success of using video for your school’s marketing and communications efforts.
Your school website – Forget the “video gallery” that we all see on many school websites where all the videos are clumped together like a portfolio. Video is a form of content, not a topic of content. People look for topics, not content forms. That’s like having all the soft cover books in one part of the library and all the hard cover books in another. It makes no sense. Video should be placed on nearly every page of your website and should be about the topic of that page, bringing it to life unlike text or photos ever can (see SAS example here). Create a page on sports at your school and a specific video about your sports program. Instead of just a text greeting from your Head of School on your Welcome Page, create a short video of them looking into the camera and greeting new students with a personal message (see RIS example below). Video should permeate the very aspect of your website because it is the most powerful and effective tool that you have to communicate online.
Video Gallery – in seemingly complete contradiction to the above, if you have a series of videos that work well together to form different aspects of a cohesive story, think about putting them into an interactive gallery on your website. We create video galleries for our clients that organise videos to be watched all at the same time and to leave the viewer having an in-depth knowledge of a specific aspect of your school.
Social Media – Nothing brings social media channels to life like video. For a complete discussion on using video on social media, please click here.
The importance of video distribution can not be overstated. We would love to help you navigate the waters of this complicated field to help your videos be as effective as possible.
