What to do about video

Short video is where the reach is on most platforms, which is true and is also the reason a lot of small businesses stop doing social media altogether. Worth separating what is genuinely required from what is intimidating.

The useful kinds, in order of difficulty

1. 01A continuous shot of work happening, with no talking. Nearly effortless, consistently watched, and the most underused format by businesses that make or fix things.
2. 02Before and after, cut together. Two clips and a cut.
3. 03Showing how something works, filmed over your own hands rather than to camera. Avoids the part most people dread.
4. 04Answering one question, to camera, in under a minute. Harder, and the most effective for services where the person is the product.
5. 05Anything requiring editing, graphics, music or a script. Real production, and not where to start.

The first three require no appearing on camera and no skill beyond holding a phone steadily, and for most small businesses they are the whole viable programme.

The things that matter technically

• Vertical, filmed vertically, not a horizontal clip with bars. This is the single most common avoidable fault.
• Audible. Wind, a noisy workshop and a distant voice ruin more clips than anything visual. Get the phone closer or film without speaking.
• Steady. A surface, a cheap tripod, or an elbow on something.
• Captioned, because a large share of viewing happens with the sound off, and captions are also the accessible option.
• Short, and interesting from the first second. There is no introduction in this format: start at the thing.

If you are not going to do it

A reasonable decision, and better made deliberately than by repeatedly failing. Some platforms are effectively video-only now, and if video is not happening then those platforms are not either, which is an argument for choosing a different one rather than for persisting badly.

Photographs of real work, posted consistently, still perform on several platforms and still do the two jobs most small businesses actually need, which are being findable and looking like a going concern.

The rules do not change for video

Worth stating because it is widely missed. Disclosure of commercial content has to be in the video as well as the caption, since many viewers never read the caption. Music is licensed: the platform's own library is generally cleared for use on that platform, and taking a track from elsewhere is a copyright matter regardless of how common it is. Filming customers or members of the public needs their agreement, and in a number of jurisdictions their personal data is engaged the moment they are identifiable.

The first second

Where most of these fail, and it is a structural fault rather than a quality one. The clip opens with a greeting, a logo, or somebody settling into position, and by the time anything happens the viewer has gone.

Start at the action. The hands already working, the thing already broken, the sentence already begun. If you filmed an introduction, cut it. This single edit does more for how a clip performs than anything to do with equipment, and it costs nothing but the willingness to delete the first four seconds of everything.

Equipment, minimally

• The phone you have. Genuinely sufficient, and has been for years.
• Something to rest it on. A small tripod costs very little and removes the main technical fault, which is movement.
• A clip-on microphone, only if you talk on camera. Sound is the one thing a phone does badly at a distance, and poor sound loses viewers faster than poor pictures.
• Daylight. A window is better than any light you would buy, and filming with it behind you is the common mistake.
• Nothing else. The next purchase after these three is a way of avoiding filming.

Being on camera when you would rather not

Common and worth addressing rather than working around indefinitely. Film while doing something, so you are explaining rather than presenting, which removes most of the discomfort. Keep clips under a minute so a mistake costs one retake. Do not script it word for word; know the three things you want to say. And accept that the version you dislike is routinely the one people respond to, because it sounds like a person rather than a performance.