Essential tips for startups using video to promote their business

NEW YORK–Last October 7, Devin Rogerino of Inc.com presented a talk on video creation or how to cost effectively enter the video creation community at the Wix lounge in Chelsea. Essentially, you need four things—ideation, inspiration, brainstorming, planning—before you even make your video, and let’s not forget how you have to know whether you need YouTube, Facebook or Vimeo.

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Rogerino will tell you the difference. “Do you want to be cool?” Vimeo is his obvious answer? “If you want to own the long tail, it’s YouTube, the second largest search engine. If you want to a huge jump, it’s Facebook. Native uploads have high reach and high likelihood of creating short term virtuous cycle.”

Vimeo can be tricky a choice for small business, because it only allows eight seconds of video. On the other hand, YouTube gives you longer exposure – and if you do the proper tagging, you’ll see your other videos on the right rail. YouTube is a good choice if you want to build and sustain your brand.

Facebook works in short bursts. Your video can get the eyeballs and likes you need in one posting but you cannot expect it to get more exposure after a few days.

Rogerino suggests you do both Facebook and YouTube, choosing carefully what to post in either social networks. Knowing where you want your video to appear is crucial even before you start shooting.

Planning head means thinking all the way to the conceptualization or ideation of an idea, which will help you create your project. Incorporate the production aspect in your creation–the lighting, shooting, editing, even distribution.

“Ask yourself, ‘What thumbnail and headline combination will work?’” he said. “Then write and revise your script. Find out where and when you are going to shoot it, who can help you and what equipment you‘ll need.”

Having a script ready is perhaps the most important as you won’t want to miss something as you’re shooting on location. As for ways to get you working, Rogerino suggests you ask yourself, “What’s in the video that excites you?”

As for lighting, try to learn 3-point lighting—back light, fill light, key light. Also consider your choice of daylight or tungsten lighting. “Always test lighting positions.”

You may think when you have all the lighting in place, you have everything working. “Remember some cameras have no audio. Get a DSLR camera with audio inputs,” he said. “Avoid audio gaps.”

And when it comes to shooting yourself, try to avoid setting camera on focus – because you do move around. “Use automatic aperture, white balance and shutter speed settings.” Also remove all vocal tics; throat clearing, sniffling, grunting, and teeth sucking. Keep in mind all stories have at least 3 acts—beginning, middle and end.

For resources online, consider the following: For editing, YouTube is free while IMovie is $4.99. For music, check out http://makerbook.net/audio. It’s important to read the fine print and give proper credit to avoid any copyright infringements.

Once you’ve uploaded your video, prioritize searchable keywords in your headline; write a long description that includes links to social accounts; tag video extensively with relevant topics. and leverage annotations when possible. On YouTube, consistent tagging on the right rail will show your other videos.

After all is said and done, you must engage people online by sharing and interacting via your platform and finding relevant partners. One final tip from Rogerino: “Never delete a video on YouTube. Just unlist it, so Google can still (index) it.”