Are you getting a good ROI on your company's use of Social Media?

When people think of investments, especially in terms of Return on Investment, typically you think of an investment in monetary terms. In the case of your company's use of social media you may think you don't have a large monetary investment in your use of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc...but you, or your company in fact does.

The old adage goes; "Time is Money", and use of social media can easily be a time killer. And if you are paying someone, or you're getting paid, to manage social media sites...time is indeed money.

So it goes back to the question, are you getting a good ROI on social media? Does a "Like" on Facebook or a new follower on Twitter turn into a loyal client (do loyal clients still exist)? Is the boss pressuring you to "monetize"the social media experience? It all comes down to content. What content are you providing your followers? Are you offering industry tips that will aid them in their business, or are you talking about yourself all the time?

We have seen social media as an extremely important asset to our business in maintaining communication with clients and keeping ourselves "top of mind" so that when there is a project they think of us as well as attracting new clients who would have otherwise never heard of us. As a video production company, the use of video on Facebook, Twitter and Youtube have proved to reshape our client's end use of the product we produce. Just a few short years ago 100% of our non-broadcast work would be delivered on DVD. Now about 90% of our finished work ends up on some social media platform, giving clients compelling content for their followers.

When diving into the pool of social media, consider first your message, give people information they want and need, be sure to throw in a little humor and personality.. and the rest will follow.

The Lost Art of the Site Survey

In the world of video production, in recent years especially, the term "pre-production" seems to be a term we are hearing less and less of, and that is unfortunate.

Not too long ago, just before the social media rage and instant....everything, clients would call, we would meet (sometimes multiple times) about a project and then we would schedule a...wait for it...site survey. A site survey would allow us to get to a location well before a shoot and allow us to scout out the location to plan out things like camera placement, lighting, cable runs, etc.

Those days seem long gone. It is very rare, especially among agency clients, that we are able to schedule a site survey. Without this critical planning, precious time is lost on location on the shoot day trying to figure out the best angle for the shot, lights, etc. Even simple things like "where is the nearest power outlet" can eat up time. Taking time on shoot day to figure these things out eats up time and money. And the net result is that we don't always have time to set up track and dolly for moving camera shots, or a jib arm for dramatic sweeps if we are losing time deciding where to put the camera. It seems in this new age we live in, there is scarce time to plan between that initial call and the actual shoot day. It's not uncommon to get a call on Tuesday afternoon for a shoot Wednesday morning.

While it's true that not every production can allow for a site survey, some things really just happen fast and you have to shoot ASAP, if it is at all possible talk with your video production company about the possibility of scouting out a location before the shoot. A little bit of planning will result in a better video and a happy client.